Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make some general context points about the issue of housing policy because we just had an election in May which you could describe, in some ways, as being a referendum on tax policy, especially related to two very flawed policies that the opposition took to the Australian people: one related to retirement savings and another one related to housing policy. The opposition's policy on housing was to introduce a new tax. I think their logic was: more tax equals more houses—I think that was their logic. But, of course, anyone with a rudimentary knowledge of how life works would know that, if you have more tax, you will have fewer homes. Of course, our policy is to have fewer taxes and therefore more homes.

These housing tax policies, which the opposition took to the last election and are still their policies, were tested by various organisations independent of the government. One such analyst, SQM Research, said that Labor's housing tax policy would increase rents in Sydney by 10 per cent—Sydney, of course, in New South Wales. That's hardly surprising, because the last time Labor tried a housing-tax-like policy in the eighties, where they abolished negative gearing between the years of 1985 and 1987, you saw rents increase in Sydney. Of course, supply and demand and the iron laws of arithmetic are very hard to suspend, so it was quite extraordinary that Labor would take a new housing tax to the last election which they claimed would create new houses or would at least do something for housing affordability. You really couldn't make this stuff up!

As I mentioned, we hear that the Labor policy on housing taxes is now under review—we hear that there's a big review. Still, there's no white smoke, so we have to suspect that that's still their policy in its entirety. I again remind the Senate that the logic here from the Labor Party is: we'll put more taxes onto houses, which will make the houses more expensive to build, and that will create more houses. It really is quite extraordinary!

To now move to a more positive subject, our policies are consistent with our Menzian philosophy, and yesterday marks 75 years since the creation of the Liberal Party. Going back to the days of Menzies, the Liberal Party has always been about supporting the vast bulk of Australians to be able to afford their first home. We've always supported any measure that we could think of to encourage homeownership, because we understand that it is very important that people can get access to a first home. Having a roof over your head is a very important financial benefit, frankly. As an elected official, I'm not in the business of giving unlicensed financial advice. I know that there were a lot of politicians from the other side of the chamber who wanted to give unlicensed financial advice during the last election. Apparently some people were over-invested in Australian shares, and I won't be making that mistake. But it is true to say that having a home is a good thing for an Australian and for Australian families. That's why our policies, going back to Menzies, have always put emphasis on getting a home.

Beyond trying to keep taxes low, which of course we've been able to do in recent years—in the last parliament, we cut business taxes for small and medium enterprises. Of course, one of the first acts of this new parliament was to cut taxes for all working Australians. We think that your money, which you earn, is in fact your money, and you will do a better job of spending it than we will. Keeping taxes low is a very important principle, because if you want people to be able to assemble the capital that is required to purchase a first home, then you need to give them at least a fighting chance. Trying to give them more of the money they earn is a very good idea.

It is hard to get a first home. It is much harder than it was in decades past. Prices have increased significantly in large markets, where state governments have failed to build infrastructure and therefore there has been pressure on prices. Beyond trying to keep taxes low, we have decided that it was appropriate to unleash some initiatives to try to boost homeownership. The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation Amendment Bill provides that there will be 10,000 opportunities for people who can assemble at least five per cent of a deposit to then access the remaining 15 per cent, which takes them to 20 per cent, to have a first home. This bill, which sets out in detail how this will work, was an election commitment. As I mentioned before, this was the commitment given in the context of an election, where we had a very clear policy to improve the capability of people to get a first home. Our opposition was keen to impose a housing tax, which would have made it so much harder to get a first home at all. That's 10,000 guarantees per year, and this begins from January next year.

The private economy, which provides some form of lenders' mortgage insurance, has not raised any significant concerns with this bill. Their view is that this will not undermine that market, and it will be a complimentary activity. It will be targeted at people who genuinely have no other capacity to assemble the necessary 20 per cent which is often needed to get a deposit. That's how the guarantee scheme will work.

As I said, this policy sits alongside our general disposition to keeping taxes low and not imposing measures which are totally discredited, like the taxes that we saw during the last election, which is still the policy of the Labor Party, even though they failed to learn the lessons of 1985 to 1987. We've also unleashed in recent times the First Home Super Saver Scheme, which allows people to save up to $30,000 as an individual inside a superannuation scheme. If you are a couple, that means you could get $60,000 assembled in a superannuation account, which would be concessionally taxed and then released to you if you wanted to buy a first home—which could even be a block of land, let's say.

Going right back to Menzies we have been committed to keeping taxes low. We've always valued the idea of all Australians having access to a first home. We think it's a very important bedrock which goes right back to the Liberal Party's creation 75 years ago yesterday—and what a great contribution we have made to modern Australia. But this particular bill today, again, really is consistent with our ethos that we are on the side of working people, we are on the side of all Australians and we are prepared to set aside any commercial concern in order to do the right thing by the Australian people, because, although there may be some concern from some quarters in the banking or other financial sectors about legislation that comes before this place, we always take the view that we are elected by the Australian people and we will deploy targeted measures which are required to solve difficult issues. The problem of homeownership is acute in many ways in large cities, and so I think this is a creative solution which sits very neatly alongside the first home saver super scheme, which is also an initiative of this government. With that, I commend this bill to the Senate.