Brett Whiteley (Braddon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

For those who were listening, those chill words of 'working families' have come back to haunt us. Of course, we just had the member for Rankin, who was the one who loaded the gun that said we were going to have four surpluses; the poor, old member for Lilley was the one who had to fire the gun. Do you remember that? Do you remember those hollows words, 'the four surpluses that we announce tonight'? We have moved on, thankfully. The Australian people spoke very clearly in 2013.

It has always been difficult for young people to get into the housing market. It has always been thus. But we do know that removing the incentives and encouraging people to invest is not the reason why. It is to do with local government quite often and state governments in respect of land releases. It is around local planning. In my own electorate in the south-east of Tasmania, it is issues around infrastructure in supporting commuters in Sorrell, Dodges Ferry, Lewisham, Forcett, Copping and places on the Tasman Peninsula. People who commute into Hobart each morning from these areas are met with traffic problems at the roundabout at Hobart airport. For example, if a taxi is turning right at eight o'clock in the morning to go into the airport, the traffic banks up for about three kilometres back towards the Sorrell Causeway. It is that sort of lack of infrastructure that is impeding the development of houses in the south-east of Tasmania. So I will be fighting, I can assure the people of my electorate, for an upgrade to the roundabout at the Hobart airport, which will open up south-east Tasmania.

The attitudes of banks to young borrowers looking to enter housing market for the first time is also problematic, but it has always been thus. What we have from those opposite is a rushed and reckless policy that is about destroying the single biggest asset that most Australians have—that is, equity in the family home.

I have spent a lot of time at sheep sales, I am proud to say, and I know what it is like when the mainland buyers do not come down to a sheep sale in Tasmania. I can tell you that the prices do not go up; they go down. I have spent a lot of time bidding for wool, albeit with other people's money, in sale rooms all around Australia. My biggest joy was when one of my competitors competing on a particular type of wool would walk out of a sale room because the price did not go up but went down. So it is if you remove from the market a third of those potential buyers in the housing market, the single biggest asset for most Australians will go down. And it is the schoolteachers and the nurses who will suffer, because they are the majority of people who are trying to get ahead.

What has become of this country when we do not celebrate people who are prepared to take a risk? What is wrong with our nation when all those on the other side want to do is knock them down? We should be celebrating these people who are prepared to invest more money and take a risk. Unfortunately, those on the other side want to support the dentist who has a share portfolio worth $700,000 or $800,000 and has dividends coming in of $40,000 or $50,000 and allow them to use that for negative gearing. This is a world gone mad. We should be celebrating the majority of people who are trying to get ahead.

My message to those people in Sydney or Melbourne is: 'Come on down to Tasmania; we want you in Perth, Tasmania.' As I look at realestate.com.au, I see that, in Phillip Street in Perth, Tasmania, there is a three-bedroom house for $279,000. This is an opportunity. I am the proud owner of one investment unit. I must say that it is a very modest investment, and it is declared on my register of interests. I can tell you that it is not negatively geared; it is positively geared. There are opportunities for so many young people in Sydney and Melbourne to come on down to Tasmania and enjoy the opportunities of the state that is, as I stand here right now, the most confident in the nation with respect to small and medium businesses. That is something that I am truly proud of. When I came to this place in 2013, after five years of Labor and the Greens in charge, confidence was at a low—and we have fixed that.

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