 Nasty want to talk about housing? Yes. Want to know one of the main reasons house prices are skyrocketing at the moment? Well, you've probably heard about it in the news. Tax handouts for property investors, like negative gearing or the capital gains tax discount will cost the federal budget $500 billion over the next 10 years. Now, we could use that money to fix the housing crisis. Instead, they're using it to make it worse. How? Well, every time a property investor beats you in an auction, bids up the price of housing, they can do that and pay more for a house because they have access to these tax handouts making it a really lucrative investment. And that's a big problem. It's also a big problem because some of the main beneficiaries are politicians. And in fact, 75% of all Labor members have investment properties, including the Prime Minister. Now, we also have it that the Labor Party opposes any changes to these tax handouts for property investors. So I thought I'd ask the Prime Minister about it. And well, look, his response was to describe the question as juvenile. I don't think it's juvenile to be pushing for real solutions to the housing crisis, in particular solutions that are supported by all sorts of economists and housing experts. But then it's also worth remembering that when the Prime Minister bought his first home in Marrickville in the 1990s, well, that was about five times the average income, $146,000. A house in Marrickville now about $2 million. That's 36 times now the average income. The housing crisis has got much, much worse. We really shouldn't have to fight this hard just to give everyone in this country the same opportunity a lot of politicians, including the Prime Minister had in the 90s and 80s to buy a house for a fraction of what they cost now. That's why the Greens are fighting for three key things. One, phasing out those big tax handouts for property investors like negative gearing. So first home buyers and renters actually have a chance at auctions to buy a house. Secondly, we're going to cap rent increases because you can't save up for a deposit if you're paying all your income on rent. And finally, we're going to use that money we save from phasing out those big tax handouts to invest in public housing the way our country used to. There are over five million renters in this country. When you add in the parents of renters, friends and family, that's a lot of power. We know from last year that pressure works. We managed to get $3 billion for public housing and this year we've seen pressure force the government to shift on the stage three tax cuts. We have to keep the pressure up in the middle of the worst housing crisis we've seen in generations. So pick up the phone, send an email, call your local Labor MP and tell them you want to see them start shifting on these massive tax handouts for property investors so we can finally give the renters getting screwed over by a housing system a chance. Authorised by Jamie Cole, Australian Greens Canberra.