Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You wouldn't know this from Senator Canavan's remarks, but there is, in fact, a housing crisis in regional Australia. In the country towns that the National Party bludges off throughout regional Australia there is a housing crisis of immense proportions. In the past year, rents in regional cities have been increasing at three times the rate of rents in capital cities. Low-income families who previously moved to the regions to avoid high housing costs have been caught. In the Richmond-Tweed region, rents have risen by 17.6 per cent in the last year. In the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven, rents have risen by 13.2 per cent. On the Mid North Coast, rent is up by 12.7 per cent.

The Northern Star reported this week about the effect this is having on ordinary people in the northern rivers, such as a pregnant woman looking for a secure home before she gives birth and an older woman living in a caravan because she can't find a rental. There are no properties in that area available to single parents on JobSeeker—none. Meanwhile, there are record-low vacancy rates across regional New South Wales. Families in the Riverina, South Coast and south-east New South Wales are struggling to find a place to live. They're living in caravans, under bridges, in parks and in tents. Some of them are living in tents with their primary-school-aged children. The answer, of course, is simple. We need more housing stock and we need more public, social and affordable housing across regional New South Wales.

If you look at the areas that have the worst housing stress in the nation and the areas where there is the biggest gap between the people who have housing and property portfolios and the people who can't get housing, they have one thing in common: they are the areas that are represented in this place by the National Party. They are the areas where there is the strongest contest between the National Party, who, as I say, bludge off those areas, and the Labor Party, who seek to represent those areas.

This government has managed to rack up $1 trillion in debt, most of it before the COVID-19 crisis. They've built nothing—nothing in infrastructure and certainly nothing in social housing. Where is the National Party, the self-appointed party of regional Australia, on these questions? What has been occupying their attention over the course of the last week? Well, of course, over the course of the last couple of years the National Party has disappeared up its own fundament in an orgy of self-interest, recriminations and back-biting and a passion for their own naked self-interest.

What were the things that brought them to this shameful position? Was it their failure to respond to the housing crisis in regional New South Wales? No. It never gets a mention. Was it their complete absence while the mouse plague was tearing apart regional communities? No, we haven't heard boo from them on that question. Was it the failed vaccine rollout in regional Australia? Some of them are vaccine deniers, but there's been nothing from them on that question. Is it the endemic labour market problem in regional Australia? Is it the systematic underpayment of agricultural workers, the gutting of regional TAFEs, the decline of regional apprenticeships or the labour hire rorts that ripped money out of regional communities and sent it to big city shareholders? It was none of these things. Was it a question of the future for agricultural exporters who are losing key markets to our European and United States competitors? No—haven't heard boo about that either. Was it their failure to introduce a biosecurity levy that would properly fund the biosecurity system that our farmers rely upon? No. Was it their failure to support drought affected communities during the longest and deepest drought in recent history? Didn't hear much from them on that question either. Was it their failure to support bushfire affected communities? No. Flood affected communities? Zip.

There is no shortage of reasons why the National Party, in a rare moment of introspection, might reach the conclusion that they are letting down the people of regional Australia. They are a junior part of this coalition government, a doormat for Scott Morrison, with no plan for agriculture, no plan for the agriculture sector, no plan for jobs in country towns, and no plan to deal with the deep inequality that's reflected in the urgency motion before the Senate and make sure that working people in country towns have access to housing. It used to be a basic right in a country town that, no matter what your income, everybody had a home. And public housing in country towns was a great thing. It meant that low-income families could secure a home, but it also meant that moderate-income families and people like schoolteachers had easy access to housing and that there was some equality in country towns. But it's gone. For most people, housing is inaccessible, particularly for young people.

So what was the point of this squabble this week? Was it a road-to-Damascus moment for the National Party—the dregs of the squattocracy, what remains of the Australian bunyip aristocracy? No, it was about the only thing these characters have ever cared about: their own interests, their own jobs—because, after all of this, has the new National Party leadership mentioned any of the serious issues facing rural and regional Australia? It wouldn't occur to them. It's definitely not front of mind. Their press conferences yesterday didn't talk about farmers or housing or wages or health care. It was only about themselves. They talked about the member for New England's personal sense of manifest destiny—his burning, overreaching desire for gratification and personal advancement. Has the phrase 'born to rule' ever more appropriately described a man's approach to public life? Has anyone so perfectly balanced shamelessness with such an astonishingly absent grasp of what his duty is to his electorate and to his constituents?

This man, Mr Joyce, has now risen not once but twice to the position of Deputy Prime Minister. The member for Riverina's leadership never amounted to much, but at least he looked like he cared about the people that he represented. He got a standing ovation from the House of Representatives yesterday. The member for New England's last departure from the office of Deputy Prime Minister was much more ignominious. Mr McCormack might not have done anything about the housing crisis in regional New South Wales, and I don't doubt that if he'd stayed he would have continued to do nothing about it. But at least he theoretically might have had the basic self-awareness to recognise it as a problem.

Instead, what the people of Australia got yesterday was the co-host of the world's worst, most boring, self-aggrandising podcast, the old Weatherboard and Iron. There's somebody in my office who is forced to listen to it from time to time, and I'm not sure, out of Mr Joyce and Senator Canavan, which one of them is 'weatherboard' and which one of them is 'iron'. No doubt this podcast won't be able to continue. It's not really befitting for someone with the high office of Deputy Prime Minister to be running mad, right-wing podcasts. It remains to be seen whether Weatherboard and Iron continues. It has certainly, over its short life, put the 'bored' into 'weatherboard'.