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

I thank the honourable member for Deakin for bringing this matter of public importance, 'This government's failed policies creating a housing crisis for Australians', to this place today. Since this government was elected, the problem of housing affordability in this country has grown to the point that it is now beyond a crisis, and this is because of many of the policies that this government has introduced.

It's a national shame, because in Australia we value homeownership very deeply. It is a deep part of our nation's story. We are a country that was built largely on a classless system, and that classless system was built on the notion of homeownership. The founders of our modern country came over here and, particularly from the 20th century onwards, recognised that the way to have a different system to the class system that existed in the United Kingdom was for most Australians to be able to own their own homes. A home provides stability for families, provides social cohesion, builds stronger communities and provides security in retirement.

At the moment, younger Australians particularly have been failed by this government, especially in my home state of New South Wales. We are denying the millennials and also generation Z the opportunity that those who went before them had. For example, in Sydney about 40 years ago the median house price was five times the average salary. Today that ratio is closer to 12 times. So, even if these younger people do all we've asked of them—finish school, get an education, get a job—it's still going to take them, on average, about 12 years to save for a deposit.

Whether it be homeownership or rent, housing is now almost completely unaffordable in this country, and the problem is largely due to supply. We have failed to build the number of houses needed, particularly over the past 20 years. This government has spoken about addressing supply. It has said it will deliver 1.2 million new homes over five years. That's the promise from this government. That's 240,000 new homes each and every year. That came out of an announcement from National Cabinet towards the end of last year, and a couple of weeks later Labor New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, the Premier of the most populous state in the country, said, 'New South Wales now can't meet its targets.' If New South Wales can't meet its targets, the federal government cannot meet its targets. But I will say this about Premier Minns: at least he was honest about it.

One of the main policies the government has failed on is economic policy, for example. The government's failure to grasp inflation, to get inflation under control, has led to 12 interest rate rises in a row. That means that with the average mortgage of $750,000 a family is now needing to find another $24,000 each year just to be able to pay their mortgage. This has of course also led to an increase whereby property owners, to cover their own mortgages on investment properties, have had to increase rents, Also, the shortage of rental properties has meant that national median rents have increased by 26 per cent under this government's watch.

We've also seen a government that has failed to address some of the major issues in the building and construction industry, which is now on its knees. We have record construction insolvencies. The ABS has highlighted the weakest quarter of construction in more than a decade. According to Build Skills Australia, we need an extra 90,000 construction workers in the next three months just for the government to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes. So this is not going to happen.

I've just heard the minister saying that state and local government are completely separate entities. The minister has the ability to incentivise state and local governments to provide better housing choice, to look at very innovative projects. For example, I've got Tiny Solar Homes in my electorate. I'd invite the minister to come and have a look at them. We've got companies doing amazing things in airspace development—building homes in airspace on existing developments. These are the sorts of things the Labor government should be looking at to address housing in this— (Time expired)

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