Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wasn't planning to speak on this matter, but, quite frankly, some of those points need to be responded to. It could only be a Labor government that comes up with a $43 billion housing policy that manages to build, I think, 17 houses—Senator Bragg, is that where we're up to?—that is going to be completely distortionary in the market and that will do nothing for the people involved. As you lower the threshold for the deposit required that brings more people into the market. Because you haven't done anything on the supply side of the problem, you have more people competing for the homes that are available in the market, and that can only drive the price of housing up, making it more unaffordable for all those Australians who aspire to get into their own home.

We have the rent-to-buy plan which, as Senator Bragg has exposed, is an absolute folly. It's a tax break for multinational corporations and pension funds, which will come here and build the sorts of homes I'm not sure Australians want. You look at what the experience has been of the high-rise social housing that's been utilised in England for generations, and study after study and report after report show that people who grew up and were raised in those kinds of environments did noticeably worse off than their peers in other kinds of housing arrangements. They were noticeably worse off—higher suicide rates, lower educational attainments, lower incomes throughout their lives and social disadvantage that went on for generations. Is that really the kind of model we want to import into Australia? I ask those listening at home to think about that—to think about whether this Labor housing plan that we hear so much about is actually the kind of housing plan we want in this country.