Andrew Leigh

FEDERATION CHAMBER

MONDAY 26 FEBRUARY 2018 

Dr LEIGH (Fenner) (13:45):  Australia faces a crisis in housing affordability, with the homeownership rate now at a 60-year low. Nowhere is this clearer than in Batman. For example, in the suburb of Northcote the median property price is now $1.3 million. For many young people and families in Australia, owning their own home is simply out of reach.

The Liberals' proposal is that you should get yourself rich parents or rich mates, but it now turns out the Greens' proposal is that you should get yourself a magic pudding. Last week, the Greens announced they would increase Australia's housing stock by one-twentieth. You might think to yourself that increasing the value of the housing stock by one-twentieth would cost about one-twentieth of the value of the current housing stock, but not according to the Greens. Apparently, if you're the Greens, you can do that for just one-thousandth of the value of the housing stock.

The Liberals' housing proposals are unfair. The Greens' housing proposals are innumerate. The Greens simply are not serious about fixing our housing affordability crisis. They are all talk and no action. Only Ged Kearney and Labor will tackle Australia's housing affordability crisis, through reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax concession, introducing a uniform vacant property tax across major cities, limiting direct buying by self-managed superannuation funds, boosting homelessness support and re-establishing the National Housing Supply Council and the minister for housing.