Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by Opposition senators today.

There is a lot of focus around housing today in what's going on here. It's quite interesting that you can deliver a budget and not enough of your own party room actually read the budget papers to know what's going on it. The surprise on faces to some of the questions yesterday was truly great to see. The talk is about how this is going to build more houses, and it’s going to be great for the economy. If you go to page 158, it actually says that we will build 35,000 fewer houses. There is also talk about how it is going to be great for rents. But if you go to the same page, you will see that the taxation policies will drive up rents.

What gets it for me is that we're going back to tried and tested territory on removing negative gearing and what it does to housing. Back in the eighties, they tried this very same thing, and we found that in Sydney and Perth, especially, rents went through the roof. The proof is in the pudding. When negative gearing was removed, rents went through the roof. They studied this, because they didn't go up everywhere. They found that a low supply of rental housing—it was below two per cent—caused rents to go through the roof. Then Labour in New Zealand tried it. They said: 'Let's learn from our cousins. Let's get negative gearing in New Zealand.' They tried it, and they found that rents went through the roof. They looked at the reasons for that, and they said: 'It's because we had higher-than-expected immigration. That's the reason we had it.'

What do we have in Australia now? We've got this government getting rid of negative gearing, and we've got both. We've got low vacancy rates. In fact, every capital city in Australia has 1.4 per cent or less. Some cities have 0.4 per cent vacancy rates. So they are lower than they were in Sydney and Perth the last time when it was blamed, and we have higher immigration. The budget papers say that two million people are coming to Australia. We have both instances, both causes, on the one instance. But we're going to try it again, and we'll pretend the rents will only go up by two dollars!

Here's what's going to happen. We're building 35,000 fewer homes. We're bringing in two million people. In every experience where low vacancy rates below two percent have happened, rents have gone through the roof. And we think everything is going to be okay. This is a joke! Talk about mess around and find out—the Australian people, renters, students, people come into this country and guys trying to save for a mortgage will find out exactly what a joke this is, because I guarantee this: rents will not go up two dollars per year; they will go up far more than that. Don't worry about the gain on your investments to try to get a house. You won't be able to put away any savings because your rent is going to go through the roof.

Everything we see in the past—I'd love it if one Labor person was able to point to anywhere in the world where negative gearing has been removed in a tight rental market and it has actually given better accommodation outcomes, because it hasn't. We are going to reinvent the wheel if this works. We have low vacancy rates and high immigration, yet they still think this will work.

You go out there and say, 'Hang on a sec, this is going to be great for young people wanting to get into the market.' No, it won't, because they haven't got the negative gearing aspects if they want to buy a unit to start off. They haven't got the capital gains tax exemptions if they want to go into the share market or have other investments to get into it. All of us have got it. Twenty-three members of cabinet have multiple properties. They have all benefited from capital gains tax and negative gearing. We can all do that here. I've got a place in Canberra. If I wanted to, I could have done it that way. But, for the people who want to get into the market, you have taken away their options to get those benefits.

This is a joke of a policy. Your own budget statements, your own Treasury papers, say this. But you didn't bother to read that bit. You keep going, 'Overall, this is a good thing.' Page 158 says, 'The taxation policies contained here will lead to 35,000 fewer homes being built.'