Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

HOWARTH () (): You don't have to be a rocket scientist to see that homelessness is an issue across Australia. People in my electorate are telling me they have seen an increase in people living in cars and in parks throughout the electorate. According to the last census, in 2021, 123,000 people experienced homelessness. The government haven't done a great job here, but we're happy to lead from opposition.

One thing we need to do is have more houses built and more land released. Supply is a big issue. The government can't be greedy. The state governments and the councils can't be greedy with taxes, because every dollar that they get from taxing developers and investors is passed on to people buying that land and those homes, so it's a fine balancing act.

In regard to high-rise development, people can't complain every time there is a high-rise development application. You can't have it both ways. You can't see people on the streets and want something done and then complain when an application is put forward for high-rise development. There is only so much land in the country. What's interesting is that I've actually had people who live in high-rise complain about high-rise.

We also need to train more tradespeople. Being a tradie is an honourable profession. I was one before I came into parliament. The coalition, when we were in government, did a lot to help train tradies. We had the JobTrainer fund, which basically gave free training all through COVID. Then we had the boosting apprenticeship scheme, which got so many people into apprenticeships, and we actually paid part of their wages.

The state government in Queensland needs to do a lot better. The Palaszczuk government haven't done a great job of managing their public housing stock. Since the Newman government left over eight years ago, the Palaszczuk Labor government haven't supported community housing providers, mainly because they want union jobs within the public sector and just because the Newman government supported CHPs. They're finally starting to realise that CHPs do a reasonable job when rents are capped at 30 per cent and you can also get Commonwealth rent assistance.

Inflation, of course, has been rising. We've seen it rise in the past 12 months. If I ask people: 'Are you better off now than you were 12 months ago, when the Albanese government came to power?' the reality is that the answer is no, and it's not coming from the Kremlin; it's coming from Canberra. We need to look after middle Australia. There was nothing in the budget for middle Australia, for working people. They rightly help people who are doing it tough and are on welfare, but if you're working—a single person or a couple or a couple with a family—there isn't much there, apart from the small amount for energy relief. Today we heard the minister talk and crow about energy prices. They were due to go up by 40 per cent but he's somehow reduce that by eight per cent. So a 32 per cent increase is a good thing, despite the fact that he promised a $275 reduction at the last election.

The reality is that we have to promote homeownership. We've got to tell young people that they can buy their first home. It is possible and they mustn't be negative around this. I see little of that from the current Labor government. The coalition has a good record in this place. It was the coalition that legislated the First Home Super Saver scheme. Every young person who wants to buy your first home, save in super rather than a bank and pay 15 per cent tax on everything you earn over 45 grand rather than 32½ per cent. It was the coalition that brought in the First Home Guarantee, where you only need to save five per cent and we'll cover the mortgage insurance for you. It was the coalition that brought in the Family Home Guarantee, which enabled single parents, having saved a deposit of just two per cent, to then get into their own home. If you're earning up to $125,000, you can take advantage of that.

The reality is the coalition has a good record when it comes to homelessness between 2016 and 2021. We reduced rough sleeping from 8,200 people to 7,600, we reduced severe overcrowding from 51,000 people to 47,000 nationally, and we reduced couch surfing from 17,000 people to 16,000. The reality is there's always more to do, but we did do some good things. I want to pay credit to the Labor government up in Queensland. I wrote a joint letter with them, when I was the community housing minister, around reducing boarding houses, and that was the only figure that we saw fall in Queensland between 2016 and 2021. The next census is due in 2026. Labor has a lot of work to do.