The Greens-led senate inquiry into intergenerational housing inequity spent six months hearing evidence from across the country about Australia’s growing housing divide. The committee has published its findings today.
For the first time in history, younger generations are worse off than their parents. Over the past 30 years, housing in Australia has become a vehicle for private wealth accumulation. Housing is now a primary driver of widening intergenerational wealth inequality in Australia, affecting millions. Falling real wages and the rising cost of living make the prospect of affordable, secure housing a distant dream for too many, especially young people.
Meanwhile, the big winners of the housing crisis – banks, the real estate industry, big developers and multiple property investors – have seen their profits and wealth grow exponentially. The big four banks made a combined net profit of over $30 billion dollars in the last financial year, largely off mortgage profits.
The Senate Inquiry’s Chair Greens Senator Barbara Pocock has made a series of recommendations, among them: to introduce national rent caps, expand public housing to at least 10% of Australia’s housing stock over the next decade, and require the big banks to provide low interest mortgages to first home buyers.
The Greens say successive federal governments have been hiding behind state governments on housing for too long. It’s time for the federal government to take responsibility for making sure everyone in Australia has a roof over their head.
As stated by Greens spokesperson for finance, housing and homelessness and Senator for South Australia, Barbara Pocock:
“This Senate inquiry revealed a housing system stacked against younger generations who have lost the intergenerational housing lottery.
“Millennials are the first Australian generation to be worse off than their parents.
“Young people have been ripped off, locked out of the growing housing divide, forced into insecure housing and as a result are delaying major life decisions.
Introduce national rent caps
“The current rental market is the most unaffordable in Australian history with some of the highest rates of rental stress.
“Households are caught in a rent-wage squeeze. People across the country are being hit with a 6% increase in rents year on year while real wages have fallen by 5% over the past five years.
“The RBA has just this week lifted the cash rate to 4.6%, the highest level in 15 years. When interest rates rise, landlords pass the costs on to renters. It’s not fair that renters pay the price. Renters don’t have a buffer – they are the buffer.
“The federal government must introduce rent caps to protect renters from excessive and unpredictable rent increases. The Greens want to limit the amount by which rent can be increased annually. Experience in the ACT and in many countries around the world shows rent caps work.
Expand public housing
“Too many people are living long-term with their parents well into their thirties or are one rent increase away from homelessness or already couch surfing.
“With 640,000 people in need of social housing, the Government’s pathetic attempts at building social and affordable housing won’t meet existing demand. Every target is being missed.
“The lack of safe and genuinely affordable housing in our country is perpetuating the cycle of homelessness and entrenching intergenerational housing inequality. This is why the Greens are recommending a national target of at least 10% of public and community housing as a share of all housing stock.
‘Our own history tells us we can do this. As the third richest country in the world, there is no excuse.
Low interest mortgages
“This housing crisis has been a long time in the making. Successive Labor and Coalition governments have delivered a housing system that caters to corporate greed, the banks, property developers and investors, not ordinary people looking for a roof over their heads.
“In the midst of a housing crisis, the banks have made enormous profits off the back of home loans. Over the life of an average 30 year owner-occupier mortgage, the big four banks make $229,000 in profit.
“To help get more young people into home ownership, the Greens want Australia’s big banks to be required to create no-frills entry-level mortgages for first home buyer owner occupiers to minimise their mortgage repayments in the initial years of their borrowing.
“Our large banks are amongst the most profitable banks in the world and they have been profiting from the financial stress of Australians for too long. It’s time the banks shouldered a fairer share of the costs facing younger generations entering home ownership.”
