Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In the three minutes I have available to cover these two vast topics, I will at least give an indication of where I stand on these issues. Firstly, the issue of superannuation being used for a first home is something that I raised following evidence given by HomeStart Finance in South Australia, a state government authority that has done terrific work. It was a Labor government initiative in South Australia. It has been a tremendous success. It has made money and got people into homes—people who otherwise would not have been able to deal with the conventional lending market. Sixty-four thousand households have been able to purchase a home. It has generated more than $380 million for the South Australian government. It shows that there is always room, where there is market failure in the commercial lending market, for a socially equitable method of lending money to people. HomeStart Finance raised it because it has a very strong social justice basis for what it does. I think that we should at least consider it in the context of some very strict safeguards.

But we also need to look at issues of negative gearing. We need to tweak negative gearing in respect of that, but we need to do this very carefully so it does not have an inflationary impact on the housing market to make housing less affordable. The fact is that house prices have increased faster than household incomes for the past 40 years. The fact is we have seen that the deposit gap index has increased more than the house-prices-to-income index for the past 30 years. Back 1970, the Australian median house price was $13,000 and the deposit gap was zero; there was no deposit gap. In 2007, the deposit gap had increased to $224,700 on a median house price of $404,000. So we are doing something wrong when it comes to affordable housing. There must be reforms in respect of that.

My position on superannuation is well known. I support superannuation. I believed it was wrong to defer the superannuation increases, but I do believe there is plenty of scope to have greater accountability and transparency in the way super funds operate. That is why I have proposed that there ought to be an AGM type set-up every year so that those who have their life savings in a super fund can ask questions of the director of the super fund in a cost-effective way. That is very important.

In the remaining 40 seconds, I just want to make this point. We have got it wrong when it comes to housing affordability. Fewer and fewer Australians can afford to buy their first home. This needs to involve some bold visions in terms of planning and dealing with access to deposits. It involves dealing with making houses more affordable through a whole range of measures that involve local, state and federal governments. But it is important that the Commonwealth have a leadership role in this. The sooner we tackle this problem and treat it seriously, the better off we will be as a community.