Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion—particularly, on the government's purported Housing Australia Future Fund, which, after so many months, has still failed to pass into legislation. During the election campaign, the biggest issue in my electorate of Hughes was the cost of living, followed closely by housing affordability. This was a priority and a concern for young people who are currently unable to get into private ownership and many of whom are also unable to get into the private rental market. It was also a concern for the many parents and grandparents in my electorate who are concerned about their children's and their grandchildren's ability to house themselves in the future.

In my first speech in this place, I spoke of my commitment to addressing housing affordability. While the people of the electorate of Hughes provide me with the privilege of serving in this place, I will be committed to addressing housing affordability as a top priority. My policy framework around this issue has arisen from my personal ideology as well as from lessons learnt from a 25-year legal career spent in planning, property and environmental law, working both for and in the private and local government sectors. Ideologically, my commitment to liberalism and civilised capitalism is about unleashing the power of the individual and their enterprise while always providing a safety net for those who, despite their best efforts, are unable to cope. That is what we must do in the housing space.

At a federal government level, we need to facilitate an environment where we, as a country, deliver broader housing choices and a system that provides greater security of tenure.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 12:18 to 12:31

At federal government level, we need to facilitate an environment where we as a country deliver broader housing choice and a system that provides great security of tenure, such as longer term leases, for our most vulnerable, many of whom are Australia's children and our returned veterans, and I commend the member for Indi who also spoke on this issue today. The greater the number of Australians that own their own home the greater the ability of governments to facilitate social and emergency housing. It is a housing continuum. Having spent my former career working in and around the housing sector, I can see that the housing fund that is being put forward by this government, even with the best of intentions, simply will not deliver the housing that has been anticipated. It is simply a housing fund. It is not in any way a bill that's going to address the underlying issues of housing affordability within our country. It fails at very basic levels. For example, there is a failure to define key terms in the bill such as 'social housing', 'affordable housing' and 'acute housing'.

The bill also omits a major part of the housing affordability problem: it leaves out private home ownership and ways that the federal government can influence, empower and incentivise private homeownership. On the housing continuum, as more Australians own their own home, they move out of the private rental market, which, in turn, frees up supply for others to move into this space, allowing more resources to be directed to social and emergency housing. Australia's rate of homeownership has been declining since the baby boomer generation bought their homes. At the moment, homeownership rates among Australians under the age of 40 are at levels not seen since 1947. Being able to afford a home is becoming harder and harder—almost impossible—for most young Australians. Leaving private home ownership out of its housing policy means that the Labor government has failed to understand the way that the housing sector in this country works and ways that the federal government can incentivise state and local government to provide more affordable housing.

It is disappointing that the Labor government has been intellectually lazy and, by these bills and the policy it's put forward, demonstrated its failure to understand the drivers behind housing in Australia, its failure to understand how the various state planning systems feed into the national system and its failure to empower local government to deliver at a local level. For all of these reasons, I cannot support this motion, and I say that the Labor government has not done nearly the work that it should have done in relation to affordable housing in this country.

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