Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker, and I thank the honourable member for the question. The reason I made that Queensland reference was because I wanted to begin by acknowledging in a very Queensland way that in our economy too often younger people and younger families get the rough end of the pineapple when it comes to the way that some of our policies are set up. That's really the motivation behind so much of what we are doing. Whether it's the way we rewrote the tax cuts, whether it is our Help to Buy scheme that passed the House today, whether it's all the other things we're doing in housing, whether it is our efforts to get wages moving again and strengthen Medicare, all of that, in one way or another, is in recognition and in response to the fact that we do think that young people have had a rough deal for too long. It is also the motivating force behind the changes we are making to student debt. So to acknowledge in the member for Kennedy's question something I agree with, we can always do more to make sure that younger people get a fairer in our economy and in our society, and housing affordability is a big part of that.

The member asked me about the role of the states and the role of the Commonwealth. We have acknowledged—more than acknowledged—and we have taken responsibility for a huge amount of Commonwealth investment in housing. I pay tribute to the housing minister and her predecessor for that $32 billion. That's because we know if we are going to build the homes that we need to make our economy fairer for young people then we need everyone to do their bit and we are doing our bit.

The member for Kennedy asked me about the role of the states. There is a substantial role for the states here, whether it is in regulation or investment or in other ways—and I will be convening the state treasurers on Friday here in Canberra to talk about some of these issues that he raises in his question. But if his question is: is there a role for the Commonwealth, then, yes, we embrace that enthusiastically. If his question is: is there a role for states and state regulators, of course there is. If we are to build the homes we need for the young people to deliver that sense of intergenerational justice that the member asked me about, everybody needs to do their bit. We're doing our bit and the states need to do their bit as well.

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