Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Housing to my questions regarding the housing crisis and the illegal war in Iran.

Australians are in the grip of a housing crisis, and Labor's policies are making it worse. This crisis has been decades in the making, and, thanks to successive Liberal and Labor governments, it's become the worst crisis in the postwar period. Households across the nation are just one or two interest rate hikes or rent increases away from losing their home. Eighty-nine per cent of Australians know this is a crisis, agree that it's a crisis, and yet Labor's priorities seem to lie firmly with wealthy property investors.

In the four years since coming to power, Labor has wasted $53 billion on tax concessions for wealthy property investors. That $53 billion has benefited the wealthiest income earners and property investors in our nation and has actively contributed to pushing up house prices, fuelling that crisis even more. Meanwhile, it's done nothing for the millions of Australians suffering under the conditions of the housing crisis. Labor have prioritised, in effect—as the Liberals did before them—wealthy property investors, multiple-property owners, over regular mortgage holders and renters struggling under relentless interest rate and rent increases. The PBO analysis shows that, if Labor continues to delay action on winding back the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing, a further $190 billion will be wasted over the next decade. This foregone revenue should instead be used to build public housing and to build the affordable housing that we know we need to get us back to the levels of public housing that we had 10 or 20 years ago. Housing affordability is a political choice, and we can choose better.

In his answers, the minister referred to the five per cent deposit scheme and the HAFF, the Housing Australia Future Fund. These policies are not working. Indeed, you can't find an economist in this country who thinks the five per cent deposit scheme is a good idea. It pushed up demand, especially around the point of entry, for first time buyers, and it made it increasingly difficult, even harder, for those first time buyers to win at an auction on a Saturday morning.

And, when we look at the HAFF, it's too slow, it's too small and it's too complicated. It is not even touching the sides of the level of house building that we need. When I look at all those photo opportunities I see on social media with the minister holding a shovel at a HAFF site, I think she'd be better off trying to build them herself. The pace of building that we see in the HAFF is way too slow for the number of houses that we know we need. We need to be moving much more effectively and faster. Labor has the funds here that it's giving, at the moment, to wealthy property investors. They could be used immediately for direct spending on the social housing we know we need.

Labor needs to deliver bold, ambitious tax reform that puts homebuyers and renters first. Instead, they're making things worse. The capital gains discount is the most unfair tax break on the books, and the government should do away with it for those who need it least. Most of the tax breaks and benefits flow to older Australians, and they make it harder and harder for young people to get into the housing market. Talk about intergenerational inequality. This is the founding stone of intergenerational inequality, and it's desperate for renovation. Get on with it, Labor. We need to end the waste in this May budget, and we call on Labor to work with us in the Senate. We are ready to go to pass progressive and ambitious tax reform. It's a once-in-a-generation opportunity for genuine progressive tax reform to pass in the parliament.

We know that inflation is hitting Australians incredibly hard, and the illegal war in the Middle East is making it even worse. We are seeing interest rate hikes instead of cuts, house price spikes, rents skyrocketing and grocery prices on the rise. Big corporations are raking in huge profits. The Coles-and-Woolworths duopoly controls two-thirds of the $135 billion supermarket sector, and they are on the job, gouging prices. The ACCC is suing both of them, alleging the supermarkets misled customers by offering hundreds of products on sale when the price actually rose. But grocery prices are only going to get worse the longer the war drags on, and this government continues to prioritise the one per cent over ordinary people who are struggling to make ends meet.

We know that the impact of this illegal war on inflation, on interest rates, on energy and on food prices means that ordinary Australians are really suffering the costs. Its greatest damage is in the long-term effect on housing for young Australians. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.