Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to support the First Home Saver Accounts Bill 2008 that has been presented by the government, and I congratulate the member for Corangamite on his remarks. I start by talking about a report that was released only a year ago by the Urban Development Institute of Australia. I quote some of the statistics that were produced in that report, because those statistics highlight the dire straits that many Australians are in in respect of being able to buy their first home. Between 1984 and 2006 house prices rose across Australia by 493 per cent, whilst over the same period incomes rose by only 183 per cent. Between 1984 and 2006 outright homeownership fell from 41 per cent to 33 per cent. And in the 10-year period from 1996 to 2006 average mortgage payments rose from $780 per month to $1,300 per month. Today that figure is even higher. In fact it is much higher, sitting at over $2,000 per month. Not surprisingly, between 2001 and 2007 the first homebuyers’ share of the market dropped from 23 per cent to 16.6 per cent, and the figure is at about that point right now—that is, the share of first-time buyers entering the market has dropped by almost 30 per cent over the six-year period from 2001 to 2007. Interestingly, but not surprisingly, the steepest price hikes in the cost of housing occurred in the years immediately after the introduction of the GST.

So the great Australian dream of owning your own home is becoming a near impossible dream for too many Australians and, in particular, young couples wanting to begin their new life together in their own home. That is why it is important that all three levels of government work constructively together in order to ease the housing affordability crisis and why I speak in support of the government’s First Home Saver Accounts Bill. This bill provides very real tax benefits and savings incentives for first homebuyers who are saving their money to buy their home. It creates an incentive for people to save money and it encourages a disciplined commitment in managing money, which is exactly what will be required when the next step is taken and a home loan is taken out.

Owning your own home is not just an idealistic dream. It has widespread benefits for both the homeowner and the local community and for the broader Australian community. Firstly, homeownership creates stability and security within the household. It establishes the best environment in which to raise children as well as creating a sense of achievement and raising the self-esteem of the new homeowner. But it also creates stability in the local community because it encourages commitment to the local community and builds community pride and community spirit. Homeownership is an investment in the local neighbourhood. For governments, it means less reliance on public housing, less social disruption and less homelessness. There is a secondary benefit in helping people move into their own home. The housing sector is a significant contributor to the Australian economy, providing about 20 per cent of our gross domestic product. A decline in housing construction will have serious negative effects on our economy.

In my own electorate of Makin around 30 per cent of the population are what I would call younger people who would aspire at some stage to owning their own home. Many of these people hope to one day own their own home. When I was campaigning for the 2007 election I was frequently approached by both parents and young people who expressed their real concerns to me that homeownership was becoming out of reach for so many of them. What is just as frustrating is that as home prices rise so do the rents, and therefore those people who are renting are never able to save up any money because of the rents they pay and they find it even more difficult to achieve their dream of owning their own home. That is why this bill will be welcomed by so many Australian families.

I want to briefly respond to some of the comments that I have heard from members of the opposition with respect to this bill and the constant game of blaming the state governments for the reduction in public housing stock. The reality is that, in the 12 years of the Howard government, federal government funds for public housing declined markedly and so state governments were left to manage the stocks they had with far less money. It is not the fault of the state governments if they are trying to manage a public housing stock when they had their public funds reduced by billions of dollars. That is the first point I want to make about that matter. The other point I will make is this: opposition speakers have frequently talked about what I would refer to as urban sprawl and making more land available in particular by the state governments. Firstly, whilst state governments certainly hold some land, the reality is that about half of it is owned by private owners. Therefore, it is not just the state governments that have land available which could be released for the building of homes.

There is an additional issue relating to urban sprawl. As the mayor of a council in the outlying areas of Adelaide for 10 years, I understand exactly what urban sprawl means and the impacts it has on housing and living costs. In fact, one of the initiatives I put to my council at the time was for the council to get involved in a housing scheme which could be described as a shared equity scheme, in order to try and help people get into their first homes. When that proposal was publicly reported, the telephone lines at the council were overrun with people inquiring about how they might be able to access a new home under the scheme.

The points I really want to make are these. When you go out into the outer suburban areas, what you immediately do is add to the cost of living for the people who go out there. Whilst the house prices might be lower, the cost of living is higher and the transport costs of those people getting to their workplace are higher, so the affordability factor is in fact lowered. In addition to that, whilst the house price might appear to be lower up front, what inevitably happens is that the infrastructure required to service those new housing allotments has to be borne by someone. Either it is paid up front, as many developers now cost it into the cost of their blocks of land, or it is added on to the council rates, because the councils, under pressure to provide the necessary services and infrastructure required by new homeowners, have to take out loans in order to provide that infrastructure. That in turn means that every year those people in the outlying areas are paying higher council rates because they have to pay for the infrastructure that is required to service their needs.

I will use another example of when it quite often does not serve the purpose that it appears to. The example is this: people who live outside the CBD in most capital cities are inevitably further away from most of the services that they rely on. Because they are further away from those services, it costs them money to get there. Of even more concern is that there were people in the northern suburbs of Adelaide—and I expect it would be the same in many other parts of Australia—who were not going to tertiary education or universities because the cost of getting there and the time it took them was making it prohibitive. In other words, it was just compounding the cycle of disadvantage by having people living further out from where all the services were.

For all of those reasons, this bill is welcome. It is welcome because it is by no means the simple and only solution to fixing the housing affordability crisis facing Australia. The problem arises because of a number of factors. Therefore—quite properly—there needs to be a number of responses. That is what the Rudd government is doing, with a $2.2 billion housing affordability package that includes investments in public housing and public infrastructure and tax incentives for housing investments. It is those kinds of initiatives that will ultimately make a difference to the affordability of homes by people in this country. For those reasons I commend the bill to the House.

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