Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is so important that we spend time talking about social housing in the middle of the first recession for 30 years—even more so—and I want to thank the member for Newcastle for bringing the debate to the House. You never hear the Morrison government proactively talking about social housing. It's not something they'll ever actually volunteer when they talk about housing. I was listening, I should admit—it's a rare admission—to the member for Goldstein when he spoke. I actually wrote a note of what he said—and I don't think I've ever done that before. He said, 'Our real objective should not be to produce more social housing'—at least there's a moment of honesty and clarity there—'it should be to produce more private housing.' That's it. Only two of the government's members got up to speak on this—an hour of debate and only two found their way into the chamber to speak. They're probably all back in their offices watching reruns of 60 Minutes, taking notes. You never hear the Morrison government talking about this unless it's to say it's someone else's problem like aged care, do you? There is a stubborn, arrogant, blind refusal to acknowledge that they have a degree of responsibility for this or to invest or to act. The truth is: it is everyone's problem in this country.

The waiting list nationally for social housing is over 150,000 people and rising. There's going to be a shortage, as the motion says, in the next 20 years of 433,000 social housing units. Other members have spoken about crumbling stock. Only a couple of weeks ago it was national Homelessness Week, and in my community this is personal. The people whom I represent have the highest rate of homelessness of any of the 38 electorates in Victoria outside the CBD. If you exclude the capital city electorates and the Northern Territory, we're in the top five in Australia. There are 1,800 homeless people, sleeping in cars, parks and car parks. It wouldn't surprise me if the government said, 'Well, they've got a roof over their head. They're okay.' The government's refusal to act hurts people that I represent.

The government says it's acting. It says it's got a minister now. It's an improvement on the Abbott-Turnbull governments, isn't it? They didn't even have a housing minister in those governments. The government says it's got a minister. There are two problems. He's the member for private housing; he only looks at one part of the problem. And, if you watch 60 Minutes, he doesn't seem to be doing much about housing, does he? The other problem is that they'll tell you that we have a housing package. It's actually a $688 million bathroom renovation scheme. It's the kind of housing package you have when you don't actually want a housing package.

When it comes to housing packages, size does matter. The government's $688 million renovation scheme is supposedly going to fill the gap in housing construction. Before the COVID crisis, we were building about 160,000 houses a year. That's slumped to around $100,000 or less. Yet the government's own scheme is only going to plug, maybe, at best, about 10,000 of that gap. What about the other 50,000? The member for Goldstein says the objective should be to provide more private housing. Well, you're not even doing that!

During the GFC—which the government now tells us, rightly, had a smaller economic impact and was a smaller economic crisis—the housing response by the Rudd-Gillard government was 10 times bigger. The Labor government then invested $5.6 billion to build 20,000 social housing units and renovate 80,000. That's 20,000 units that are still there today providing housing and shelter for people. So it is not just size that matters in your housing package; the focus matters, especially in this Prime Minister's recession.

The government now has a minister for private housing through his random private enrichment scheme. Really, it's just chucking money at people who were already going to do their renovations. You've read the media reports of builders saying: 'Don't worry, I'll jack up your quote by $20,000 so that you meet the criteria for the scheme. You'll get $25,000 back, and we'll order better bathroom fittings.' That's not doing anything for the economy. It's not creating jobs. It's importing more bathroom fittings perhaps, but it is not a housing policy or package.

The motion quite rightly calls on the government to actually invest—to commit something to social housing. It's a better stimulus than the package that they've got. It would create more jobs—it's a job creation plan—and it would go some way to addressing the desperate need, including in my community and right across the country, for more social housing. There are 110,000 people now homeless in Australia. It doesn't matter how much government members rabbit on with their fantasies about building more private housing. That's not going to address the 110,000 people who are homeless and have nowhere to sleep tonight. The government's package does nothing. I call on them to reconsider, to drop the arrogant, stubborn refusal of the Prime Minister, the marketing spin man, and actually commit something to social housing.

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