Senator WHISH-WILSON (Tasmania) (18:15): I am not quite sure where Senator Smith is going with his analysis in recognising that we have a housing affordability crisis in this country and that they are going to be tackling it in this year's budget. I will wait with bated breath to see what package of policies and incentives the government is going to put forward. This is an issue that is taken very seriously by the Greens. This is an issue that we continually raise in estimates with the Treasury secretary, in committee work and in this place. We will always stand up for young Australians—we have generational inequality that needs to change in this country—and for low-income Australians, the battlers who want to try and get ahead. We do have a problem with housing in this country. Depending on where you live, we have a very big problem in some places. We have the dubious honour of spending the highest proportion of income on housing in the world. As Senator McAllister said earlier, we have the highest household debts in the wold. The proportion of young people who own their own home, particularly in certain areas of Australia, is in decline and is now at the lowest level in 60 years. It is easy to see why. It is because housing prices continue to go through the roof, inequality is being created on a generational scale, the economy is being distorted because of perverse incentives that the government refuses to change and the financial system is being loaded with risk. Australia's housing market is being driven by a tax system that favours investors over owner-occupiers. The Treasurer went to the UK over Christmas, apparently to sit on committees and collect information on housing affordability. That was great. We are looking forward to the new ideas. But what he should have done was come home via Africa and go on a safari—because there are some big elephants that the Treasurer cannot see in the Treasury and in his own party room. Those policy elephants are negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions. The capital gains tax discount is the sixth largest tax expenditure in this country and cost us $6.8 billion in 2016-17. It goes mostly to the wealthy, with 73 per cent of the benefit flowing to the top 10 per cent of income earners. Negative gearing costs us nearly $4 billion a year, and over half the benefits go to the top 20 per cent of households in this country. There is no reason why wealthy Australians who generate income from investments such as property should be taxed at different rates than everyone else. The Reserve Bank is among an overwhelming number of groups pushing for reform for these tax breaks. We have figures from the Parliamentary Library around negative gains and capital gains discounts. On average, investors are receiving benefits of $4,500 a year. But this rises to $9,200 per household in the highest income quartiles. And guess what, Senator Cameron? The top 10 negative-gearing electorates are all Liberal electorates when you look at the data. The Prime Minister and his wife themselves own nine properties between them, including five investment properties. If Senator Hanson bothered looking at the data, she would not come in here blaming immigration and migrants in this country, people who flee to Australia from persecution, people whom we should be helping, for the housing crisis in this country. What a ridiculous notion. How many houses do they own? They would be lucky if they own a single house, Senator Macdonald. Most of them are in public housing or on waiting lists or have been put up by their communities in places like Launceston—where I live—by church groups and other community groups who look after them. They do not own nine properties! Senator Ian Macdonald: How many do you have? Senator WHISH-WILSON: Immigrants do not own nine properties in this country. What a stupid notion put forward by One Nation. But that should not surprise any of us in here at all. The Greens have over the years wanted to get rid of capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing. We have recently put forward a very good proposal for swapping stamp duty for land taxes. We are happy to push the boundaries on housing reform and we are happy to lead the national debate in this area. We put forward an innovative way for the federal government to assist the states to transition from the worst form of tax, stamp duty, which is a tax on transactions—even Senator Paterson agrees with that—to the best form, which is a broad based land tax. Almost every economist and housing industry group in the country agrees that this reform needs to happen. But no-one has suggested it yet, because they are worried about political campaigns. I am not saying that this whole debate is not complex and complicated; it is, and we have to look at it in a very holistic manner. But this particular proposal, putting forward a broad based stamp duty reduction or scrapping stamp duty and replacing it with a land tax, will do four important things. It would reduce the cost of buying a house for young and low-income Australians and free up those cherished family homes for new homeowners—because stamp duty stops older Australians from resizing to more appropriate housing. Public infrastructure investment by governments would be recaptured. Senator Paterson says, 'Why don't we just release more supply?' What are the reasons we do not release more supply? We do not have proper government investment in infrastructure in outer suburbs and in rural and regional communities in this country. On housing affordability, the best way to solve that crisis on the supply side is investing in productive, long-term infrastructure such as public transport. Where property values increase because they are close to public transport, land tax collections will rise, and that is smart, and that is money we can use for schools and hospitals. It will improve rental supply and rental housing standards for tenants. Investors speculating and sitting on underutilised and vacant properties would decrease, which of course is very important, because a lot of supply, as Senator Paterson refuses to mention, is actually hoarded. It is sat on and not made available for rent and for providing a fix for the housing affordability crisis. We are happy to provide details to senators in this chamber and to have this debate here today, because that is exactly what we should be doing in the Senate: we should be getting on with brave reform and helping young and low-income Australians tackle the housing affordability crisis.