Senator LUDLAM (Western Australia) (16:37): Senator Milne has just put some comments on the record about superannuation and that wider picture. Personally I would like to welcome Mr Hockey to this debate. I would like to thank Mr Hockey for noticing the existence of the housing affordability crisis in Australia, particularly as it pertains to young people. He is pretty late to the party, but his arrival is nonetheless very welcome. In the brief time he has left as Treasurer, we can confirm that, from our point of view, there would be widespread support for any meaningful attempt to ease the chronic housing stress suffered by millions of Australians—the Labor Party, crossbenchers, Greens, no problem. But, first, we need to talk about this thing he said about superannuation. Appearing to believe that young people, who have been priced out of one of the most severely unaffordable housing markets in the world, should deplete their retirement savings in order to further bid up housing prices and go massively into debt for an overpriced home comes from the cigar-chomping thinking of someone who has never actually had to worry about these sorts of things for himself. The idea was immediately condemned by people as diverse as former Prime Minister Paul Keating and Peter Costello. Mr Keating, who is never one to pull his punches, pointed out that the Liberal Party is always trying to 'pull the plug out of the bath of Australia's universal superannuation pool'. Peter Collins, formerly Joe Hockey's boss and former Treasurer of New South Wales, said it is 'time the Abbott government told the public that this is not a proposal they will be adopting'. A little bit more on the diplomatic side, Mr Costello said, 'I think there is a bit of a conflicting narrative there'. It was described by Mr Turnbull—although I guess Mr Hockey is used to being contradicted by the member for Wentworth—as a 'thoroughly bad idea'. It may be that Mr Hockey is not aware of this, but from the day this government was elected it has done everything within its power to dismantle Commonwealth support for housing affordability. Senator McLucas touched on some of those issues—ironically enough, so did Senator Sinodinos, although I am not sure if he was aware of it at the time. The government abolished the National Rental Affordability Scheme. They sacked the National Housing Supply Council— Senator Edwards: Why? Why? Senator LUDLAM: Why? Because you did not have the faintest idea how it was working. That is why. They cut $44 million from the capital budget of the nation's homelessness service providers. They refused to guarantee funding for the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness beyond June 30 of this year. And that places funding for every shelter and refuge in this country under threat. Senator Edwards interjecting— Senator McLucas interjecting— The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Senator LUDLAM: Mr Acting Deputy President, there is a lot of noise in here, from people who should know better. Looking around on Christmas Eve for more things to shut down, the government cut all funding for Homelessness Australia, National Shelter and the Community Housing Federation of Australia. That is kind of ironic, because these are the very people who could have helped Mr Hockey come up with something intelligent to say about housing affordability, but they cannot take his call because he closed them down. So, if Mr Hockey actually cares about helping young people into affordable housing, rather than ransacking their retirement savings, there are many better ways of going about it. Nothing is more important than having a place to call home. Getting over the idea that homeownership is the be-all and end-all. I think that is quite an important psychological thing for us to get through, for Australians to get through and for policymakers to get through. One-third of the nation's householders are renters. Many of them, young people, are priced permanently out of the housing market. They may well be renters for life, and that is something we have to get across. Renters have to be seen not as second-class citizens. And that is going to be difficult for those on the other side of the chamber to accommodate, because many of them, we know, are investors. You might own six houses, but you have priced first home owners out of the market. There are people in that one-third of Australian householders who are renters and will probably be renters for their entire lives, whether they want to buy a property or not. We have to provide tenure stability and tenure security for people who are renters, because the prospect of ever buying a home is well and truly out of reach for so many people. The most urgent thing we need to deal with is homelessness: 100,000 Australians are homeless and 10,000 are sleeping rough tonight—and that is probably an underestimation, so don't you dare abolish the census. Nonetheless, at least 10,000 Australians will sleep out tonight, when the rest of us have all gone home. The Australian Greens have a homelessness action plan, which I put forward to Mr Hockey and all to members of this chamber on the basis that we are willing to negotiate on any of these proposals. Senator Day knows a fair bit about this sector. The Labor Party initiated some pretty smart stuff when they were in government. We are calling for the coalition to come to the table to talk. (Time expired)