Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

My mum was a nurse. I have a lot of time for nurses. I love nurses. And good on anyone who wants to have a crack at getting into the market. But the data is clear that the overwhelming benefit goes to those who have most. Strip it back, that is the entire point of the Liberal Party. We know this. They're the party of wealth and capital. Own it, be up-front about it, as you are with multinational tax cuts.

The other things you have to call out about the negative gearing and capital gains tax cuts is they're expensive. We've heard a lot about debt and deficit, structural budget repair and the budget emergency. Apparently the budget emergency doesn't apply if you want to give yourselves a tax cut. Everyone earning over $180,000 in the country got a tax cut last time—no budget emergency there! There were $65.4 billion of big business tax cuts—no budget emergency there! It is entirely unclear how that will be paid for because all the pain appears in the out years. It is in years 7, 8, 9 and 10 that it really ramps up. It's only an emergency for those on welfare and for the most vulnerable people in the country so the budget emergency doesn't apply to everybody.

It is a good thing to do from a structural budget repair point of view to refocus the tax concessions. They're enormously expensive. We hear a lot about how Labor wants to abolish negative gearing and capital gains tax. That is not true. That is not our policy. Our policy is to refocus those concessions and put them to work so that you can still negatively gear and you can still have that big capital gains tax deduction on new housing. What that would do is put negative gearing to work and back to the original point of it, which was to help encourage new supply in the market. For the government that thinks it's all about supply and pretends demand doesn't exist, that would be a sensible thing to do as well. People who want to invest in the housing market could get a tax deduction because they're building new houses, bringing new supply on and putting downwards pressure on prices. That is a good thing. That is our policy.

Labor would do a positive thing for the budget over 10 years, particularly in the out years; we'd return a lot of money to the budget in a progressive way. It wouldn't hurt those who have least. It would moderate the damaging price rises we've seen. No sensible society in the world, you would think, wants to see house prices going like that. Let the Hansard say my hand went straight up in the air because that's the nature of the curve in the last couple of decades. You might want house prices to go up. They go up and down by a few per cent in a normal market environment—sometimes they go down a bit and sometimes they go up a bit. That's okay. You can have house prices going up roughly in line with inflation but you don't want to see house prices go up by five and 10 per cent year on year. That's a nonsense. It is completely distorting to the economy and it locks ordinary people out.

We hear a lot about Menzies. We had the 75th anniversary of his seminal Forgotten People speech last year—it was a big moment. He had a vision for the country as a nation of home owners. St Menzies would be appalled seeing the current Liberal Party. A nation of landlords and renters is their vision. That is unsurprising, as I said, from the party of wealth and capital.

We have a sensible plan to address the nation's housing crisis. Ultimately, it should come down to the fact that it should not be easier for someone to buy their 17th investment property with a great big kick along from the Australian government: 'Well done you. You've already got everything; let's give you a little bit more.' It should not be easier. Our housing policies should not be set up like that at the expense of people who have no chance of getting into the market.

Bringing this back together: as I said, we'll stand up every time you bring forward a nonsensical little teeny-tiny measure and pretend that it's going to do something about the housing crisis in this country. If the government were serious they would understand that we live in a cooperative federal environment, that no level of government can deal with the housing crisis alone, that you have to have cooperation between the Commonwealth government and the states and indeed local governments, particularly with the planning and development levers that they control in housing approvals. You have to actually sit down and have a national conversation and a plan. What do we have from the government? There's no minister for housing. They roll out muppet 1 or muppet 2 or muppet 3 every now and again, saying something on it, but there is no minister for housing. That's a disgrace.

We just saw one of the other silly measures, in the other chamber, about the national agreements. They're going to impose, as part of their housing policy, a requirement on the states to have a housing strategy.

An honourable member interjecting—

They're going to impose a requirement on the states to have a housing strategy.

An honourable member interjecting—

Sure, that is reasonable, but there is no Commonwealth housing strategy. You say to the states: 'You have to have a housing strategy, but we don't. We don't have a housing strategy. We have no coherent plan. We'll just come and pick off little bits and pieces. Meanwhile, let the system rip.' Those who have most can keep milking the taxpayer through tax deductions that are clearly unsustainable.

Labor senators in a number of the Senate inquiries have included the radical recommendation that the government get a housing strategy.

An honourable member: That's socialist!

See this speech in context