Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

At the last election, I well recall some people saying, 'Why don't we give those opposite, the other mob, a go, because, really, how bad could they be and how bad could they make things in a single term?' Sadly for Australians, but particularly for Western Australians, they keep exceeding expectations on every front. For Western Australians, with 12 interest rate rises under that mob opposite, the average mortgage holder is paying an extra $24,000 a year in mortgage repayments. Workers are paying 15 per cent more income tax. At the same time, real wages have gone backwards by over five per cent in disposable income. That is the worst in the OECD.

Clearly Australians are not better off. But there is a national housing crisis. The last Labor budget committed to allowing 1.5 million people to migrate to Australia over the next five years. That's fine if there is somewhere for them to stay and to live and they are not taking housing and rental stock away from people who are already living here. Under their policies, what has happened? National rental affordability is the lowest in three decades, with a median income household, now earning $105,000, able to afford only 13 per cent of properties on the rental market. So people earning $100,000 a year or over can afford only 13 per cent of the very miserly amount of stock available.

In Western Australia the situation is worse. In WA the median house rent has increased from $500 to $600 in the last year. This is on top of all of the other cost-of-living burdens that those opposite have placed on their households. All the while, the cost for owner-occupiers purchasing their homes has increased by 10.4 per cent in one year under those opposite. Shockingly, people in Perth under two Labor governments, federal and state, now require an annual gross income of $136,000 to be able to afford a median home. That is a $46,000 increase from April last year alone under those opposite and their policies. At below one per cent, WA has the tightest rental market of any state, equal at the moment with South Australia.

The Cook Labor government is making a bad situation worse. Somehow, with all the billions of dollars they've spent on housing, these geniuses have managed to have less social housing stock available, with 35,000 people on the waiting list. (Time expired)