Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm happy to speak on this motion today because, as much as anything else, it highlights the cavernous divide in policy and aspiration that sits between those who sit on this side of the chamber and those who sit on the other side of the chamber. Make no mistake: we all believe—everyone in this chamber—that people should have a home, and that social housing is absolutely part of that mix. For people in crisis or in situations outside of their control, where they need assistance and help, it plays a critical part in providing the security people need at certain times of life. But the reality is that what we should be seeking is for social housing to be the exception and not the rule or the norm.

Housing plays a critical part in our country. In fact, I just wrote a whole book about that particular subject—called The New Social Contract, if anybody wants to read it—which makes the point that housing and homeownership is one of the foundations of Australian liberalism and the strength of this great country, a democratisation where people own their own homes and have them as an investment in the community and the country that converts their economic activity beyond themselves to support themselves and their families and ultimately the strength of this great nation. I say that in the context that housing is actually the most important investment that any person can have because of all the sociopolitical benefits and because of how it can be used as a vehicle to help people support their families. It remains, to me, a complete oddity that, particularly when we talk about issues like retirement, the most important thing in retirement is not to have a big superannuation balance. The most important thing in retirement is to own your own home, because, if you don't, you will pay higher rents and higher costs that continue to escalate while you retire versus those who own their own homes.

This motion draws the fundamental distinction between this government and the opposition, and it's not the first time we've seen this very clear distinction. Go back to 1949 and the election speeches of Ben Chifley and Robert Menzies, the then Prime Minister and Leader of the Opposition. At the time, Chifley talked about why we needed to use Commonwealth-state housing agreements as a pathway to get more people renting, and Menzies, as we do today, turned around and looked at how we should use those agreements to make more Australians homeowners. That was the foundation of so much of the economic opportunity and growth that we have as a nation. So, when there are disparaging remarks from those on the other side of the chamber, who talk about housing and how they want to get more people to be renters rather than owners, it shows that not much has changed, because in the end they know that homeownership empowers Australians to be able to pursue their own lives, their opportunities and their enterprise and support their families, but when they rent it suits the interests of centralised power and government, because ultimately people become dependent on the state.

Of course, we have a natural interest. In my last 60 seconds in this speech, I say that we have a natural interest in understanding how important it is to work with the social housing sector to support those people who are in crisis, and it can be part of a discussion about what we need to do to as part of the post-COVID recovery. But we should never accept the idea that social housing should become the norm. We should want homeownership to be the norm. The reality of the problem of needing more social housing is often a reflection on the private market, because if people cannot afford to buy their own home or rent at affordable prices in the marketplace then they turn to social housing. So our real objective should not be to produce more social housing; it should be to produce more housing—more private housing—and make it more affordable for Australians to be able to own their own home.

See this speech in context