Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

MPIs are really all about fire and brimstone. I think, given the wonderful contribution we've just seen from the member for Maribyrnong, the Prime Minister and the Leader of the Opposition, I will try to find the right tone. But the truth here is that there's no doubt in Australia right now that, when talking and reflecting on some of the comments of the member for Maribyrnong, when we think about young Australians, think about their opportunities and think about the solemn duty that we all have as members of parliament to hand on a country and a future that offers more to the next generation than we had ourselves, this government is massively failing in relation to housing.

It doesn't matter how much the Minister for Housing gets up and rattles off a range of talking points that have no meaning, that are delivering nothing for Australians. It's not helping the next generation of Australians who, quite frankly, right now don't believe that even if they do they right things—work hard, improve themselves, improve their lot in life, make wise decision—they will ever be able to own a home in this country. That's why today's MPI is titled 'The housing crisis which is putting the Australian dream at risk'.

I think the biggest shame from this government is that they have waved the white flag on homeownership. We've not heard anything meaningful from the government on homeownership in 2½ years. And now, 2½ years later, they are desperately scrambling around, trying to find some sort of narrative on housing. But the inconvenient truth for the failed minister, for the housing minister, for this failed Prime Minister is that the numbers don't lie; the scoreboard doesn't lie. There's no point sitting at the footy and screaming at the umpires, bagging your opponents. In the end, the scoreboard tells the story. And on every single metric that you can measure housing on in this country, things are demonstrably worse as a result of the poor decisions of this government—on every single metric.

The housing minister gets up every question time and says the answer to our housing crisis is to be build more homes. So why on earth are they building fewer homes? We have rarely, in recent history, seen housing supply get to the level that it is at now. We had housing approvals at just 158,000, the lowest we've seen for decades. The problem with housing approvals being down is that it means that if the housing crisis is bad now then it's just going to get worse. Those housing approvals are for the homes that will be built over the next 12 to 18 to 24 months. So, if those housing approvals are down, I have very bad news for any Australians who are watching this debate: this housing crisis is set to get worse.

As a result of fewer homes being built, fewer homes being approved and fewer homes being completed, we see that rents have gone up by 25 per cent since this government came into office. We see Australians who have a mortgage paying more than $25,000 more in interest on their mortgage repayments—that is an additional $25,000 in after-tax income just to service a mortgage. And we see nothing meaningful whatsoever from this government to assist first-home buyers. So we've got fewer homes built, we've got fewer homes in the pipeline to be built, and in effect the government is saying, 'Well, there's nothing really we can do here, although we've got a $32 billion housing program'—a totality of $32 billion in programs devoted to housing.

We're not in the first six months of this government. We're not being unreasonable to ask the government, 'How many homes has your so-called $32 billion housing program built?' It's built none! This is the dirty secret of the government. This government, because of programs they have put in place, have not delivered one new home. We're not talking about an unreasonable opposition in the first five minutes of a government asking, 'How many homes have you built?' It's 2½ years later. We're on the eve of the next election, and the government's going to be going to that election saying: 'Trust us to fix the housing problem that we've done absolutely nothing about in 2½ years'—three years, by then. Not one single home has been built under any policy brought forward by this government.

It's an absolute disgrace, yet we have the new housing minister, the failed former minister, who gets up in question time and says that the government is doing all it can. The government has done nothing.

The only thing I will commend the government on is trying to rebadge and take ownership of coalition policies. The minister gets up in the House and talks about having helped people through the Home Guarantee Scheme. Can I remind the housing minister that the Home Guarantee Scheme is a proud coalition achievement? It is a proud coalition policy to help first home buyers, rather than having to save the full 20 per cent deposit, to purchase a home with a five per cent deposit, supported by a government guarantee. When we announced that policy and when I implemented it, Kristina Keneally called it socialism. The government was scoffing at the policy. Now, it's the only policy that's meaningfully supporting first home buyers.

Not only did we put in place the Home Guarantee Scheme, which is now helping nearly 40 per cent of all first home buyers, but we put in place the First Home Super Saver Scheme, a scheme to help people accelerate their savings through superannuation. At the last election, we took to the election a policy to help first home buyers get over the deposit hurdle by getting access to a portion of their super for a deposit and then being required to put it back into super when they sold their home.

What we did as a government every single day was wake up and think, 'What can we do to help young Australians get into a home?' Yes, we're going to cop flak from the opposition for doing it. Yes, they're going to fight us every step of the way. But, if we do it and it works, in the end they will become converts. Well, they have become converts on the First Home Super Saver Scheme and on the Home Guarantee Scheme. They promised to abolish them, and they haven't, presumably because they understand that these are policies that work, but they have delivered nothing for first home buyers.

Today we see the Minister for Housing accusing the coalition—the party of homeownership and the only party, quite frankly, in this parliament who still fights for young Australians to own a home—of blocking their Help to Buy scheme. I will say unashamedly that we are blocking their Help to Buy scheme because it will do nothing. It will do absolutely nothing. It's the sort of policy you come up with when you want to have something to talk about but you really don't want to do anything meaningful.

Their Help to Buy scheme is a vanilla shared-equity scheme. Almost every state and territory around this country has had or has at the moment a shared-equity product that's offered to its citizens. Guess what? In New South Wales, their shared-equity scheme, virtually identical to the Help to Buy scheme, still has around 90 per cent of its places available because Australians don't want the Prime Minister at their kitchen table. They don't want to be booted out of their home when their income gets above a certain level. They don't want to be the ones that have to wear all of the repairs and the maintenance and the costs associated with a home just to have the government come along when they sell it and say, 'Give us our 40 per cent of the proceeds, even though you've paid for and maintained this property.' It's a Claytons policy.

On this side of the House and in the lead-up to the election, there are two parties, the Liberal and National parties, who will be fighting for first home buyers in this country. It will be the defining feature of the next election, and it will be the reason why we become the government after that election.

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