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

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for the Australian Government to reform their $181 billion tax breaks for wealthy property investors and their 5% deposit scheme which are threatening the stability of our housing system while the big banks are on track to make $30 billion in profits this financial year.

I'm speaking to the urgency of the housing crisis. We're in a housing crisis that's becoming more severe every day in this place. I know young people who are too frightened to open a newspaper for the bad news that lies there every day about what's happening to house prices. There was a more than one percent increase in a single month, in October—the fastest monthly pace in the last two years. House prices are increasing everywhere—in every city, in every regional town, in every country town. One in three houses in Australian suburbs is now worth an incredible $1 million. No wonder 59 per cent of renters don't think they'll ever be able to afford to buy their own home. Homelessness levels are at their worst in living memory, and homelessness services are being pushed to the brink.

The major parties are failing us. Labor has been in government for three years; when will they take accountability for making the crisis worse? Labor's failure to reel in the tax breaks for wealthy property investors—$181 billion in tax breaks over the next 10 years—is also fuelling the crisis. South Australians contact me every single day telling me to urge this government to wind back these handouts. We know that Labor's policies and lack of ambition are making things worse, but don't be fooled into thinking the Liberals would be any better. It's ironic that yesterday the Liberals called the home guarantee scheme irresponsible, given that it was originally their own policy. It's also funny that Liberals are calling any housing policy irresponsible, given that they've recently dumped their widely criticised 'super for housing' policy.

Neither of the major parties truly have the interests of renters and first home buyers in their minds. They've had a quarter of a century to fix this, and instead they've spent a quarter of a century making things worse. Together, they have cooked housing in Australia, and they've landed us in a giant housing bin fire. Just last week, Labor, the Liberals and One Nation teamed up to vote down our urgency motion on housing. The major parties may not think this is urgent, but Australians do—89 per cent of Australians agree that we're in a housing crisis. They know because they're living it every day. Every Saturday morning, across our country, we see first home buyers standing alongside investors, being priced out of auctions, unable to secure housing for themselves.

First home buyers don't stand a chance. Our housing market is driven by speculation, not demand—not by the need to put a roof over everyone's head, instead by the desire to increase investment wealth. We've increased the demand for housing without increasing supply. As a consequence, we don't have a functioning housing system that looks after everybody, especially those most in need and vulnerable. We have a generational lottery, where young people are staring down the barrel of lifelong renting, precarious leases and a housing market that is rigged against them.

Housing should not be an intergenerational tug of war. House prices, especially those in lower and medium price brackets—where entrants and first home buyers are very focused—are not within the budget of first home buyers. They are rapidly growing in price—much faster than the house prices in higher brackets. That's about a lack of supply in that lower priced and mid-priced bracket. We're seeing declining rates of homeownership among young people and rising rates of homelessness. That's on the coalition for its years of policy failure and now on Labor for its failures to fix the tax system and build enough social and affordable homes.

We know where Labor's priorities lie. They're with the wealthy property investors and banks, not renters and not first home buyers. We know because bank profits are booming. Australia's biggest banks are expected to make over $30 billion in this financial year. They are making an enormous amount of income out of this crisis—more than $200,000 in profit over an average 30-year mortgage for a first home buyer. That's $200,000 off every mortgage of those first home buyers.

We can't keep going like this. We're in a crisis. I spent my life studying employment, and I know employment matters to a good life chance for kids and adults, but housing is even more critical, and we need to make sure that we build enough social and affordable houses, and we must end tax breaks which are delivering so much to the very wealthy property investors who don't need to increase their housing portfolios anything like that we need to put into—