Martin Ferguson (Batman, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Primary Industries, Resources, Forestry and Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

Tell us about the GST! There have also been additional first home owner grants, land banking and land use planning regulations to require a certain proportion of housing and new developments to be affordable. But what has the Howard government done? It will not take long to talk about this. It has reduced funding for housing programs and abandoned Australian cities, including abolishing Labor’s Better Cities program, which had a return of four to one in government dollars spent and provided infrastructure in the suburbs to assist first home buyers. It has also left state governments to carry the can for urban infrastructure which was not there 30 years ago when we had some of these packages. People now expect the infrastructure to be in place when they seek to build their first homes. The member for Mitchell ought to know something about this, because it was the Whitlam Labor government from 1972 to 1975 that in Western Sydney actually caught up with some of the infrastructure after 23 years of neglect by previous Liberal and Country Party governments. So this is not a debate about infrastructure and housing affordability.

In the middle of August, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer were complaining that the states were not spending enough on housing and transport infrastructure. By the end of August they were saying their spending was putting upward pressure on interest rates, wages and prices in the construction industry. Yet this is the same type of spending that the Reserve Bank governor, Ian Macfarlane, has said is needed to ease supply bottlenecks. What hypocrisy yet again from the masters of fiscal impropriety! Spending is now $20 billion by the Howard government in the last Commonwealth budget, compared to just $2 billion in savings, and not a cent on productive capacity or investment in Australia’s future. These big spenders want the states to subsidise property developers and scratch stamp duties. What would that do to the state budgets?

There has also been a lot of commentary over recent weeks suggesting that a choice has to be made between supporting the entry of low- and middle-income earners to homeownership and supporting the maintenance of asset values for existing homeowners. This is an interesting debate, but what absolute rubbish! Whilst the data analysis now suggests that policies for housing, planning, transport, land availability and service provision at all levels of government have contributed to today’s housing affordability crisis, it is ridiculous to suggest—as the member for Mitchell does—that a mature nation cannot take measured steps to get affordability back on track without pulling the rug out from under asset values.

It is the responsibility of the national government to lead, not to shift the blame. Instead of doing the hard yards to put downward pressure on interest rates and downward pressure on inflation, instead of investing in the productive capacity of the nation—skills and infrastructure—the Prime Minister is calling for wholesale land releases that could wipe $100,000 off house prices and undermine the assets of existing homeowners. He does not want to know about urban renewal, state-of-the-art public transport, suburban services, sustainable cities and all the assistance that the Commonwealth ought to be giving to the outer suburbs of our major capital cities.

The Howard government has to pull its weight in the urban debate rather than time and again saying it is the responsibility of state and territory and local government. This government is willing to do nothing in the suburbs of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne to provide the infrastructure and meet some of the costs that first home owners face. When people build their first home, there is a responsibility for government to meet some of the costs of providing the infrastructure that they expect in the suburbs, just like previous Labor governments did nationally. (Time expired)

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