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

The Greens will be supporting Senator Lambie's matter of public importance because we agree that wealth inequality is spiralling in Australia and that housing unaffordability has worsened. The share of the Australian economy going to profits has never been higher than it is today, and the share of the Australian economy going to wages—that is, to ordinary Australian people—has never been lower than it is today. The social contract is in tatters.

It used to be possible to believe in this country that, if you studied hard and if you worked hard, you could have a decent life, but today that promise—that social contract—is a cruel joke for millions of Australians. If you can't hear that social contract creaking under your feet, colleagues, you are simply not paying attention. This is particularly true for young people. The great Australian dream of owning a home is receding faster and faster from more and more young people. Young people's futures are tied far more closely to the wealth of their parents than they have ever been in Australia's history. The new class divide in this country is between property owners on the one hand and people who don't own property because they can't afford to get into a spiralling property market on the other hand.