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

It's very unusual that people close to me can't hear me, but I guess there's a first time for everything!

But I want to talk about people who are on youth allowance, just briefly. Basically, someone who is on youth allowance can afford only $102 a week on rent before they hit rental stress. What do you reckon you're going to get for 102 bucks a week currently in Australia, where rents have gone up by 30 per cent since Labor came into office, just two short years ago? Do you know what you can get for 102 bucks a week in Australia? Absolutely nothing.

I also want to talk about my home state of Tasmania. Almost half of Tasmanians who have a mortgage are in mortgage stress, which is defined as having to spend 30 per cent or more of their annual household income on mortgage repayments. In a housing survey in May this year by EMRS—a very reputable polling company in Australia—89 per cent of Tasmanians, almost everyone, agreed that Tasmania is in a housing crisis. Just to put that in context, you could poll support for breathing and you'd only get 95 per cent; you wouldn't get 100 per cent support. So 89 per cent means that Tasmanians overwhelmingly agree that Tasmania is in a housing crisis. And of course this is not just a housing crisis in Tasmania. This is a national housing crisis.

It is time for Labor to get serious about addressing this absolute societal calamity that we are living through in Australia—this housing catastrophe in which millions of Australians are in either rent or mortgage stress, where homelessness is increasing, where people right across the age spectrum are being done over by landlords who are able, under Labor's policy settings, to increase their rent by whatever they like. And then they say, 'Oh, well, the market can determine it.' Well, here's a message for the Labor Party: housing shouldn't be a market. Housing is a human right. Everyone in this country has a right to a safe and affordable home.

The former housing minister for the Labor Party, Ms Collins, said the quiet thing out loud on 7.30 about 12 to 15 months ago. She said that she wanted to see housing as an asset class. Talk about saying the quiet thing out loud! Housing shouldn't be an asset class; housing should be a place for people to live. It should be a place where people can live safely and securely at a decent temperature with decent amenities and decent facilities at an affordable rate, whether they have a mortgage or are in the rental market. Instead of actually taking the significant action that is required to address this housing crisis, Labor are fiddling around at the margins because they want to be seen to be doing something even though they're not actually doing anything. This is all about the perception for the Labor Party, and it has nothing at all to do with actually taking meaningful action to address the housing crisis in Australia.

Rents have gone up 30 per cent since the Labor Party came into power. Since the Labor Party came into power, mortgages in this country have increased on average by over $1,600 a month. That's the situation that Labor have overseen, and that is the situation they should be acting to fix. Instead, they're bringing in legislation that will actually continue to put upward pressure on house prices and price more and more renters—a significant number of whom are young Australians—out of the market. Young Australians are seeing their dream of one day being able to afford their own home evaporate.

Rather than fixate on when this vote is going to be, playing some political game that only they themselves understand, the Labor Party should actually be fixating on solving the housing crisis. What this bill is not going to do is solve the housing crisis. What this bill will do is exacerbate an element of the housing crisis. Even though it will provide marginal benefit to 0.2 per cent of Australian renters, it will make housing less affordable for the other 99.8 per cent.

Folks, single parents are skipping meals.

Honourable senators interjecting—

This is actually not funny, for those who are laughing, but single parents are skipping meals to be able to feed their children. People are having to dumpster-dive to put food on the table. Poverty is a political choice, and it's a political choice made by parties that won't increase income support and that still support the $190-odd billion that goes into tax breaks for property speculators in the form of negative gearing and capital gains tax discount. The housing market in this country is skewed in a grossly unfair way towards property speculators, many of whom have 10 or 20 or 30—