Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I must say, that was a very considered contribution from Senator Scarr. He's absolutely right that immigration is not to blame for any housing crisis or lack of affordable housing in this country. It is government policy, broadly, that we need to look at.

Immigration hasn't caused our national housing crisis, contrary to what you'll hear from One Nation in here today and contrary to the message going into and coming out of the rallies in Australia on Saturday—that, somehow, immigration is responsible for the housing crisis or the lack of affordable housing in this country. That's just more lies and deception in an age of rampant disinformation. These lies and deception are deliberately spread, peddled by those with agendas, designed to divide us and distract from what has really caused a shortage of housing in Australia and ultimately protect those who benefit the most from economic inequality in our country—the millionaires, the billionaires, right-wing conservative politicians and extremists.

What is responsible, then? It's decades of policy failure by lazy and captured governments who won't reform taxation or planning laws in Australia and who continually ignore underinvestment in much-needed affordable public housing supply. One per cent of taxpayers in Australia own 25 per cent of our investment properties. I'll let that settle in: one per cent of Australian taxpayers own 25 per cent of this nation's investment properties. According to the 2021 census—and we've got a new census coming up soon—over one million homes were unoccupied on the night of the census. The number of homeless people as defined in that census was around 125,000 Australians. That's nearly 10 vacant houses for every person living on the street. That's because tax concessions reward speculation and land banking and, ultimately, the wealthiest in our country.

The Greens are worried about the housing crisis in this country too. We all should be. We've had endless discussions in recent years on how to fix this. But don't point down and beat down on our nation's most vulnerable people when we should be pointing up to the politicians who aren't doing enough and the billionaires, the millionaires and the rich property developers who benefit the most from this debate.

The kind of scapegoating witnessed in here today and on the weekend at these rallies that gave platforms to Neo-Nazis not only endangers our community and cultural identity as a multicultural nation; it serves those in power who benefit the most from our broken system. We can fix that. We can do that in here and we can do that together. Let's put aside the politics that are dividing us, let's come together and let's fix this problem.