Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a week since Treasurer Joe Hockey said: 'If housing was unaffordable in Sydney nobody would be buying it.' This disastrous bit of ad libbing from the Treasurer gives us a useful insight into exactly how out of touch with reality he is. The latest Fairfax Ipsos poll, released a few days ago, shows that 80 per cent of Sydneysiders believe that housing in Sydney is unaffordable—80 per cent!—and just three per cent believe that local housing in Sydney is 'very affordable'. In 1985, the median price for a house in Sydney was $73,000; in 2015, the median price of a Sydney house has risen to a staggering $914,000—that is 11 times average household earnings. Over that time, the housing-price-to-income ratio in Sydney has grown from 3.4 to 11.4. Over the past two years, Sydney house prices have shot up at rates five times those of wage growth. Wage growth is declining, making it more and more difficult for first-home buyers to save for a mortgage deposit. Last year the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey ranked Sydney as the third-least affordable city in the world. That is why this housing issue is so critical.

This week in parliament, my colleague, Senator Scott Ludlam, asked the coalition why negative gearing and capital gains tax reform was sorely missing from the government's tax review and, on Latelineon Monday night, Senator Cormann was challenged again on this very point—here was another example of a coalition spokesperson peddling myths on negative gearing and capital gains tax reform. Over and over, government representatives have repeated the lie that ending negative gearing will push up rents. The data and analysis on this is readily available to the government. They know that that is not the case. There is a long list of economists, unions and independent social support groups in favour of reform—the OECD, the IMF, the Australia Institute, the Grattan Institute, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, ACOSS, the Australian Workers Union, the Tenants' Union of NSW, Homelessness Australia, and the Salvation Army. Saul Eslake, a chief economist at Bank of America Merrill Lynch, has described the case for ending negative gearing for new investors as 'very compelling'. Mr Eslake has also discredited some of the main lies being told about negative gearing; among them, that it would raise rents. The facts on the problems with negative gearing are not hard to find. But there was the Treasurer, suggesting to the Australian people that if they want to break into the property market—a market which has swollen enormously—they simply need to 'get a good job that pays good money'. It is an astonishing display of ignorance from a man with a hefty personal investment property portfolio and with a taxable income in the 99th percentile of taxpayers, who lives in the third-least affordable city in the world. To borrow a phrase from The Sydney Morning Herald, I would ask Mr Hockey to take a look at the 'dark side of the boom'.

Sydney house prices are racing ahead of wage growth. People working full-time on the minimum wage are priced out of the rental market in 99.9 percent of Sydney suburbs. Home to roughly 4.85 million people of varied incomes, skills and backgrounds, Sydney is a dynamic, diverse city. We need to cater to—and care for—the full spectrum of people required to run a city; not just its upper echelons. If lower and medium income earners are forced out of the housing market, they obviously will move, the rental market will continue to expand, and Sydney will be worse off, in every sense of the word.

The Australian Greens have put forward our plan to tackle this problem. We do not believe that those living on low and middle incomes should be made to subsidise the property investments of others. The Greens have costed our negative gearing reform proposals, and we have identified $4 billion in savings which could be put towards affordable housing supply. This revenue could fund the construction of 7,000 new homes for the homeless by 2020 and 7,500 new social housing dwellings over the forward estimates. And for those of you who are not from Sydney, when you are in Sydney next: walk through Belmore Park; walk around some of our public spaces. You will see large numbers of tents. Tent cities are growing up in our city because of this serious crisis. Negative gearing is costly, inefficient, and inequitable. Honest coalition MPs must know this. If the Treasurer does not agree on the damaging impacts of negative gearing, we invite him—and other sceptics—to join an evidence-based debate. It is time the Abbott government reviewed the tax arrangements for property investment in order to improve housing affordability for first-home buyers, and to provide housing for those on social and public housing waiting lists and for those sleeping on our streets.

On another matter, the Liberal Premier, Michael Baird, is seen as the fresh face of the can-do leader of Australia's biggest state. But when you look behind the smiles and the spin, this regime is looking more and more like another Liberal government that is rarely talked about in Liberal circles. Usually parties are proud of their history, but there is one part of Liberal party history that has been airbrushed away. The Askin government was in power in New South Wales from 1965 till 1975. It is now associated with a deeply corrupt era in our state. Developers at that time ruled Sydney and many other developing areas. Residents had no effective say in the destruction of housing, heritage, and urban bushland. I am not saying that the current Premier is corrupt, but he is the head of a government that has again put New South Wales in the hands of developers, with communities sidelined from being a part of planning for the future—and that certainly has a corrupting influence on our society.

Parramatta is the latest region to suffer under the harsh Liberal-National government's approach to planning. Parramatta is a beautiful area. It has the wonderful Parramatta River and it has a rich heritage. The exceptional heritage site has been a gathering place for the Darug people for thousands of years. This has long gone, but there is certainly an area there that we need to respect in terms of that rich history.

Then there is the heritage site from the colonial beginnings in 1788. There would be few other sites in Australia that have 200 years of continuous institutional use. I am referring here to the female factory that was built in 1888. A number of the associated buildings have quite a troubling history but, as part of our history, they are beautiful heritage buildings.

However, Urban Growth New South has its hands on Parramatta. Initially there was a Parramatta North Urban Renewal project that promised to deliver a great new mix, incorporating a revitalised heritage. There would be housing, employment and wonderful opportunities for the arts culture that is very rich in this area. But Urban Growth News South Wales has other ideas and it is certainly proving to be bad news for the area. The plan for the site, as set out under Urban Growth New South Wales, promises to deliver a devastating outcome for the people, history, culture and environment of Parramatta. The problems will impact on traffic congestion, city planning, the arts, cultural development and public amenity. I have seen the plans for it. They are putting high-rise buildings—huge buildings—right in the centre of this rich heritage precinct. Cultural relics will clearly be destroyed. I do congratulate the North Parramatta Residents Action Group and many other organisations that are working hard to ensure that this damage does not occur. A number of residents have spoken about their concerns. I will share one with you. Russo, aged 80, has lived in Parramatta for more than half a century. He is a former councillor. He said:

It's a very developer friendly council … It just seems the grander the building the louder the cheers from council. I'm not a greenie, I'm not anti-development, I just think there should be a balance.

That is what people are saying to me and to many of the other people who are trying to save the beautiful heritage, the links with the Aboriginal past in this area and the local environment. They say that they need to get the balance right and, right now, the destruction is rampant.