Tony Abbott has described his own “mortgage stress” to defend the treasurer Joe Hockey, as Reserve Bank governor Glenn Stevens described parts of the Sydney housing market as “crazy”.
The treasurer continued to draw fire for his advice to potential home owners to “get a good job” as well as his suggestion that “if housing were unaffordable in Sydney, people would not be buying it”.
Hockey refused to apologise but stepped back from his comments, saying he totally understood the high cost of housing. He also agreed it was difficult for first-home buyers to get into markets like Sydney.
After his comments fuelled the debate over housing affordability, Fairfax reported the treasurer listed a 90-hectare Queensland cattle property for sale for $1.5m in April. The property is reportedly owned by Hockey and his wife, Melissa Babbage, who bought it for $625,000 in 2003.
At the same time, speaking at a business lunch in Brisbane, Stevens described parts of the Sydney housing market as “crazy” when asked about property prices.
“When you are devising macroeconomic policy for the country, yes, I’m very concerned about Sydney,” said Stevens. “I think some of what is happening is crazy but we’ve got a national focus to manage as well and that just increases the complexity.”
Responding to Hockey’s comments, Tony Abbott said he did not underestimate “just how hard it is for a lot of people” dealing with housing affordability.
“I’m someone who has over the years felt a bit of mortgage stress,” said Abbott. “Even as a cabinet minister sometimes it’s hard to pay a Sydney mortgage and I know over the years I’ve earned a lot more than the average person.
“So the Abbott family certainly understands what it’s like to have a mortgage. We still have a mortgage – like so many Australians – and I’ve got three daughters, all of whom at some point soon either are getting into the housing market or are looking to get into the housing market.”
After the Howard government lost office in 2007, Abbott famously joked about mortgage stress when he had to take a $90,000 pay cut on a ministerial salary of more than $200,000.
“The advent of the Rudd government has caused serious mortgage stress for a section of the Australian community, i.e. former Howard government ministers,” he told the Australian newspaper in January 2008.
“You don’t just lose power, in inverted commas, you certainly lose income as well, and if you are reliant on your parliamentary salary for your daily living, obviously it makes a big difference,” he said.
But it was not a joke as Abbott took out a mortgage of $710,000 which was revealed in 2010 after he failed to declare it in 2008.
On Wednesday, asked if he still had confidence that the treasurer was in touch with mainstream Australians, Abbott said: “I don’t think anyone listening to Joe on the radio today would be in any doubt this is a treasurer who is striving every day to do the right thing by the people of Australia”.
The head of the treasurer’s own taskforce on housing affordability, the Victorian treasurer Tim Pallas, described the issue as a “a little more complex”.
The taskforce, which was announced by Hockey in April, has yet to meet or receive any terms of reference. Pallas will report back in August.
“Solving the issues associated with housing affordability is far more complex than a higher paid job,” Pallas said. “My department has been consulting with its interstate and territory counterparts regarding the taskforce. It will focus on supply-side issues and policies, and consider the possible release of Commonwealth land suitable for housing development, including defence land.”
The agriculture minister Barnaby Joyce took the opportunity from Hockey’s comments to try to attract more people to rural and regional Australia, saying opportunities were not restricted to large cities like Sydney.
“Opportunities exist elsewhere to buy a house and not be stuck in traffic,” Joyce said. “To get home in time to be able to spend more time with your kids. To not spend half of your Saturday driving the kids around for an hour game because even on the weekend the traffic can be heavy in the state capital.
“In the country you can buy a house with a backyard on the salary you earn,” he said.
Joyce said housing affordability was one of the benefits of the Coalition’s “ambitious program” to relocate government agencies to regional areas.
“And in the internet age there should be very few limitations as to which town that desk with the keyboard can be in,” he said. “It’s not just those in the housing market who should consider this, but also employers, especially those who are looking for a stable workforce, happy in the standard of living they get in a regional city or a regional town.”
Joyce said in his own town of Tamworth there were 200 jobs announced as a result of an expansion of the lamb abattoir, for meat workers, IT specialists, medical scientists, biological scientists, export and trade specialists and engineers.
Bill Shorten accused Hockey of goading average workers with his comments on housing affordability.
“Joe Hockey’s comments were a brain snap where he is basically saying and goading people – where he says to people on average incomes, teachers, nurses, paramedics, that somehow it’s people’s fault if they can’t afford a house in Sydney,” Shorten said.
