Luke Simpkins (Cowan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I embrace the opportunity to speak tonight on the First Home Saver Accounts Bill 2008 and related bills, on what is a very important issue. We have that old catchcry ‘the great Australian dream’. I say, ‘Long may it live.’ We should be pursuing these sorts of things. I strongly believe that it is everyone’s right in this country to have the opportunity to buy a home, if they wish to, with land—somewhere for the kids to play, somewhere to run a dog if they want that. These are the important things in life. This is a key thing. It is right up there with jobs.

I would like to go back a little bit in time to cover the points in relation to this bill. The first house that I ever bought was back during the Keating government period. Unfortunately, it was not for me or my wife to live in; it was actually for my parents-in-law to live in. It was because my parents lost their business during the time of the high interest rates that the last Labor government delivered. Due to good management, we had a bit of a deposit, and the price of houses was a lot lower then—in fact, I think this house was $108,000 in a reasonable suburb in Perth. Of course, there was no-one there to help us at that time. There were no opportunities for first home buyers or anything like that. The last Labor government forced us into that purchase. In listening to a lot of what has been said today, and I think will be covering some things the member for Lindsay said, I find it incredible that the Minister for Families, Housing, Community Services and Indigenous Affairs can lecture us—I might even say, give us a sermon—about how much this government has done and how little the last government allegedly did.

I want to speak on this bill because of the past and the future. In the same way that this new government continues to espouse its revisionist propaganda, I know that they have regressed, and will keep regressing in the future, to the catatonic mantra of ‘11½ years of neglect’ that we have just heard. Just because you keep saying it again and again, it does not mean you are telling the truth. The new government is very fond of rolling out a denial of any action by the last government, a denial that any of those actions by the Howard government actually added value in this country. But there is an extensive list of very good things that the Howard government did. The minister asked, at one point today: what did the last government actually do? ‘Give us one point,’ I think she actually said. The member for Lindsay mentioned that point already, so I am surprised that the minister asked. The answer, of course, is that there was the introduction of the first home buyer grant.

Just to deal with what the member for Lindsay said. I think he said, ‘11½ years of housing affordability crisis.’ I do not know where he was during a lot of that 11½ years, but my house that I bought is now worth twice as much as I paid for it. In 2001, I do not think anyone was actually talking about a crisis—certainly not in Perth. Maybe there was a crisis in Western Sydney at that time, but certainly there was not in Perth. There were a number of places around the country where you could do quite well. You could afford a house in most cities and it was not too much of a struggle. But things have changed, obviously. There have been the issues of the mining boom in Western Australia—a lot of people coming in, increased demand for a limited stock—but I will get to that in due course.

I mentioned before that there was a great deal of denial that the former government had done anything right. I sometimes wonder whether, apart from the revision of history that seems to be taking place with those employed by the government in the ministerial wing, at some point there will be some rewriting of history books to reflect the new realities. This rewriting of history by the Rudd government does tend to take you back to the days of school, where I remember reading George Orwell’s 1984. It seems to be pretty similar: the past has been rewritten into a new reality and badged as the truth. In every portfolio area, it is as if the past never existed—or at least the past where $96 billion of government debt was never eliminated by the good economic management of the Howard government, which did, of course, occur; or where the number of young Australians in apprenticeships was increased threefold by the Howard government; or where there are over 2 million more jobs in the economy now than there were back in 1996. So the government is now rewriting the reality that I recall.

Let us go back to the past for at least the homebuyers. At the time I bought my house I was a captain in the Army and did not have access to the First Home Owner Grant—it did not exist at that point in the Paul Keating period. Suddenly I had to buy a house to keep a roof over the heads of my parents-in-law. I am not upset by missing out on the First Home Owner Grant. When we were looking to buy our own home, the one we wanted to live in, we then made additional sacrifices. We went without things. That is the way we have always approached things in our family. My circumstances are probably no different from those of a number of other people in Western Australia and other places around the country. We all know that adversity can affect to anyone. I know that that certainly has occurred. When my wife and I bought our house—the one we live in—back in 2001, we did stretch ourselves, but we had a built-in capacity to address interest rates changes and put together a deposit. We made sacrifices to meet our financial obligations, but what made it harder were state government taxes. The only place these taxes have gone in recent times is up. To my mind, that is just one of the elements which the government has not confronted.

I want to see success. I want to see the first home savers fund work, but the government needs to concentrate, to put the heat on or throw acid on state governments to come through and make a contribution. That remains the major impediment to the government in confronting housing affordability. It is good to give more people more money. That is good for increasing demand, but more land is required so that houses can be built. It is not just a matter of whether the government is still thinking about selling off SAS land over in Perth or wherever else—maybe kicking the reserve out of Karrakatta. I would hate to see that happen. I do not know what the government’s plan is.

When the government is talking about what Commonwealth land can be sold, that worries me a little bit because the states control most of the land and they need to pull their weight. At this point, I cannot see the government putting the pressure on or throwing the acid on state governments. I think we will see more of that in future or at least refusal to act to get the states to pull their weight.

It is important that I get back to the bills before the House. I draw inspiration for my next comments from the First Home Saver Account fact sheets for account holders. The fact sheets describe the scheme as ‘simple’ in the first paragraph. The first section of the sheet concerns me on two counts. Firstly—maybe this is being facetious—any document that this government puts forward as a fact sheet is immediately suspect. I would like to look firstly at the eligibility section. I know this point was made earlier by the member for Fadden, but why does commencement have to start at age 18, when locking in good savings and budgeting practices should commence earlier than that at 16? Kick people off in their economic lives by concentrating on what is really important rather than mobile phone plans or trying to buy that V8. They should be encouraged to concentrate on something where they can really make a difference to their long-term security, and buying a house is it. Why does it have to be age 18? I think you can get past the limitations that have been suggested on this matter.

My next point—this is the one I really want to draw attention to, and I can see the minister’s advisers over there—is regarding the dot point, which says: ‘not having previously bought or built a first home’. In my extensive consultation with the people of my electorate before and since the election, I am afraid to say I have learnt that not all marriages survive in Cowan. I am sure it is the case in every other electorate. We know that some people cannot continue to live together. While that is regrettable, it is not something that can be avoided in all cases.

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