PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr VENNING (Grey) (18:54): This plan is just destroying the housing market. The great Australian dream of homeownership is becoming a nightmare under this socialist Labor government. 'How are we ever going to get a home?' That is the question young Australians are asking. After four years of this Albanese Labor government, it is becoming harder and harder and harder to answer.

The government promised an ambitious 1.2 million homes over five years. That was their promise. But where are they?

Australia is currently completing around 173,000 homes a year, compared with approximately 240,000 homes needed to stay on track. At this rate, Labor is heading towards a shortfall of around 335,000 homes against its own target. That isn't an ambitious housing program.

That is a government falling further and further behind. While the government misses its housing target, Australians are paying the price. Mortgage affordability has reached an all-time low, with mortgage repayments consuming the highest share of household incomes since 1989.

Mortgage interest alone is now swallowing around 7.8 per cent of household disposable income, compared with just 2.9 per cent when Labor came to office. For young Australians trying to buy their first home, the dream is slipping further away, and now we are seeing another deeply concerning consequence. Reports last week indicated that the number of first home buyers in negative equity after purchasing under the expanded five per cent home deposit scheme has increased fivefold in just one month.

The government cannot simply make it easier to borrow money and pretend that it solves the housing crisis. There aren't enough homes being built. Helping Australians take on more debt does not fix the fundamental problem.

It risks putting more people into a mortgage without addressing the underlying shortage of housing. When Australia needs more homes, builders are going broke. Almost 13,000 construction businesses have become insolvent since Labor came to office.

That's an average of around 60 businesses every week. These aren't just numbers on a spreadsheet. These are Australian businesses.

These are tradespeople, apprentices, subcontractors and families whose livelihoods depend on a healthy construction industry. And then there are Labor's own tax policies. The government's own modelling admits its budget tax hikes will result in around 35,000 fewer homes being built over the next decade.

Last week, we learnt that the government's property tax changes could stunt housing construction and wipe $1 billion from Australia's GDP over the next four years. Think about that. At a time when Australia desperately needs more homes, Labor is introducing policies that make it harder to build them, and weaker economic growth is the result.

You cannot tax your way out of a housing shortage. You cannot spin your way out of a housing shortage. You certainly cannot pretend the problem is solved by helping Australians borrow more to compete for too few homes.

Young Australians are watching homeownership move further and further out of reach. So what is the alternative? The coalition's plan is about tackling the supply problem at its source.

We will cap migration to housing completions so population growth does not continue to run ahead of the homes Australians can actually build. We will invest $5 billion in housing infrastructure to unlock 400,000 homes. We will cut unnecessary construction red tape with the potential to reduce the cost of a new home by up to $70,000.

And we will axe Labor's housing taxes that make it harder and more expensive to build. A young couple should be able to work hard, save a deposit and have a reasonable expectation that they can buy a home. That is the Australia we should be building.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER ( Dr Haines ): The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.