Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Milne has just put some comments on the record about superannuation and that wider picture. Personally I would like to welcome Mr Hockey to this debate. I would like to thank Mr Hockey for noticing the existence of the housing affordability crisis in Australia, particularly as it pertains to young people. He is pretty late to the party, but his arrival is nonetheless very welcome. In the brief time he has left as Treasurer, we can confirm that, from our point of view, there would be widespread support for any meaningful attempt to ease the chronic housing stress suffered by millions of Australians—the Labor Party, crossbenchers, Greens, no problem.

But, first, we need to talk about this thing he said about superannuation. Appearing to believe that young people, who have been priced out of one of the most severely unaffordable housing markets in the world, should deplete their retirement savings in order to further bid up housing prices and go massively into debt for an overpriced home comes from the cigar-chomping thinking of someone who has never actually had to worry about these sorts of things for himself.

The idea was immediately condemned by people as diverse as former Prime Minister Paul Keating and Peter Costello. Mr Keating, who is never one to pull his punches, pointed out that the Liberal Party is always trying to 'pull the plug out of the bath of Australia's universal superannuation pool'. Peter Collins, formerly Joe Hockey's boss and former Treasurer of New South Wales, said it is 'time the Abbott government told the public that this is not a proposal they will be adopting'. A little bit more on the diplomatic side, Mr Costello said, 'I think there is a bit of a conflicting narrative there'. It was described by Mr Turnbull—although I guess Mr Hockey is used to being contradicted by the member for Wentworth—as a 'thoroughly bad idea'.

It may be that Mr Hockey is not aware of this, but from the day this government was elected it has done everything within its power to dismantle Commonwealth support for housing affordability. Senator McLucas touched on some of those issues—ironically enough, so did Senator Sinodinos, although I am not sure if he was aware of it at the time. The government abolished the National Rental Affordability Scheme. They sacked the National Housing Supply Council—