Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Attorney-General (Senator Brandis) to a question without notice asked by me today relating to homelessness.

This was a question that went to the issue of homelessness in Australia. This is National Homelessness Week. It's an absolute disgrace that there has been not one press release, not one statement and not one question from the government in relation to homelessness during Homelessness Week 2017. It doesn't surprise me, because they had no comment about it last year and they don't care about the homeless. That mob across the chamber are so comfortable, so well off and so divorced from not only the problems that the homeless have in this country but also the problems that ordinary Australians have in getting into a home. This is against all of the evidence that we have that they have no overarching policy.

We heard Senator Brandis saying, 'Well, we'll just get more jobs.' Well, if you're a young Australian trying to find a job in an area with 20-odd per cent youth unemployment, the chances of getting a job are pretty remote. A lot of those young Australians are in National Party seats, the worst party ever—no, One Nation is worse than them, but the National Party are pretty bad anyway. They don't look after their own area, and housing affordability is as bad in regional Australia as it is in the city. Wages are lower in rural Australia. Wages are lower in regional Australia and in some areas in regional Australia the actual cost of renting a house is higher than the cost of renting a house in Sydney. Those are the facts. What AHURI said—this is the government-funded body that looks at housing and homelessness—in their report in June 2017 is this:

… housing is not conceived within the machinery of government as a prominent economic or policy area, despite its very large asset value.

…   …   …

The research notes that there is evidence that this neglect is deliberate on the part of the present … Government …

This is a government-funded organisation looking at housing, saying there is deliberate neglect by this government. Rather than what Senator Brandis stood up and argued, that they had this great housing policy, John Daley, one of the recognised housing experts and housing economists in this country, said that you would need an electron microscope to see any effect on housing prices from the government's policies.

This is a government that would rather give $50 billion to the big end of town in tax cuts than look after Australians that cannot afford a home. They would rather give $50 billion tax cuts to their mates in the big end of town than look at people who have fallen on hard times and cannot put a roof over their head. They would rather spend $122 million going to a poll of the Australian people on marriage equality, because they have got a Prime Minister who is the weakest Prime Minister this country has ever seen since Billy McMahon—I reckon he'll make Billy McMahon look like Samson in the future. Malcolm Turnbull has no courage and no capacity to actually bring this government together to deal with the serious issues of housing and homelessness in this country.

Young people cannot afford a home, because this lot won't deal with capital gains tax and negative gearing. All they want to do is to make sure that their mates who put the funds into their election campaigns are looked after, and that means the rich people in this country get access to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions at the expense of young people trying to get into a home. Young people cannot live in the suburbs they have been brought up in; it's a disgrace. (Time expired)