PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS
Mr SMALL (Forrest—Opposition Whip) (11:12): Only a Labor MP could come in here and talk about both sides of the housing debate and then mention two aspects of supply. It is absolutely beyond every member of the government that comes into this place to mention the unspoken element that's caused the problem, and that is their failure to control Australia's migration program.
At the end of the day, tax settings didn't cause Australia's housing crisis. Super settings didn't cause Australia's housing crisis. But the complete failure of this government to manage supply and demand at both times has actually caused Australia's housing crisis.
At the end of the day, they've made a complete mess of the situation by mismanaging migration and constraining supply. That came to a head with their budget where we saw, on top of that, anti-aspirational and antihousing taxes absolutely smash confidence in the market. It's almost like our Treasurer, who studied Paul Keating and holds a doctorate of spin, missed the years 1985 to 1987.
That's when the Labor Party last went after negative gearing and caused house prices to fall, rents to skyrocket and housing confidence to collapse. Well, here we are, 20 years later. Rents are skyrocketing, house prices are falling and confidence in the market has been smashed.
You really would think that they would learn from history rather than repeating it. The member for Moore mentioned some aspirational targets they have and their propensity to release press releases and media stunts, but the numbers don't lie. Labor is already more than 100,000 homes behind their own 1.2 million home target—100,000 homes behind already.
They will miss that target by more than 220,000 homes on their own government's numbers. Speaking of their own government's numbers, the budget itself forecasts fewer homes being built under the tax changes that this government introduced. It doesn't take a genius to work out that when you are blowing your migration targets, budget after budget after budget, and when you are seeing fewer homes built, falling further and further and further behind your supply targets, the market will get further and further out of reach for young Australians.
The one thing I absolutely would agree on with the member for Moore is that it should not be beyond young Australians to dream of owning a home in this country. Indeed, from our founding father Robert Menzies, the Liberal Party has always believed in homeownership as a key tenet of being an Australian because it gives you a stake in our country worth conserving.
We see the government failing to take action on unlocking that supply, whereas the coalition has a clear alternative with our $5 billion infrastructure fund to unlock—through sewer, power, road and water infrastructure—land that is zoned, flat and ready for development today. One-third of that fund, $1.5 billion, is quarantined for regional electorates like mine and, indeed, that of the member for O'Connor, who I know will be speaking shortly on this very important issue.
That is what the difference is today when it comes to housing, because the coalition has a clear plan to slash the red tape that's holding back these new homes. The National Construction Code is some 2,000 pages, which the member for Calwell was recently carrying around. It's a document that started at 200 pages and it's got to 2,000, telling builders how to build homes.
Does anyone in Australia today seriously think that our builders need 2,000 pages of instructions to tell them how to do their jobs? They don't. They need a government that's prepared to slash red tape and get out of the way, and that's exactly what our plan does.
Not only will we have that infrastructure to unlock new land, and not only will we scrap the red tape and regulation that is holding builders back and causing woke palaces to be built at great expense to young Australians, but we will also tackle the other key aspect of this debate in getting on top of migration. Our plan is to have fewer people come to Australia and to raise the standards of those coming, because we want to welcome people to Australia where we have the capacity to.
That means having homes for them to live in, schools for their kids to attend and hospitals to look after them when they're sick. This is an issue of great importance to Australia, and only the coalition's plan will solve the problem here.