Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I was growing up, most of my school years were spent during the life of the Hawke and Keating governments,  when we had ‘the recession we had to have’, when my fellow students at Gawler High School and young people like me everywhere wondered whether they would get a job because unemployment was so high, and we wondered whether we would be able to afford a house one day, because interest rates were so high. I am pleased to stand here today to say that, after 11 years of good economic management by the Howard government, people such as me, who went through the school system during the Hawke-Keating years, have now seen that sound economic management means that you can get a job and you can buy a house. There is, of course, one key important factor in home ownership—the most important factor—and that is having the income stream with which to buy a house. That is, having a job is the most critical factor when it comes to home ownership.

Last week we saw the release of new employment statistics saying that some 10,483,700 Australians have a job. That is more than at any time in Australia’s history, I am pleased to say. Of those jobs, 2.1 million have been created since 1996, with 1.2 million of them being full time. Indeed, more than 387,000 of those jobs have been created since the workplace relations reforms were introduced in 2005. So the first critical factor for young Australians—for any Australian—to be able to buy a house is a job, and the Howard government has provided jobs in spades. It is unquestionably our greatest single economic achievement. We have not only provided those jobs but we have done so with rising real wages. There are more people in more jobs with more money with which to buy their homes, a key and critical factor.

There is a second factor, though, which plays into this, and that is the question of availability. People can have the jobs and have the income but they need to find a place to buy. Unfortunately, this is where our state and territory counterparts have grossly mismanaged the housing market. They have failed to release appropriate land stocks, they have failed to ensure that the homes are being built in areas where people can afford to buy them and they have failed to provide adequate transport and ensure low-cost transport into new areas of development. They have failed to provide the supply side that is required to make sure that housing remains as affordable as it should be. So with the first factor we have a story where critically on the jobs front the Howard Liberal government has delivered over the past 11 years. With the second factor we have a sad and sorry tale of state and territory Labor governments failing to deliver for Australians.

There is a third factor, though, and that is financing. Alongside with having a job, there must be affordable financing. I am very pleased to say that the financing of home ownership is far more accessible again today than it was when people of my age, people who are today buying their homes for the first time, were considering doing so way back in their schooling years. Financing is far more available and far more affordable, standard variable home loan rates having fallen from 10.5 per cent when the Howard government was elected in 1996 to an average of 8.3 per cent today. Would we like them to be lower? Do we wish recent rises had not occurred? Absolutely. But are we proud of the fact that they are lower today than they were when we were elected? You bet. Are we proud of the fact that they are lower today than at any time when the Labor Party was last in government? We are very proud of that, because along with record jobs, that is the factor that is allowing Australians to borrow and get into homeownership.

In fact they are some four per cent lower today than they were on average under Labor’s reign. We have a very good story to tell, and yet we have the hypocrisy from the other side who are advancing policies in workplace relations reforms, whose history on government debt would only drive interest rates higher. Econtech have found that interest rates would be some 1.4 per cent higher under a Labor government, because their unrestrained workplace relations policies would allow union bosses into any workplace, driving up wages free of any consideration of productivity, costing the average Australian some $273 more per month. (Time expired)