Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Gallagher today relating to housing affordability.

Earlier in question time, I asked a fairly straightforward series of questions around the issue of housing affordability around the country, particularly about house prices in Sydney and Melbourne. Median house prices in Sydney now exceed a million dollars and median house prices in Melbourne are certainly going very close to that. We are also seeing the average mortgage size for both those cities exceeding $400,000 for the first time. At the same time, the level of first home owners as a percentage of owner occupiers has declined to 15 per cent from the long-term average of 19.7 per cent. Around a million people across Australia are living every day in housing and mortgage stress. This is the picture of housing affordability for many Australians. It is simply becoming unaffordable.

Over the last 2½ years the response from the federal government has been completely and totally inadequate. The response has been one of disinterest and of referring to the states and territories. The view of the federal government appears to be that they have no active role to play in ensuring that housing remains affordable for a whole range of groups across the community. This is the challenge that is presented. It was clearly outlined in a very comprehensive report of the Senate Economics References Committee which reported over 10 months ago. Earlier this week we received a letter from minister responsible, saying that the response which was due approximately seven months ago will not be forthcoming in the foreseeable future.

In response to the questions that I asked today, the minister did touch on the fact that they are working with states and territories to look at possible initiatives which might improve the supply of housing. The coalition went to the last election with its 'real solutions' statement, saying they would work with states and territories to improve the supply of housing. And yet, a few months before an election, 2½ years into a term, nothing has been done. In January this year a working group was established. More than two years following the election of the government they established a working group—at the request of state and territory treasurers, I might add; I am not sure they would have done it had it not been requested of them—to look at financing arrangements for the supply of housing and at affordability initiatives.

Interestingly, this working group—which does not include anyone from the affordable housing sector, community housing sector, social housing sector or industry—will report to heads of Treasury on 30 July this year, with a report to government probably sometime after that. What this says, and what the minister confirmed today in his answers, is that the federal government really does not see that it has any role to play in addressing the issues of unaffordability of housing across the country. They are prepared to do nothing for an entire term, to have a failed federation white paper process, which looked at some of the issues but then decided they were too hard. They stopped that, they started a working group and ensured that it will not report until after the election, and they pretend that they are doing something about it. There has not been a single initiative by this government to improve affordable housing across this country. In fact, it is the opposite. They have abolished the National Housing Supply Council and they have withdrawn $44 million in capital funding from the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. We have 105,000 people who are homeless every night in this country, and we have homelessness groups that operate on the smell of an oily rag—with no long-term certainty about their funding future because there is no long-term strategy to deal with the issues presented by homelessness and the numbers of people who are increasingly being locked out of the housing market.

Others are now speaking of 'generation rent'—the people who will never buy a house in this country. The federal government has no interest at all in these people. (Time expired)