Emma McBride (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to oppose the Treasury Laws Amendment (Reducing Pressure on Housing Affordability Measures No. 1) Bill 2017 and the First Home Super Saver Tax Bill 2017 and to support the amendment moved by the member for McMahon. Schedule 1 of the bill implements the First Home Super Saver Scheme announced in the 2017 budget. We oppose this measure because it simply fails to address the real problem with housing affordability in Australia—the government's failure to address negative gearing and capital gains tax reform. Until these issues are addressed, the system will continue to unfairly advantage investors over first home buyers.

Schedule 2 of this bill implements a budget measure to allow people aged over 65 to contribute the proceeds of downsizing to superannuation. We don't have any objections to the principle of helping people to downsize. If the government were to split this measure from the First Home Super Saver Scheme measure, we would be open to considering it. However, this is not the best option in terms of actually reducing pressure on housing affordability. In the 2013-14 Labor budget, we had a pilot program that aimed to do just that—by trialling a means test exemption for age pension recipients who were downsizing from their family home. Up to $200,000 in proceeds would have been put in a fund which would have been exempt from pensions means tests for up to 10 years. Of course, this short-sighted government got rid of it. Some important factors in the decision to downsize, such as the age pension income and assets tests and stamp duty issues, are simply not addressed by the government's measure.

The government's super scheme will do nothing to address housing affordability, but it will work to undermine Australia's world-class superannuation system. This system, underpinned by the superannuation guarantee introduced by the Labor government in 1992, is designed to generate improved retirement incomes for Australian workers. It is not there to be a plaything of the government of the day. It is not there to be white-anted to provide the government with an alibi, to pretend that it is addressing an issue when it is failing to face up to the real problems its own policies are creating.

As previous speakers on this side have noted, in the absence of any measures to improve the supply of new homes, any extra money in the pockets of first home buyers is simply eaten up by price rises. If you look at the details of this measure, you see that it offers a paltry level of assistance for first home buyers. If you divide the cost of this measure in the budget by the number of first homes sold each year, the government, with great fanfare, is allocating an average of $565 for each first home. This is the government's solution for first home buyers struggling to compete with investors who have a major tax advantage—$565. Labor will not support this hoax, but we will deliver on our plan for affordable housing, addressing the unfairness created by the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing. Labor will drive the construction of 55,000 new homes over three years, creating 25,000 jobs every year. We will commit to more public housing, including for women and children fleeing family violence.

Before entering this House, I worked as a pharmacist in mental health at Wyong hospital for almost 10 years. One of the most difficult things that I saw when people were recovering from mental illness and taking their first steps to transition back into the community was social workers giving them a phone book, pointing them to the phone in the unit and saying, 'You have to try to find yourself a place to live.' I won't forget that. People with an enduring mental illness, taking those steps back into the community, would be standing at a phone in a public place with a phone book in their hand and dialling through, trying to find somebody who would take them, who would give them a chance in a competitive rental market. Often they didn't have a rental record or the documentation that was necessary or the means to compete in the private rental market.

Over the school holidays, I bumped into a young family I'd seen a few months before, who are expecting their next child. When I first met them they showed me a picture their youngest child had drawn. It was of their house, with a dog. This was because the child always wanted to have a pet, but, because of their circumstances—they had to move, as they weren't in long-term accommodation—they couldn't have a pet. The child had started at a local school but, because of the competitive rental market and their circumstances, the child had done only one term at school before having to move to another school. These are the types of families in my community and in communities across Australia who aren't being helped by these measures.

Affordable housing is not just about being able to buy your home. It's about affordable rental housing. A Shorten Labor government will establish a bond aggregator to help community housing providers to access cheaper finance for new affordable rental housing. Giving community housing providers a new source of low-cost, reliable financing will boost the supply of affordable rental housing options for low-income families and vulnerable Australians, like those I have just mentioned. This is particularly relevant to my electorate of Dobell, on the New South Wales Central Coast, where almost a third of households live in rental properties and the proportion of households paying over 30 per cent of their income in rent is higher than the national average. In pockets of my community, combined household income is about $600 a week and, commonly, rents, particularly for homes for families, are nudging $400 a week and above. How can families meet this?

I want to tell you about something a constituent of mine, Amy, let me know. Amy has lived on the Central Coast for 20 years, working and raising her two children. In 2010, she became ill and last year began to receive the disability support payment. When her father died suddenly, she moved in with her mum to help out, but her mum is struggling on her own to make ends meet. This family's search for an affordable rental property has been fraught. Amy says agents and landlords are reluctant to accept her, as a DSP recipient. But, for the housing department to assist, she has to find a property for rent at half her weekly income, or less. There simply aren't properties at this price for housing a family of four. Amy said, 'I didn't ask to get sick or not to be able to work. Life on the disability support pension is not easy, each week struggling to decide what is more important to spend money on. I don't have fancy clothes, equipment or phones or anything like that. After I pay rent of $430 per week, I'm left with $10 a week out of that pension. Rental properties have got higher and the waiting list for affordable housing is a joke. I don't want my kids to miss out or live like animals just because I have an illness that stops me from working.'

