QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE
Ms O'NEIL (Hotham—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities) (14:19): I'll come to this question, but before I do, Speaker, I thank you publicly for visiting my electorate on Friday and bringing the largest Australian flag that St Peter's in Clayton has ever seen. It's an amazing thing you're doing to lift the information we have about democracy in Australia.
I know that every member of parliament here is grateful for it. I thank the shadow treasurer for his question. He is accurate, in one sense, that house prices are softening across the country.
This is the fourth time that we have seen this occur in a decade in our country. I'm asked about the role that the tax changes have played in this. The government could not have been more transparent about this in the federal budget.
To that end, I'm going to read to you from the fact sheet on negative gearing and CGT tax that accompanied the federal budget. Page 5 says: Treasury modelling suggests that the reforms will increase the owner occupier share of the housing market, resulting in around 75,000 additional owner-occupiers over the next decade. This is equivalent to reversing around 10 years of declines in the home ownership rate.
The reduction in investor demand is expected to lead to a small and temporary slowing in house price growth, estimated to see prices grow by around 2 per cent less over a couple years relative to no tax policy change. We've been transparent in the budget. Treasury officials have had three opportunities for public questioning on what was in the modelling, and I know those opposite have availed themselves of that.
They're not able to get much media commentary on it, it seems. What I would say to the parliament is that it's really important that we put what's happening in the property market at the moment in context. I want to remind the parliament that we have seen house price growth of 400 per cent in the last 25 years.
In fact, the member opposite asked me about Sydney house prices. He might like to remind himself that, in the nine years those opposite were in power, house prices in Sydney almost doubled. We have seen house prices grow by about 50 per cent in the last six years.
That's the context that's really important here, and I know that those opposite don't have anything sensible to say about this. We have a really resolute commitment, and that is that we want homeownership to be a serious opportunity for young people around this country, no matter their incomes. The SPEAKER: The minister will pause, and we'll hear from the Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order.
Mr Tehan: It's a simple question. Do you stand by the modelling or not? The SPEAKER: It always helps if you can state the point of order.
The minister was asked about house prices and the modelling by the Treasury about property prices falling by two per cent. She is reading advice to the House about that proposal, so she is being directly relevant. I'll ask her to continue.
If she strays into the opposition or any other topics, she won't be able to answer that part of the question because she wasn't asked about the opposition. So far, she's being directly relevant and she will continue. Ms O'NEIL: Just speaking to the tax changes in the budget, there's a really clear imperative and an urgency about this.
Our side of the parliament wants to see first home owners have a realistic shot at getting into their own home. I actually don't think that should be controversial. We've got a broken housing market in this country, a government trying to do something about it and an opposition who are the last man standing, defending a broken system.
We are very happy to stand on the side of first home owners when it comes to this debate.