STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS

Ms McKENZIE (Flinders) (13:48): Thirty-four billion dollars—that's how much has been wiped off the value of Australian homes since Labor's toxic tax budget. For a majority of Australians, the family home is their largest and safest asset—a sense of security and a quiet reassurance of being able to meet future adversity if need be. They trusted that the years of sacrifice to save for and then pay off a home would provide a future of calm confidence.

But it has become quite clear that it is a deliberate design feature of the Labor government's economic architecture to devalue Australian homes. My constituents in Flinders face the reality of double Labor. At the federal level, we have a Labor government that is delivering a trifecta of failure—first, fewer homes.

Labor promised 1.2 million new homes by 2029, and, at best, Labor will fall 15 per cent short of that, according to the Housing Industry Association. Each year, Labor's policies today are producing about 170,000 homes in the market, and ours were producing over 200,000 a year when we were last in government. Second, higher rents.

Renters have watched their bills climb sharply since May, squeezed by a supply crisis and an inability to keep migration under sensible control. Third, crashed confidence. The market is down 10 per cent in the southern Mornington Peninsula since the May budget.

Labor is addicted to property taxes in my home state of Victoria. Labor promised Australians a revolution in housing. They got a revolution alright—fewer homes, higher rents and a housing market in freefall.