Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this MPI. There is absolutely no economic issue weighing more heavily on the minds and hearts of millennial Australians than the issue of homeownership. Young Australians—my generation of Australians—feel let down, and they feel locked out of the housing market. They have seen a change in what they can aspire to. They've seen a change in the market around them. They have felt unheard and let down for too many years as they have raised the alarm that housing continues to feel out of reach for them and for the generations coming after them and what that means in terms of their economic opportunities, their potential, their futures and how they raise their families, what communities they live in and how connected and close they stay to their parents and where they grew up. These issues weigh heavily.

It is the source of huge frustration for these Australians that, when they look at a chamber like ours and they look at the parliament, they see political parties that are more interested in and more focused on teaming up to stop action on housing and to stop policies which would promote supply or help young Australians get into a home. There is more focus and energy on that, on the tactics and politics of the day, than on the policy development. That is deeply distressing to them, indeed.

Again today, we've had more time spent on crafting a motion than on crafting policy ideas. We've had one policy idea from the opposition, and that's to raid your superannuation to buy a house. Their idea is that, if you're a young Australian, you have to choose between superannuation and homeownership. Superannuation was never intended for that. It is about having a secure retirement. I don't think it's right that young Australians should have to choose, that we should limit the aspirations of young Australians to that choice. Labor believes you should have both. We believe in superannuation and we believe that ordinary Australians should be able to own a home. We believe that nurses, childcare workers and teachers should be able to own their own home.

Our Help to Buy policy, which the Greens, the Liberals and the Nationals teamed up to block out of this place, would've helped low- and middle-income earners into a home—tens of thousands of them. Who benefits from the decision to block that legislation? Absolutely no-one, except maybe the social media clicks of the Greens political party. There's a political advantage here, but there's no policy outcome for people.

Millennial Australians want to get into a home. They know that the answer to the problems before us is supply. The answer is supply, and I've yet to see a single plan put on the table by those opposite which would do anything to encourage supply. There is this unholy alliance in this parliament which, for political gain, is so focused on blocking progress and denying people the opportunity to buy a home. It's just so unfair. It is so unfair to millennial Australians, who want the same opportunities that their parents had and deserve that opportunity, who don't want to have to choose between superannuation and homeownership and who don't think it's fair that their aspirations are limited by the generations before them, including those in this chamber. They don't think that's fair, and I don't think it's fair either.

We have brought policy after policy to this chamber, seeking support to take action on a crisis which weighs heavily on the hearts of these Australians, and we've seen those political parties team up to block and delay. They are delaying the HAFF and blocking other pieces of legislation, including on rent-to-buy—that's off the table. They haven't come in here with a plan or a policy which would actually make a difference in people's lives. They're more interested in their social media algorithms and clicks than they are in building social housing. That's a sorry and sad state of affairs. The other side are more interested in limiting the aspirations of young Australians than in backing them in and supporting them.

This is a ridiculous state of affairs. People look at this parliament and see that we have the power to do something. We have the power to do something on supply. We have the power to help ordinary people into homes and to focus on what we can do to increase supply and get people into homes. There is this unholy alliance more interested in and committed to the political outcomes of what it might mean for them at the next election than what young people are calling for, and that's to have their aspirations to own a home realised.