Christopher Back (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am keen to discuss this with Senator Conroy when the opportunity presents. But we know the circumstance. Once somebody is in their own dwelling, we know they have the opportunity to upgrade over time. Capital gain benefit goes to the homeowner, to the person buying. In my own case, my wife and I in 1974 purchased a very humble little timber cottage with a tin roof, in the town of Northam. As time progressed, as it gained in capital value, we were able to sell it and upgrade. So surely the opportunity must exist—and I am very keen to engage with Senator Conroy at a later time. I am very, very keen to have that discussion, because I think there are enormous benefits. There are enormous benefits to the community. There are enormous benefits to individuals. There are enormous benefits to families. And at no time is there a loss to the Australian net value of superannuation, because the additional value over time of that real estate asset actually stays within the retirement funds.

What then can be achieved? First of all, if there are concerns about overheating a market, it could be that the opportunity is limited to new builds, to stimulate housing construction. It could certainly be that, if there is a concern about overheating markets, in certain markets it could be limited to a percentage of the median house price.

I return to the concept of rural and regional. Senator Conroy probably never goes into regional and rural Australia, but I can say to you that there are towns that are dying. There are towns where the cost of a house to a young family is very, very attractive. The opportunity for them to move into that circumstance, to gain homeownership, is absolutely incredible.

So we have many circumstances, in my view, in which this sort of issue can well be discussed. Is it of value to the Australian community for us to have a higher proportion of homeownership?

Senator Conroy interjecting—

Does Senator Conroy believe that it is not a benefit?

I will conclude, if I may, with the story of my own family. My father's mother died when he was a young kid, in the goldfields. At the same time, his father took the family down to Fremantle, where my grandfather got a job on the wharf. An equivalent family, the Migro family—their husband and father died in a mine accident in Boulder. Nanna Migro, as I remember her, was a very, very small woman, widowed in about 1919, 1920. She had no husband, no social security and five children—six when my father was added into it. What happened was that a bank backed her. It actually loaned her those funds, and my father's earliest memories are of living in the safety and the security of the Migro household. She was able to provide a roof over their heads. That little house in John Street in North Fremantle still exists. Time went on. My father, working on the wharf during the Depression and studying bookkeeping, got a job as a banker. Regrettably for me, he died at the age of 60 years, in the bank. What was interesting was, when he died, the number of letters my mother received from people who said to her: 'Your husband supported us into homeownership. He supported us for a roof over our heads, and that was what kept our family together.' I grew up in a household which absolutely valued homeownership, and I for one want to see Australia's funds assisting to achieve that.

Senate adjourned at 19:59