Another constituent, Lilly, who is 18 years old, wrote to me about predictions that young people will be forced to save for 40 years to purchase their first home. This is what Lilly has to say: 'As a young person I find this deeply upsetting. The issue, however, does not seem to be entirely economic. Policymakers have favoured negative gearing, made university much more expensive, axed the first home buyers rebate and casualised the workforce. This has made it impossible to get a fair go as a youth and made it difficult for wealth to flow freely within the economy, allowing children of the wealthy to grow their wealth while children of the poor are denied the same opportunities.' She continues, 'To me this is about more than housing. It is symptomatic of a parliament that no longer cares about youth.' It is not surprising that a young person like Lilly, from my electorate of Dobell, on the New South Wales Central Coast, comes to this conclusion when you consider the additional barriers the government is putting in the way of young people starting out in life and saving for a home of their own—their first home.

As a result of the government's proposed changes to higher education funding and higher education loans, students will face higher fees, which they will have to pay back sooner. These policies will create considerable financial stress for many young people completing higher education and entering the workforce. How will these policies help young people save for their first home? And what about young people working on weekends? They won't be getting penalty rates to help them save for a home of their own. What's this government doing to help them? Nothing. Members of the Turnbull government campaign for cuts to weekend penalty rates, and the Prime Minister hasn't lifted a finger to stop these cuts from coming into effect—just as the government hasn't lifted a finger to address the real issue around housing affordability. To put housing affordability into perspective, in 1981-82 the median dwelling price was around three times the median annual household income. In 2016 it was over eight times. In the 20 years between the 1995-96 census and the 2015-16 census, homeownership amongst younger households declined from 44 per cent to 36 per cent.

Labor is once again leading on housing affordability. Only Labor has a comprehensive policy to tackle this crisis. For years the Abbott-Turnbull government have ignored warnings to act on unfair and distortionary housing tax concessions and on the risks associated with increased borrowing in superannuation funds. They have simply failed to act. Building on our existing proposals to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax, Labor have announced policies to improve affordability, increase supply, boost jobs and reduce the economic risks associated with distorted investment decisions. Labor have a clear housing affordability plan. It will reform negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, facilitate a COAG process to introduce a uniform vacant property tax across all major cities, limit direct borrowings from self-managed superannuation funds, increase foreign investor fees and penalties, establish a bond aggregator to increase investment in affordable housing, boost homelessness support for vulnerable Australians, get better results from the National Affordable Housing Agreement, and re-establish the National Housing Supply Council and a minister for housing.

A Shorten Labor government will establish a COAG process to coordinate and facilitate a more efficient and uniform vacant property tax across all of Australia's major cities. Australia's housing stock should be used to put a roof over people's heads, not to allow property speculators to lock up assets. Labor will also restore the general ban on direct borrowing from superannuation funds, as recommended by the 2014 financial system inquiry, to help cool an overheated housing market partly driven by wealthy self-managed super funds, which has seen an explosion in borrowing from $2.5 billion in 2012 to more than $24 billion today. We will also further help level the playing field between first home buyers and property speculators by doubling the screening fees on foreign investment and financial penalties that apply to foreign investment in residential real estate.

Labor will also provide $88 million over two years for a new safe housing fund to increase transitional housing options for women and children escaping domestic and family violence, young people exiting home care and older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness. This will reverse the Liberal cuts made in the 2014 budget. Recently I was talking to a constituent of mine who has worked her whole life and found herself having to remortgage when she was unexpectedly let go. She was trying to work out how she was going to meet her volunteer requirements under Newstart. It reminded me of another woman I met in a shopping centre. She had a shopping trolley containing a saucepan, cutlery and the basics for setting up a kitchen. I asked her what she was doing, and she said: 'Well, I looked after my grandchildren. That was a decision that was made and it was in the best interests of them and their wellbeing, but now that the youngest is grown I don't have any means anymore. As one of the conditions, I wasn't able to do anything other than look after them.' So she had been out of the workforce for nearly two decades. She asked, 'What am I to do now?' She was buying the basics to set up a kitchen in a local caravan park. This is a mother and grandmother who dedicated her life to raising her family and particularly supporting her grandchildren, who were born into very difficult circumstances—and this is how we, as a society, are looking after her.

We need to do more. It has to be fixed. Labor's plan seeks to restore some of the important housing initiatives that were cut by the Abbott-Turnbull government while outlining new policy actions which Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison refused to take. Labor's package will see the construction of 55,000 new homes over three years and boost employment by 25,000 new jobs every year. Only a Labor government will tackle the housing affordability crisis and put the great Australian dream back within the reach of middle- and working-class families.

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