Danna Vale (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Most importantly, this framework would provide a return on the investment to the public purse. On a $250,000 house and land package, the cost to the government is $50,000. Of this amount, $12,500 would be assigned to the developer and $37,500 to the approved purchaser. These figures are indicative. For example, for a person in public housing receiving rent assistance of about $130 a week, the pay-back period is under eight years and in this time the approved purchaser is a winner in Australia’s economic stability and not a victim of it.

One of the key positive outcomes of this approach is that in providing a solution to those communities needing homeownership support, it creates the greatest long-term and short-term return—that is, by providing homeownership support to a family with two or more children, the social benefits for the family are immediate and as such families attract the highest government rent assistance, the long-term economic benefit is high. This framework would pay for itself in eight years and return about 12 per cent on the investment to our government. This is a national solution to a national problem, and with homeownership as the key driver to increased supply, we enable people to get out of the rental trap and allow the federal government to rebalance federal housing funding by either implementing national long-term solutions or maintaining the currently failing systems of state public housing.

It also provides leverage. For every $1 of public money we get $5 worth of increasing affordable housing and the affordable housing is in the form of homeownership, not bigger and fatter landlords. This means that the $15 billion allocated over the next five years by the federal government to the states for housing and rental assistance could be leveraged to $75 billion by putting disadvantaged Australians into their own homes. I refer to an article in the Herald Sun on 14 August last year called ‘Rental relief ‘flimsy’’ where the then Treasurer, Peter Costello, said the federal government would be spending the equivalent of $15 billion on homes for low-income earners and on rental aid over the next five-year period.

The federal government would then be in a position to undertake a long-term program of balancing federal housing funds between providing increased homeownership and/or the current state public housing. This program would allow the government to target housing solutions to rural and remote areas or to key areas within towns and cities. But what can this framework deliver for the people of Australia? Several cross-portfolio opportunities present themselves, like the opportunity to implement a national building code and the ability to address the current skills shortage. Also, the program will honour Indigenous Australians and assist with the process of reconciliation in a positive way. But most importantly, such a national structural change will also beget social attitudinal changes. Those federal funds that currently pay to keep low-income Australians in the rent trap will be available to contribute to many of those same Australians becoming homeowners with all the positive social ramifications that homeownership is known to generate.

With an opportunity to implement a national building code, the government would be in a position to assist in driving down the associated building costs of housing which can be part of its solution for affordable housing. Driving down the cost of building houses is important as a long-term strategy, but it would also provide increased certainty to the housing industry and help level out the bust and boom cycles. Further, a national building code could call for all the individual cost components for land to be itemised so that the consumer can see exactly how much of the price is due to value-add by the developer or builder, and how much is fees and charges by state and local governments. Many an Australian family would be vitally interested in knowing such details that go to the cost of their home. I think this is important and it is something that was raised by previous speakers on this bill.

This framework would also allow the government to address another key cost driver in the housing industry—that is, the skills shortage. A new national trades accreditation regime by the federal government could be based on trainees having their year 12 plus a two-year traineeship program. Already, some school students are undertaking vocational training as part of the HSC. But when we understand that even to be a tiler is a four-year training program, it is ridiculous in the greater scheme of things. The federal government would be in a position to introduce a national TAFE training and accreditation program to address this issue. A national trades accreditation regime means mobility of the workforce and increased supply. It would encourage more trainees and, in particular, it would remove key barriers to mature age people taking up a trade.

A national regime would also encourage—

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