QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities) (14:58): I thank the member for Flinders for her question, but I will say I respect her, and this is beneath her. It is truly beneath her, as was the question from the member for Lyne. The SPEAKER: Does the Manager of Opposition Business have a point of order?
Mr Tehan: I thought you were going to deal with it, Speaker. You're impugning motive on the person asking the question. The SPEAKER: It's a bit of a long bow—that point of order—if you're going to ask that question involving a minister's own arrangements, which I've already told the House I'm not particularly comfortable with.
It just opens up this can of worms. As I mentioned yesterday, the dignity and respect of the House is important. Fair go, Manager.
If you're going to ask that question, the minister is quite rightly going to respond in a fairly forceful way. She is entitled to do so. She has the call.
Ms O'NEIL: The reforms that are before the parliament with regard to housing are not about the 150 people who sit in this chamber. They are about the 28 million outside of this chamber. I think that the member is trying to make a point— Mr Conaghan: You said you weren't going to do it!
The SPEAKER: Order. The member for Cowper is warned. Ms O'NEIL: that she feels is about hypocrisy.
But I tell you what would be really hypocritical. It would be a person like me, who is lucky enough to live in the home that I own, creating and perpetuating a system that leaves behind the generation— Mr Conaghan interjecting— The SPEAKER: The minister will pause. The member for Cowper's going to have to leave the chamber under 94(a).
Like everyone else, he heard me say, 'You're on a warning.' The member for Cowper then left the chamber. The SPEAKER: And I don't know why someone is saying, 'Well done.' It's not a badge of honour to be disrespectful! Whoever said 'Well done' is not respecting this House.
It's not a prize or a badge; it's a mark of disrespect! The minister will continue. Ms O'NEIL: Again, what is truly hypocritical here is the group of people who sit opposite me—the vast majority of whom own their own home, many of whom own investment properties—and who are continuing to lock generations of young people out of the housing market.
It's really quite simple. You're either on the side of change and you're on the side of first home buyers, or you're the last man standing defending a broken housing market in our country. We are all going to get the chance on Thursday to come into the parliament and to again express our views on this issue.
And I'll tell you what the Labor Party will be doing. The Labor Party will be coming into this parliament and we will be voting for a tax cut for every single one of Australia's 13 million workers. We will be voting to create a fairer housing market for Australians.
I say again to those opposite: you must be blind if you cannot see how much our broken housing market is hurting Australians. How can you come into this House, again and again, defend the status quo and say that nothing needs to change? I've spoken to the parliament before about the fact that a low-income young person in our country today is half as likely to own their own home than they were in the year that I was born.
And do you know what those opposite want to do about that? Precisely nothing. Well, we have a different point of view.
We see how much pain this is causing Australians. And to Australians who are watching at home, I want to say to you directly: 'We see you. We see the pain this is causing for you.
We see you doing all the right things and trying to get ahead and not being able to do so.' That is why we are standing up and making a change, and if those opposite had any concern for the housing needs of Australians they would come with us.