Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Okay, I will not do that, but I do want to talk about the front page in The Daily Telegraph today, which is basically an attempt to frame up immigrants for the housing price bubble in Sydney. It is a disgusting article. I am tempted to call it dog-whistle journalism, but to be frank it is more like an air raid siren than a dog whistle. It is an appalling piece of racism and gutter journalism. The Daily Telegraph and presumably the government, which no doubt dropped this story as an exclusive to Sharri Markson last night, have completely ignored the major drivers of housing unaffordability in Sydney. There is nothing in there about a long-term structural underinvestment in public and social housing. There is nothing in there about all the public handouts to property speculators contained in things like the negative gearing policy that we currently have in this country and the obscene capital gains tax discount, which is also, tragically, tax policy in this country. There is nothing about property speculators leaving houses basically untenanted because they cannot be bothered to go through what they see as the hassle of getting tenants, because their profits are quite reasonable, thanks very much, thanks to the booming house prices in Sydney and the ongoing taxpayer handouts that they get through the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing.

It is worth reminding The Daily Telegraph that in fact, if you are a property speculator buying your 50th investment property in this country, you get more direct taxpayer subsidy from the government than a young couple trying to buy their first home. It makes me sick, it makes a lot of Australians sick, and it is one of the prime drivers of economic inequality in this country that will end up, ultimately, in shaking the very foundations of our society. I refer members to academic studies that have looked at what brings down civilisations in human history. There are two common factors in the crumbling and collapse of every human civilisation that we know about. One is environmental degradation. Tick, it is happening in front of our eyes. And two is a very big gap between the haves and the have nots in the relevant societies. Again, tick, it is happening before our eyes. I know people will have a little bit of a chuckle and a bit of a smirk about what I am saying, but unless we address environmental sustainability and unless we address economic inequality the foundations of our society will continue to crack. These are now no longer hairline cracks that we are seeing; they are broader than hairline cracks, and they exist right down to the bottom of the foundations of our society.

I am bracing myself for what we are going to see in the Q Society gazette when 18C goes down in this place. I am predicting more than what we saw today, which was most of the front page—an entire double page spread and about half of the editorial page. I think it will be worse. I think the black borders will be pulled out and we will see an obituary for their much beloved love child, 18C reform, and, quite frankly, that is one time I will be celebrating, when the attempt of this government, bullied by The Australian and those editorial writers down at Holt Street into trying to make it easier to be a racist in this country, goes down in the screaming heap that it deserves to go down in.