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

If I put a five per cent deposit down and my property goes back 10.6 per cent, I'm 5.6 per cent underwater on my debt. I owe the bank more money than the property is worth by five per cent. That is what is happening here.

We never want to look at what actually happens; we want to talk about the spin and all of these things we're going through. We talk about the budget papers that say there will be a modest increase of $2 per year on rent. It's more like $2 per day on rent. With the way things are going, there are rent increases of $100 or $150 per week. This is what matters. That is what actually happens to the people around Australia.

We talked about the loan numbers coming out. For Westpac, there was a 20 per cent drop in loan applications. We're talking about NAB's 15 per cent drop in loan applications and the statement that they were only propped up by self-managed super funds getting in to beat these challenges. That was what was propping it up. You're seeing a collapse in the wealth of Australians who are getting to the end of their careers and have paid their taxes, paid their mortgages and done everything right. And what do we do? We strip wealth from them at the time they need it. When the No. 1 determinant of a healthy retirement is owning your own property, we are taking away that wealth because of decisions of this government.

And not only is there the attack on elderly Australians; let's get rid of the seniors health insurance rebate too. They've realised quickly that they've run out of their own money, the normal money; let's go after the money of the people who have done the right thing by Australia—they've got more because they've lived longer, they've earned more and they've done more. Those are the true facts of this government—if you've got it, we want it. We are becoming more socialist by the day. But we don't care about how we spend it; we just care about how we can get it.

So not only are we taxing the money you've got, doing all these things and spending it everywhere; we are now throwing away the value you put in your housing, and $48,000 per person will be the result of a 10.6 per cent drop peak to trough. Imagine an average household of three people. It means $150,000 will be thrown away over two years because this government can't manage housing and can't manage the economy. This government needs to be changed.

Question agreed to.