Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last night many Australians were sleeping rough in tents, in cars or even in doorways. Yet the Greens, knowing the urgent need for government investment in affordable and social housing, chose to side with the coalition earlier this week to delay legislation that addresses that very problem. We've had the Greens housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, actually declare that the government's plan to build one million homes over five years from 2024 is a complete joke. To the people waiting for a roof over their heads, it isn't. It's not funny at all to them. The Greens have been too busy grandstanding, too busy trying to get on social media, too busy playing politics and too busy trying to grab a headline to care about those they purport to represent. With the Greens, too often, it's their way or the highway, and that's not the way we go about it. The grandstanding by the Greens makes me wonder if we should all club together to buy them a ladder to help them reach the moral high ground that they purport to be from. I tell you what; it must be pretty cold and miserable up there, but not as cold and miserable as last night was for those unfortunate Australians who didn't have a home to go to.

So why do the Greens refuse to support the government's plan? Let me be very clear that it's for pure political benefit, pure political gain. They're more concerned with differentiating themselves from Labor than with helping needy Australians. I'll just remind the Greens that they're not here to get their own way and bolster their own power. In this place we very often work on collaboration, compromise, perspective and empathy—all qualities that go a long way to solving the problems that the country faces, which, after all, is why we're all here. I want to explain to the Greens, in regard to the rent freeze suggestion— (Time expired)

Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to give a big shout-out to the Hobart City Council. This week they voted to double the rates for owners of short-stay accommodation. Courage—good on you. Hobart has lost nearly 10 per cent of rentals to short-stay accommodation. Of course, Airbnb are out there clutching their pearls and warning that will impact on tourism. What a load of rubbish! Tassie's tourism rates were already going up way before Airbnb took over by stealth. We know Tasmania is the eighth great wonder of the world. Everybody wants to come to the island of Tasmania.

Don't get me wrong; some people Airbnb a room in their house—or just do it when they're on holidays—and I have no problem with that. I have a mate who Airbnbs her house, and she stays in the granny flat. It gives her some extra income, and she's not taking a house off the rental market. But this thing of buying a house just so you can make lots of cash on the weekend, instead of renting it out to a family in need, is beyond shameful and it's full of greed. There are politicians in Tasmania that have Airbnbs, and I would ask them to examine their own conscience. Do you really need to Airbnb when you are on such a big government wage and Tasmanian families are living in tents and cars?

Short-stay doesn't only take rentals off the market, like for fly-in fly-out workers; it also hurts the communities. Another story I was told by a woman in Hobart was that seven houses in her street are now Airbnbs. That means she no longer knows her neighbours, and that close-knit community she's lived in all her life feels empty to her now. Short-stay accommodation isn't the whole problem, but it is certainly adding to the problem that we're having in Tasmania and around the rest of the country. Well done to you, Lord Mayor Anna Reynolds and the Hobart City Council. Let's only hope that the other councils—27 or 28 of the ridiculous ones sitting out there—have taken note and have got the courage to do the same as Anna Reynolds and the Hobart City Council have done.