Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution on this urgency motion. There is a housing crisis in Australia and the Morrison government is refusing to fix it. We had that very clearly articulated by the good senator who's leaving the chamber now. He has no idea, no understanding, how difficult it is in the Australian community to get into the housing market, to afford to pay rent. What we heard from his contribution was, once again, that it's all the fault of the Labor Party, all the fault of the unions and superannuation.

We should be encouraging people to save for their retirement. That's what superannuation's all about. But it's in their DNA. They've got to blame the unions. They've got to knock superannuation. In reality, in my home state of Tasmania, it is critical that we put some attention on resolving the housing crisis, because what we have seen in recent years is homeownership in Tasmania being out of the reach of ordinary Tasmanians. There has been a 40 per cent increase in rent in my home city of Launceston in the last few years; that's a lot of money. We see firsthand the effects of what happens when people don't have a secure roof over their heads and aren't able to house their families. We know the devastation that that causes to families and individuals. But, in the past year, the Tasmanian property prices outside of Hobart have risen a staggering 18 per cent. I've been shocked at how quickly houses are being gobbled up and sold in Launceston and in Hobart.

There is also a real struggle for people trying to get into the rental market. We know that, if a person is paying more than 30 per cent of their income in rent, they are at a much higher risk of ending up being homeless. I've seen it by going out with support organisations who help feed and accommodate people who are doing it tough. It is extremely difficult. We know that the growing cohort of homeless people are older women who haven't necessarily had the opportunity to put money away in their superannuation. Their relationships break down and they find themselves without a family home. We know the demographics that are there every single day. If you open your eyes when you are driving around the cities and the streets of where you live, people are now on the street, living in their cars, couch surfing, moving from one friend's or one family's accommodation to the other.

We can do something about this, and Labor has a plan to address housing affordability in this country and to expand access to social housing, because every Australian deserves to have a roof over their head. But have we had any of those issues addressed in the contributions thus far from the government? No, we haven't. If elected, a Labor government will have a housing future fund that will build 30,000 social houses in the first five years. But we shouldn't have to wait for an election because those on that side of the chamber could already take a leaf out of our book and actually address social housing in this country.

They could also scrap the cap on the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme. We have been repeatedly calling for the government to take action there. What we should be doing is taking whatever steps—working with the states, removing stamp duty—so people can get into their first home. Those people on that side of the chamber have been in government for eight long years, and, under their watch, being able to rent or buy a home in this country is becoming increasingly more expensive and out of reach for people. Labor won't stop raising these issues and speaking up for people who find themselves on the streets and homeless. Let's be frank: anyone can find themselves in that circumstance. We do need to also provide training to ensure that we have the capacity to build the homes of the future, and we need to ensure that there's land released through the state governments to ensure that there is social housing so that housing affordability becomes a real achievable goal for all Australians.