Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macnamara for moving this very important motion and for the opportunity to add my voice to this pressing issue. Is it really too much to ask that every Australian have a home or that every Australian have a roof over their head? Is it too much to ask that every Australian be afforded the right to provide shelter for their family? Safety and shelter are fundamental human rights, yet they have been increasingly commodified. You can have them only if you can afford them, and affording shelter in Australia is becoming more and more expensive.

Australia is in the grip of a national housing crisis. It affects our cities and our regions. In Dodges Ferry, a town in my electorate that used to be an affordable weekend getaway village of shacks, the median price is $460,000. That's a 79.7 per cent increase in five years. In New Norfolk, a town of forestry and factory workers, the median price has risen by 22.8 per cent to now sit above $350,000. On the face of it, this is good news for homeowners. We all get excited when we see our homes rise in value—it increases our equity. But what happens when you want to sell and take advantage of the added value? You still have to buy somewhere else to live, and the place you have your eye on has generally increased in value along the same trajectory, so there's often no more money in your pocket. Of course, if you stay put you can draw on the extra equity in your home to buy a caravan or go on a holiday, but that adds debt. Increasingly, many of us with a mortgage and a rising home value are, I am sure, drawing on our own equity to help our kids afford a deposit, because, increasingly, it is impossible for them to do it alone.

The steeply rising cost of housing is bad news for the young couples searching for their first home. They struggle to keep up with ever-rising deposits. For example, Sydney prices rose $100,000 in just three months recently. Many young homebuyers will have to find another $20,000 for a deposit. How long will it take them to save that? And, by the time they do, prices will have gone up again. It's a never-ending and soul-destroying chase. It now takes Tasmanians, on average, 8.4 years to save the 20 per cent deposit needed for a home loan. A graduate who starts saving at 21 will be close to 30 by the time they get the keys. It's no wonder people are putting off having children and having fewer of them.

And it's not as if the rental market provides any relief. Rents are at record highs—in many cases more expensive than servicing a mortgage—and rentals are increasingly scarce. Good luck trying to save for a mortgage deposit at the same time as you're paying massive rent—especially in Tasmania, where incomes are 13 per cent lower than on the mainland.

What it all boils down to is a failure of government policy and political leadership. The Tasmanian Liberal Premier doesn't even acknowledge that there is a housing crisis in our state. He must exist in a parallel universe of privilege. It is obvious to anyone with eyes to see. There are close to 4,000 people on Tasmania's emergency housing list, and our Premier shrugs his shoulders as if it's not his problem. The answer is simple: Australia needs to build more houses. And a Labor government will make it happen. Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund, announced by the Labor leader in his budget reply speech, has the capacity to even the scales. It is the tool with which a Labor government will tackle this issue. We will build 20,000 social housing properties and 10,000 affordable housing properties for frontline workers. We will invest $200 million in the cost of maintaining and improving housing in remote Indigenous communities. We will invest $100 million in crisis housing options for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence and older women on low incomes, who are at greater risk of homelessness. And we will invest $30 million to build more housing and fund specialist services for veterans who are experiencing homelessness or at risk of homelessness.

Madam Deputy Speaker, as we know, the answer to the housing crisis for young people is not to mortgage their future retirement.

See this speech in context