John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

On housing affordability, why don't you move out to country towns? You can go to where I live—Inverell, a beautiful town of 12,000 people. There are no water restrictions and water is guaranteed from Copeton Dam. Less than $300,000 would buy you a three-bedroom, brick veneer home on a 500- or 600-square metre block. We do not have a housing affordability problem in Australia; we have a land problem. The reason the houses are so expensive in the cities is not the houses; it is the land—that is the value. What do we have plenty of in this country? We have plenty of land. But people will not move out to the country areas, where we have all the room for the people, and we want to grow the towns and we want to grow the businesses. No, they all want to be on top of each other, stacked in a heap in the middle of an over-congested city. They wonder why houses are so expensive—it is because of the value of the land. This is outrageous.

Let us talk about the negative gearing changes that those opposite want to introduce if they are successful in the election. Some of you over there in the Labor Party should go up to Mackay and check out the 1,400 or so empty houses that mum and dad workers have borrowed money for to buy as an investment. Those houses are now empty and they are not getting any return—it is actually costing them for rates, insurance and upkeep on those houses—and you want to take away the little bit of tax benefit they get for the borrowed money. They will not be voting for you, when you want to destroy their livelihoods all because they had a go. What did they do? They had a go. This country is about rewarding those people who work hard and have a go. But those opposite want to reward failure and penalise success. That is what your policy of socialism is all about—supported, of course, by the Greens, who are the ultimate socialists in this building. They just say, 'If you work hard and become successful, that is so wrong.' I congratulate people who have worked hard, have become successful and have saved. You see it so often, but perhaps not often enough.

When it comes to housing affordability, move out to the regional towns. Why don't you move out? Have a look at the senators here in this place. How many are based in regional Australia? Of the 76, you would probably get about 10—perhaps 10 of the 76. Get out to the country areas. I proudly have my office in a country area, to support the businesses and the money going into the town. These negative gearing changes proposed by those opposite are going to do nothing except reduce the value of those houses. You are going to force them to sell. Those people who bought these second-hand houses as an investment in a mining town when the mining boom was here and it was looking good—but, of course, that has passed us now, and we have the collapse in the iron ore and the coal prices—are now facing a disaster where their house is empty and they cannot rent it and probably cannot sell it, because there is not enough demand there. Yet you talk about a housing problem.

Housing affordability is really serious in the cities, but it has been brought on. As I said, go out to the country areas, where housing affordability is not a problem. In fact, you can buy a house for $250,000 and you can rent it for $300 a week. It would cost you very little to actually buy the house, as far as the rent return on it. But, of course, if you do happen to lose money, those opposite say, 'No, you can't negative gear that.' But those opposite do not like investment. You even brought in a law that said that, if you earn more than $250,000 gross income in Australia, if you buy a it is not tax deductible. That came in on 1 January 2013. So if you are doctor, a dentist, a solicitor or a politician, Labor say, 'We don't want you to buy a business or invest in land.' You would rather foreigners by our land, wouldn't you? That is how the people over there think and it is how they act. As far as housing affordability goes, there is one simple solution: move out to the regional areas—they are great places with great people and cheap housing—and your problems will be solved, hopefully, forever.