Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I can understand why all sorts of people in the chamber are very embarrassed right now, because what we saw was an unbelievable alliance: not just the 'no-alition' of the Liberals and the Greens but throw in Senator Hanson and One Nation. We throw in Senator Babet and his great mate Clive Palmer. We have the extreme right of Australian politics and the extreme left of Australian politics pair up—and for what purpose? It's to stop young people being able to buy a home. That's what we just saw here. Labor are trying to deliver on our election promise to assist young renters with buying a home, and what we see is the Liberals, the Nationals, the Greens, One Nation and, of course, Clive Palmer's mate Senator Babet up the back there voting together to stop young people getting to buy a home. It was our election commitment that we took to the election. It was voted for. It was in the Greens' platform, and now they're running away from it, refusing to vote for it. I've heard all the Greens say over the last couple of days, 'Oh, we don't like this, because it only assists a very small percentage of the population with buying a home.' That is the Greens summed up in one sentence: letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. 'Just because we can't help 100 per cent of renters buy a home, we shouldn't allow some people to buy their own home.'

The reality is that we've seen yet again the Greens team up with the coalition and a few other people as well to stop more homes being built and to stop more young people getting a chance to buy a home, and then they have the hide to run around the inner city of all our capital cities, pretending to be the people saying they want housing and they want young people getting their own homes. The only problem with that is that, if you look at what they do when they go back to their home districts, you see it's completely the opposite. Right now, not only are the Greens party here in Canberra voting against Labor legislation and not even letting it to be put to a vote, because they are so embarrassed about the fact that they are stopping new housing, they also, when they go back home, continue to campaign against new housing in their own electorates. We have, for example, the member for Griffith, now known as 'Young Setka', out in the suburb of Woolloongabba in his electorate in the inner city of Brisbane, saying on the one hand to everyone, 'We need more homes,' but he's out there campaigning right now with the Greens party in Queensland against almost 3,000 new social and affordable homes in the suburb of Woolloongabba.

But it's also happening in the Greens-held seat of Brisbane, where the Greens member for Brisbane is opposing an apartment building in his inner-city electorate because its height 'would have a substantive impact on the views of existing nearby residents.' The Greens member for Brisbane says that views from existing apartment blocks are more important than new homes. Then he goes on. The Greens member for Brisbane is opposing a development that would turn an empty sand and gravel factory into 381 residential apartments, because there would be too many car parks. He's also concerned that the height of the buildings 'would impact the unique character of this heritage neighbourhood'. So more homes are great except when Labor wants to build them.

The Greens member for Brisbane is opposing a build-to-rent project in his electorate that would create 349 new apartments. This site is currently an empty lot. It is 200 metres from a major train station and walking distance to the Brisbane CBD. In his letter opposing the development, the member claimed, 'Brisbane residents are fed up with developers claiming they are addressing the housing crisis by increasing supply,' because, God forbid, you wouldn't want to increase housing supply, would you? That would be terrible thing if you were a Greens member for Brisbane, a Liberal, a National, a One Nation member or a Clive Palmer puppet. All of those people are getting together to block more homes, led by people like the member for Brisbane.

Probably my favourite one, though, is the Greens member for Ryan, who is campaigning against a plan to subdivide a chicken farm in the suburb of Mitchelton, a suburb I know well, to build 91 new homes. In December last year, the member wrote to the Brisbane City Council, complaining the project—this is a chicken farm—would 'diminish the natural character of the site,' because it's much more important to have a disused chicken farm than it is to have 91 new homes, which, on the other hand, the Greens say that they want to have.

This is an absolutely disgraceful attack on young people and on people who want to buy their own home, and the guilty parties are right there before us. It's the Liberals and the Nationals, it's One Nation and, most of all, it is the Greens party.