Housing and Homelessness - Government Performance (Motion)
Extract from Hansard
[COUNCIL — Thursday, 17 October 2024 ]
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Hon Neil Thomson; Hon Steve Martin; Hon Sue Ellery; Hon Martin Aldridge; Hon Dan Caddy; Hon Dr Steve Thomas; Hon Louise Kingston
HON DR STEVE THOMAS (South West) [11.13 am]: Thank you, President, for an opportunity to make a contribution on this rather long motion, but I am going to focus on a couple of particular points in it.
I have made a number of comments over the years on the issue of housing, particularly from an economic basis. One thing that I guess we realise over time is that when our opponents start to quote us in the media, it is probably
Extract from Hansard
[COUNCIL — Thursday, 17 October 2024]
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Hon Neil Thomson; Hon Steve Martin; Hon Sue Ellery; Hon Martin Aldridge; Hon Dan Caddy; Hon Dr Steve Thomas; Hon Louise Kingston
time to make sure that our comments are being accurately reflected. I was kind of pleased but a little concerned last week when I was indirectly and inadvertently mistakenly quoted by the Premier of Western Australia, Hon Roger Cook, in relation to a debate on housing—this particular issue. I thought this was interesting. The record begs a little bit of correction. An article reported last week on Sunday, 13 October online in The West Australian says in relation to the release of opposition housing policy -
The Premier referenced remarks by Liberal MP Steve Thomas in parliament that the Government’s raise to the threshold would not solve the housing crisis
“He said -
This is the quote, apparently -
‘you’d be an idiot if you thought that that acually solved the problem’..
It might have behoved the Premier to work out what I actually said and the circumstances in which I said it, because one has to be very careful with what the government says. Even though I think that Premier Roger Cook is often a relatively decent fellow, I would say that his staff have misled him here a little bit. At the time, we were addressing, quite interestingly, a bill produced by the government. That bill was titled Duties Amendment (First Home Owner Concessions) Bill 2024 and was debated on 21 August this year, so only a couple of months ago. What did that bill do? It raised the thresholds of stamp duty for first home buyers. Other parties have reflected upon and had that policy, including members of the opposition, and Hon Steve Martin went out there and did exactly that in his policy, but he went further. Apart from the modest increase presented by the bill before the house that I was debating, Hon Steve Martin went further in his policy and gave a greater threshold expansion for first home buyers.
Members would think that we are all in rabid agreement on this—that reducing the tax impost upon people buying their first house was probably a pretty good idea. I would have thought it would have been a pretty sensible outcome, surely, because the government put a bill in place. The only difference between the government and the opposition’s positions was the amount of threshold movement, and therefore the amount of tax not taken out of the pockets of first home buyers. But, as I said at the time and as I have maintained since, there is not one simple solution to the housing crisis. What I actually said on that day is this —
Turning to the greater debate around housing, this will not fix the price of housing or access to housing. This is not the solution to a housing crisis. Those solutions are far more difficult. Anybody who thinks they have an easy and simple solution to the housing crisis is probably an idiot. Do not listen to them and walk away as quickly as possible. It is a complex area of economic policy. But let us give something back to the people of Western Australia as best we can. I support the bill.
That is what I actually said—“I support the bill”; a bill to increase the thresholds of stamp duty. What did the government do at the time? It increased the threshold of stamp duty. What will the policy that was announced last week do? It will increase the threshold of stamp duty. I thought that we had all agreed with that. Hon Roger Cook perhaps should have read out the entire statement. He should have said that we are all in furious agreement that we need to increase the threshold of stamp duty for first home buyers and we are now arguing about how much that increase should be. Really—is that the level that we have now come down to in politics? I have no problem. I learnt very early on in politics—that has been a fair while now—to say what you believe and believe what you say. It is advice that I have given to everybody in the chamber before, and I do not change my opinion based on how my opponents try to misuse it. If the Premier of the day thought he was making a cheap political point either at my or the opposition’s expense, he was kidding himself. I suggest that he get his minders and advisers, particularly his economic advisers, to actually sit down and read the speech in its entirety, because he might learn something. He might learn about economic policy, because what I have said repeatedly is that the crisis in housing is very much around the massive expenditure in a number of circles. This state government took infrastructure spending from $5 billion to $10 billion to $12 billion to make itself look good. It is about stimulus packages, state and federal, around residential housing, and it is about a mining sector that has been through a massive boom.
In 2020, the mining sector said that it would need 40 000 more jobs. It had to put them somewhere, of course. At the same time this state government was throwing money out of the money bin as quickly as it could, because it was embarrassed about how full the money bin was. It has had surpluses of $6 billion a year and even from that, in most of those years it has hidden $1 billion in retained earnings of government trading enterprises. It cannot get the money out of the money bin fast enough. It has to shovel this money out. And what has it done? It overcooked the market place for construction. When the government is spending, it has a lot of money, and so everything gets dragged to that end. When there is a mining sector boom, with iron ore at $120 a tonne, and we are up to $235 a tonne, no-one can compete. Of the three sectors of construction—mining, government and residential housing—guess what got shafted? Residential housing, because everybody is on a budget trying to build. It is pretty simple.
[COUNCIL —Thursday, 17 October 2024 ]
p5237g-5249a
Hon Neil Thomson; Hon Steve Martin; Hon Sue Ellery; Hon Martin Aldridge; Hon Dan Caddy; Hon Dr Steve Thomas; Hon Louise Kingston
I would love the members opposite who have spoken to take the entire speech I made in August and give it to the Premier and his staffers so that they might understand exactly what is going on economically in the state of Western Australia. The billions of dollars it has reaped is making things worse and its expenditure on as much as possible, so that it can cut as many ribbons as possible between now and then, is making things worse. The government is part of the problem. That is what I was saying: if you are not a part of the solution, at least do not be a part of the problem. Stop being a part of the problem! Oh, my goodness! It is a simple economic theory. We could go back and talk about Keynes—not my favourite economist, but a good one—who said that when things are good, governments should step back and let the private sector go. When things are bad, governments step up. That is what is supposed to happen. When things are good, government pays down debt and lets the private sector go. I am a Friedman, not a Keynes man personally, but that is a simple economic policy that this government has got completely and utterly wrong. It is hurting the people of Western Australia who cannot buy a house and cannot get construction done. It is why at one point houses took nearly three years to build. It is still closer to two years. They used to put them together in 10 months. It is because the government has overcooked the market and because it is so desperate to turn economic benefit into political benefit, to cut a bunch of ribbons, whether it is Metronet or everything else. I expect a bunch of announcements between now and election day. Every time the community should be saying, “That is one more month on the construction of my house going forward.” That is where we have ended up. I wish Roger Cook would quote me more often. I am quite pleased with it, but I would not mind if he did it accurately, and I would not mind if he took a few lessons in economic theory and principle. I think he is a reasonably genuine nice guy; he just needs some education in this area. For those members who are interested, take that speech to him, give it to him and say, “You could learn a bit”. I am happy to give him some instruction in economic policy.
I do not have time to talk about the other parts of the motion —
Several members interjected
The ACTING PRESIDENT: Order, members. Order! Do I have to rise? Hon Steve Martin—Hon Dr Steve Thomas.
Hon Dr STEVE THOMAS: We are twins and only a mother can tell us apart. We get confused all the time; it is quite dramatic. I take it as a compliment that people think I am that tall!
I do not have time to go through the failures in energy and all the government failure. Here is a simple thing: if you are not part of the solution, stop being a part of the problem. It is simple economy theory.
