Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Australia is in one of the worst housing crises in our history, and everyone knows it because the problem is everywhere. The Greens have been campaigning for many years to phase out tax perks for property moguls, which funnel tens of billions of dollars into the pockets of the top 10 per cent of income earners in Australia, turbocharging inequality and actually pushing up house prices. Negative gearing and capital gains tax perks mean that the government is using public money to make it easier for a property investor to buy their fifth, sixth or seventh home than for someone to buy their first home.

Right now, Labor is giving $74 billion of public money over a decade in handouts to investors and landlords through negative gearing and capital gains tax handouts. In fact, that was their biggest budget expenditure. People who own three, four, five or 25 homes don't need the help. These tax perks drive up housing prices. They insulate the wealthy against the impact of interest rate rises, while rents continue to soar, locking young people and low-income earners out of homes to rent, let alone to buy. Labor should adopt the Greens' longstanding policy to restrict negative gearing to one investment property and to scrap the capital gains discount. Labor should stop giving handouts to property moguls with more than one investment property and instead use that money to fund a rent freeze and to build public and genuinely affordable housing.

Housing is meant to be a human right. It's like cake: no-one should get seconds until everyone's had a piece. The Greens will keep fighting for a rent freeze, for serious reforms to housing tax perks and for serious federal investment in building affordable housing.