Mr MOSSFIELD (7:32 PM) —The Australian dream of owning a family home seems to be under threat, if the findings of a recent report of the Australian Institute of Family Studies is correct. In the report entitled Social polarisation and housing careers , prepared by Ian Winter and Wendy Stone, it states that low paid, low skilled workers who had not entered home ownership by the age of 35 are likely to be locked out forever. This lockout of low income people from home ownership would represent a dramatic change in Australia's traditional democratic spread of home ownership. A high proportion of low income earners had been able to buy homes and become property investors in the past.

The report found, for example, that in 1996 similar proportions of labourers and professionals were owner-occupiers or property investors. People from across the occupational and income spectrum were evenly represented among those paying off a home or renting privately. The report shows that the rental market has been a stepping stone to home ownership.

Government policies of cheap first home owner loans, regulation of interest rates and generous assistance to public tenants had eased the road to home ownership for low income Australians. Employment security, particularly for low and middle income people, gave them the confidence to invest in the future. But this future now looks bleaker for young people on low incomes who want to own a home. Home ownership rates have fallen to their lowest level since 1954, an indication that fewer people were entering the market.

The issue of employment security will have a major impact on young people investing in a family home. Full-time employment, as a proportion of the working population, is now about 20 per cent lower than in the mid-1970s. Other employment trends such as the consistently high level of underemployment, with the decline in full-time employment and an increase in part-time employment, are going to have a major impact on long-term home ownership.

The report by the Australian Institute of Family Studies addresses the value of home ownership as a social and economic equaliser. In the introduction, the report says:

Private saving for home ownership over the life course led to low housing costs in retirement and an increased likelihood of avoiding poverty.

Reduced poverty in retirement and the broad social base to home ownership have, overall, meant greater economic equality. There is now evidence that this great Australian dream is fading. Reference is made to press reports in the Age of April:

The greater number of households moving out of rather than into home ownership challenges a long tradition of households achieving home ownership at a relatively young age after a period of renting and then remaining owners for life.

The increase in two-income families can be attributed to the increase in the price of the family home. The report states:

The home ownership rate has been sustained despite a decline in affordability, due to the rise of the two-income households. Through the 1970s and 1980s real house prices, on average, rose more rapidly than average earnings. Consequently, it became necessary for a household to have two income earners to gain access to home ownership.

In Australia, the vast majority of single income households have been gradually priced out of the market since the 1970s by rising interest rates and rising unemployment.

The report highlights how home ownership has influenced the Australian way of life from being the point at which couples decide to have children through to inheritance left to family members, as well as providing equal social rewards for people on various levels of income.

Home ownership has become such a sacred cow in Australian society that any suggestion by governments that home owners should have to sell their family home to meet other living arrangements, such as nursing home fees, was universally condemned by the Australian public.

The issue of the private rental sector is also addressed in this report. The assumption has been that private rental was used as a short-term transitional housing arrangement. The report indicates that this is not now the case, with some 40 per cent of householders in the private rental sector having rented continuously for more than 10 years. A high proportion of households in this market suffer difficulties, with a high proportion of their disposable income being spent on rent payments.

These points suggest that a large number of households are trapped in the private rental market by the proportionally high rent payments, and therefore lack the ability to save for the deposit needed to purchase a family home. The additional complaints that I have received in my electorate are that newer developing areas lack community services such as parks et cetera to cater for young families. This means that governments need to look more closely at accommodation and living arrangements for young, low income married couples. (Time expired)