Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This MPI is a predictable line of attack from the opposition. They will do anything but take responsibility for their role in this extreme housing crisis. How dare the Liberals talk about housing affordability when they didn't even have a housing minister for six whole years under Abbott and then Turnbull. Attacking unions isn't going to make housing more affordable, and ripping up regulations won't fix it either.

We know that the Liberals' recent housing election policies would have increased house prices, making housing affordability even worse. This is the same party who introduced the capital gains tax discount in 1999, sending house prices soaring far faster than wages were increasing. They do not have the best interests of first home buyers at heart. I will tell you what's really costing Australians the dream of homeownership: successive decades of Labor and Liberal policies that have turned housing into a speculative asset rather than a human right and just a roof over everyone's head. Now, Labor and the Liberals are not taking the scale of this issue seriously enough.

Treasury tells us that Labor is not going to meet its 1.2 million homes target. Homelessness is the worst in living memory under this government, with increases of 10 per cent since Labor came to power. We still don't have a national plan to end homelessness. This is the human crisis and the human cost of what has gone wrong in our housing system. Labor and the Liberals are only interested in protecting the profits of very big developers, rich investors and banks. The Greens are the party that are fighting to make renting and housing more affordable and to end our shameful homelessness crisis.

So we need three things. Firstly, we need tax reform. We know Treasurer Chalmers is looking at tax reform. Property investor tax breaks cost us billions every year, making housing more expensive and hindering productivity. If the government genuinely wants to fix the housing crisis, scrapping the capital gains discount and negative gearing should be the first step.

Secondly, we need rent caps. Research from Everybody's Home shows that rents have increased by an average of 57 per cent across capital cities over the past decade. This is a national crisis in rent. In my electorate of Adelaide, we have seen the biggest increase—a staggering 81 per cent increase in rents. Without rent caps, the government is letting unlimited rent increases drive renters to the brink of financial instability.

Thirdly, we need direct investment in public and community housing. Right now, there are 640,000 households that need social housing. The average wait time is over a decade. We can't sit on our hands; we need a real plan. I hope that, this term, Labor makes use of its majority and works with the Greens to fix the housing crisis. (Time expired)