Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) Share this | Hansard source

This government has failed on housing. This government has also failed on transparency, which is why we are here speaking on this topic. This government refuses to provide information that has been requested by a senator in this chamber. Instead of explaining why or providing that information, they choose to mock that senator for seeking the information. That is the hallmark of this government. They provide what they want to, when they want to, how they want to and if they want to. That's not how democracy works.

Senator Walker made a comment, as she finished speaking, that housing should not be unattainable in a country like Australia. She's right. Guess what? It is unattainable in this country. Guess what else? It's become even more unattainable over the last four years under the Albanese Labor government. Throw whatever rocks you will at others around this chamber, but it is those opposite, those sitting on the government benches, who are accountable for where we find ourselves today. I am tired of it. It should not be impossible for a young person to buy a home. It should not be impossible for a woman restarting her life after she's been impacted by domestic violence to buy a home. It should not be impossible for any person in this country to buy a home. It should be something that they are able to do without question.

The policies of this government have made it harder for Australians to access housing. Regarding the five per cent deposit guarantee scheme that Senator Bragg has been speaking about, the Prime Minister said that their modelling suggested—and I'll read it to make sure that I don't get it wrong—that it would push up house prices by only 0.6 per cent in six years. Their reckless policy has actually pushed up prices of entry level homes by 3.6 per cent in the December 2025 quarter alone. In this chamber, we told them that that would happen. We told the same people who have spoken this evening, and they would not listen to us because, as always, they knew best. Guess what? You don't know best. You have made it worse. You have tanked our economy. You have mismanaged it in the most appalling way, and Australians are paying the price for it; moreover, young Australians are paying the price for it.

Now they're championing that they have created change and intergenerational equity, and that will be announced tonight in their budget. Explain to me how that happens when now it's just young Australians, who don't own their own home, who won't be able to negative gear. They can't afford to buy a home where they have grown up or where they work. If you had an idea about maybe rentvesting, or purchasing a home somewhere else where it's cheaper, to get your foot onto the property ladder, you can't do that because that wouldn't be fair. Explain that to me, because I don't get it.

Tonight, this government is planning to pull the ladder up so that young Australians can't get on the property ladder, based on what they themselves have leaked to the media about what they're doing in the budget. They should be ashamed of pretending that what they are doing tonight in the budget is about intergenerational fairness when all it is about is plugging their own spending holes. They are taxing Australians more because they have spent far too much and they do not know how to manage that. And they dare to lecture us about asking them to be accountable in this place. They dare to lecture us about wasting their time by making them be transparent. I suggest to them that they should be doing that. This government needs to step up and lead, which it has not yet done in the past four years.

Question agreed to.