Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I don't doubt for a second the intentions of Labor in addressing housing. There's not a single person I've spoken to under the age of 35 who doesn't raise this as an issue. It wasn't that long ago—there are several members of the Economics Committee here—that we heard from the heads of the banks that the most vulnerable people in this current economic environment are 25- to 29-year-olds. Their disposable income is absolutely gone on rent, their ability to save is almost zero, and the banks don't want to know them. Their opportunity to get onto the housing ladder is disappearing fast. We saw a report recently saying that if you're not on the property ladder by the age of 34, you're unlikely to get onto it after that age. So we've got a whole generation stuck at the moment. Addressing how they get into housing is a huge issue.

When you jump on social media you see this great promise from the Greens about rent caps and how they're going to solve everything. They don't say how. We can dismiss it. We can laugh at it. It's not a credible solution. The member for Macnamara asked us to come here and work and provide credible evidence that we're willing to talk about this. I'm going to try and do that because I think it's important that we do hold the government to account.

I want to talk about the Housing Australia Future Fund and be really clear: when we're addressing this, when we're criticising this, it's worth interrogating what that fund actually is. This is $10 billion that is borrowed, and there's a cost to that borrowing. It's then invested, and the difference between the returns on the investment and the costs will go into housing; it's not $10 billion. Last year we would have a been behind by $300 million in repayments before we got to the point of trying to get a return. This is not a strong, credible economic position to be starting from. I know the Treasurer has been at pains to try to establish the economic credibility for his new government, but that is exactly what this fund is. It is not a credible fund.

Let's go further into some details—

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