Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the Prime Minister for the opportunity to respond. I find it quite amazing that the member for Sydney would be raising questions about rental affordability, given her remarkable stewardship of the National Rental Affordability Scheme that seemed to only provide very high tax incentives for reasonably wealthy investors and foreign students. And now she wants to come into this place and lecture those on this side of the House about housing affordability!

On this side of the House we take—and the assistant minister takes and the Assistant Treasurer also takes—the issue of housing affordability very, very seriously. This side of the House is engaging with the states and territories to ensure that we can address one of the most significant issues when it comes to housing affordability, and that is the sclerotic nature of the planning and zoning processes that are put in place by state and territory governments. As Treasurer, I am sitting down with the other treasurers to look at ways, through competition reforms, that we can ensure that there is a much better system to address the supply issues which are the major drivers of housing affordability—

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

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