Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Hawke isn't sitting in the chair—I noticed that—and God help us when he does. The census tells us a lot about ourselves. In the last census, we learned something we instinctively know, which is those born between 1981 and 1996, otherwise known as millennials, are our largest generation. I sit on the House economics committee with the member for Hawke and we see all of the data that most Australians see about the cost-of-living pressures in our country. When you see that data broken up by age, that cohort, millennials, are being hit the absolute hardest. Their incomes aren't very high to start with and the cost of utilities, of rent, of HECS are continually ballooning.

When you look at a median salary—and I would like to take you to a median-income scenario—that person in Australia would probably have a monthly income of about $3,800; $452 would go out in tax. With a net income of $3,300, there are Medicare levies, there are rates, there's HECS, there's rent—the median rent in my area is about $1,500—utilities of $300, groceries of $500, home insurance of $125, public transport costs of $72 and phone costs of about $100. And then, when you add basic insurance, someone in my electorate on a median income has, if they don't spend any money on anything else, about $465 left in their pocket. I haven't included going to the movies, going to concerts, going on a holiday—all the things that can bring people joy in life. That's what they've got left.

When you take the median home cost in my electorate of just over $1 million—so half of them are more expensive, half of them are less—the time it would take that person to save a 20 per cent deposit of $256,000, including stamp duty, is 45 years. So it is no wonder that, throughout our country, there are dining table conversations between generations where we are hearing that people are giving up on the idea of homeownership because on that maths it doesn't add up.

We can stand here, in motions like this, and throw shade on the other side about what you did wrong or what we did great, but the truth is that all sides of politics have let this generation down. So let's start there. And when we start there, we can then begin to look at what are the levers we can pull that will make a difference. If we do that, we can actually start to look this generation in the eye and say that we are in this place to care for your interests and not ourselves, not our party, and so when you hear that shade being thrown from the other side, know that they are not putting your interests first.

It's a complex problem. There are federal levers; there are state levers; there are local council issues. But let's start from the position that we are in now is unacceptable. Even if somehow, magically, we reduce those 45 years for that median income for the median house, that person is probably not going to get a loan. They're not going to compete with the lack of supply that is pushing them out of being competitive in those auctions and those sales. I thought it was bad several years ago when my family bought a house, but it is monumentally harder now. You know that, and you expect us to do something about it.

There's no one lever that's going to fix it. Anyone who promises that is being dishonest. But we have to recognise that there is a capacity for government to build houses, build schools, build hospitals, build roads and preserve green space in a way that is proportionate. That is why migration is part of the mix. It's not anti-migrant; we're still going to have a very generous, if not one of the most generous, migration programs in the world—as we should. When you hear the other side talk about that, they know that too. They will say on some forums, 'We're bringing migration down,' and then on other forums they will accuse people of dog whistling. It can't be both. Both sides know that's a problem, but we must recognise this is a fundamental structural problem with our economy and our society, and we need to fix it.

See this speech in context