Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Multicultural Engagement) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Talking about education, I note that the Greens are proposing an amendment to the Help to Buy Bill 2023 which once again raises the issue of rent controls. How many times do we have to come to this place and hear this nonsense from the Greens—this economic nonsense that rent controls, rent caps or rent ceilings are a solution to Australia's housing problem?

In the past I've quoted from my book Basic Economics by Thomas Sowell. Rent controls didn't work in Australia after World War II in Melbourne. They didn't work in Egypt. They didn't work in the United States. They haven't worked in England and Wales. They haven't worked in Canada or the United States. Nowhere where they've been tried have rent controls actually worked. They always make the problem worse.

Now I want to refer to another study on rent controls in Argentina, and I thank my friend Martin for forwarding this to me. Again, these mechanisms have been tried. What happened in Argentina in 2019 when they introduced rent controls—the rent controls the extreme Greens want Australia to have? Forty-five per cent of landlords stopped renting. Average rents soared. They went up from 18,000 pesos a month at the end of 2019 to 334,000 pesos today. Landlords stopped paying for maintenance on their properties. What happened when rent controls were removed in Argentina just recently? It led to an increase in supply of approximately 45 per cent, and rents actually fell between 20 and 30 per cent following the removal of rent control.

Rent controls don't work. The Greens keep banging this rent-control drum. It would be a disaster for Australia.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Senate has a huge opportunity today. We could pass Labor's Help to Buy Bill and make housing more accessible and affordable for tens of thousands of Australian families. This is a policy with widespread support. It's supported by the Grattan Institute, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, the Master Builders Association, the Housing Industry Association and National Shelter. It has been supported by former Liberal prime ministers John Howard, Tony Abbott, Malcolm Turnbull and Scott Morrison; Tasmanian Liberal Premier Jeremy Rockliff; the Queensland LNP leader; former premier Dominic Perrottet and Treasurer Matt Kean; and former Western Australian coalition leader Mia Davies. I know the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, loves saying no to everyone and everything, but he may be setting a record here for the most people in his own party he's saying no to in one go.

Help to Buy is also supported by the policy platform the Greens took to the last election. The Greens political platform said: 'The Greens will establish a shared equity ownership scheme to help people currently locked out of the market to own their first home.' What a great idea! Now you've got an opportunity to stick to your word and vote for it.

Australians are doing it really tough with the housing crisis. They expect people in this chamber to do something about it. They are sick and tired of the politicking on housing. They just want solutions. They want them now. Sadly, like toxic blue-green algae, the Liberals and Greens are poisoning our housing market.

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

What we're seeing today in this chamber again is another impasse when it comes to housing in this country. Let's be very clear. It is my generation of Australians and those younger than us who feel locked out of the housing market and let down by leaders in this chamber and across the aisle when it comes to housing policy, and is it any wonder? If they tune into the Senate today they would see another impasse here, where the government has brought a policy to do something about housing and those opposite want to contain their aspiration to own a house. Those opposite want young Australians to choose between superannuation and a secure retirement and owning a home. Well, Labor believes young Australians deserve to have both. We do not believe that young Australians should have to choose between homeownership and superannuation. Their parents didn't have to make that choice. Their grandparents didn't have to make that choice.

Those opposite don't care about solutions here. They care about a political outcome which lets young people down. They are limiting their aspirations, and that is an outrageous breach of a social contract with those young Australians. And the Greens aren't any better. They're more interested in social media engagement than social outcomes and social change. They're more interested in securing the clicks of young people than securing the future of young people. There is an opportunity to do something on housing today. You can come in here and say no and draft your memes, or we can do something about it.

Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We'll now move to question time.