Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The member for Lyons is correct: supply, supply, supply—that is the answer. Unfortunately for him, the Labor government isn't doing much about that. As of today, the Housing Australia Future Fund is yet to pay out a single cent or build a single home. This signature policy is yet to deliver anything on supply. Yes, the member for Lyons and the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, believe that the fundamental reason behind Australia's house price growth is supply not keeping up with demand, and they are right. But, unfortunately for us and, more importantly, unfortunately for Australians all around the country, they are not doing anything about it. There is still no detail on where these houses will be located, when they will be built or who will build them.

Unfortunately, there are real people suffering from these policies. I spoke to a community member recently: a single mum, escaping domestic violence, who had been living in a three-bedroom apartment in Miranda. The apartment was being sold, so she was being forced to move out. She could not find a place, despite going for rental after rental. When she came to my office she was going to be homeless in 10 days time. I called the real estate agent, thinking that there must be some problem with her application—she mustn't have enough money or a good job. They informed me it wasn't the application; it was just that there were 40 people going for each three-bedroom apartment in Miranda. While those opposite have identified a problem of supply, they have been unable and unwilling to fix it, and unfortunately there are people who are paying the price, like this constituent of mine who is facing homelessness with her two children.

Now we hear about secret plans to look at negative gearing. The problem is: if they believe it's supply, negative gearing doesn't help with supply. Independent analysis by Master Builders Australia suggests that there's a shortfall of 166,000 properties against the Labor government's 1.2 million target. A separate model put forward by the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council says Labor will fall at least 300,000 homes short of their aim. The problem is that any tinkering to negative gearing will make this much worse. Modelling by Cadence Economics reveals that Labor's negative-gearing tax and any changes to that would lead to Australia ending up with 42,000 fewer dwellings, 32,000 fewer full-time jobs and up to $11.8 billion less building activity. The Property Council commissioned a report from Deloitte that showed that changes to negative gearing would cause a 4.1 per cent hit to the dwindling pipeline for new homes. Those changes would be a $1.5 billion hit to our already languishing GDP and would cost Australia over 7,800 jobs.

A more recent study, from the University of Melbourne, found that any changes to negative gearing would see supply reduced by 1.8 per cent. More research conducted by the University of Melbourne found that rent would increase by 3.6 per cent and the welfare budget by 1.7 per cent if negative gearing were removed. So, whether they're rumours that are being pushed out by the Labor Party to check this policy out, what we do know is that changes would hit Australians harder, when they are already struggling with the cost of living.

Given these facts, I imagine the minister, who's a good person, would be troubled by these reports that the Treasurer and his department could be secretly modelling changes. Centre for Independent Studies economist Peter Tulip says getting rid of these tax deductions would have very little effect on housing affordability. He argues instead that, actually, supply reforms and zoning reforms would have up to a 30 to 50 per cent effect on house prices. The Labor government should be focused on housing supply, not imposing a higher tax burden on Australia.

There's record migration under this government, with 547,000 immigrants last year and only 164,000 new homes added. This year looks to be on track for the same sorts of numbers. When we have this huge imbalance between demand and supply, we need to solely focus on increasing supply so that people like my constituent, a single mother, can find housing, doesn't have to face homelessness and doesn't have the stress of wondering whether she and her two daughters are going to be sleeping on the street. We need more housing supply desperately.

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