Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What an important topic here. It's hard not to agree with each speaker. It's also a shame that we can't come to some agreement on the important matter of emergency housing, because obviously it involves every level of government. I want to acknowledge the mover of the motion today, who has probably thought more deeply about this problem than anyone in the chamber. I congratulate him on the recent work that he has done. He did promise to send me a copy and I'm still waiting to receive it.

The previous speaker, from the other side of the chamber, makes a fair point about the human right to housing, which I think at a grassroots level, certainly in my electorate, is fully understood, but she is right to point out that this should perhaps be more clearly pointed out. As is someone on my side of the chamber, who makes the very obvious point that, ultimately, supply of housing is the long-term solution but we can't rely on that in isolation to solve the problem, because it is so complex. In the end, three levels of government have to do what they can in their own remit to fix the problem.

It's sad that this debate is so ideologically lignified, because we need to admit that each one of us can do more and all governments can do more, as should every MP. In my own electorate of Bowman I have committed that no resident should live without a roof over their head. It's a fundamental acknowledgement of the human right to housing. But in reality what can a federal government do apart from the financial reforms that make lending more possible to those who need it most?

It was August 2018 when Caroline Rozario, a former staffer of mine, walked into my office and asked, 'What is this coalition government doing to make home ownership an aspirational and possible goal for young Australians of my age?' She put it to me to write a one pager on a deposit assistance scheme, which was submitted to Treasury and the Assistant Treasurer in August 2018, and a few months later announced by the Prime Minister as the only significant flagship policy for the 2019 campaign launch. On that Mother's Day weekend, the Prime Minister made the obvious point of the power, security and certainty that home ownership confers. It should be an objective of all levels of government. Since that time, the initial 10,000 has grown to 30,000 Australian families who would otherwise be renting but now own their own home and have been delivered what the previous member, the member for Dunkley, was crying out for: certainty not just for vulnerable parents but for their children to know that they cannot be evicted on the whim of a malicious landlord.

That certainty through home ownership is important, but I'm not going to stand here today and say it's the complete solution. I will certainly say that an extension of my deposit assistance scheme policy announced last night in the budget, conferring upon 10,000 single parents, for up to a certain sized mortgage, the ability to borrow 98 per cent of the cost of a home, liberates a huge cohort of Australians who otherwise could never dream of having their own house to have one. I tell you what, this cohort will demonstrate exactly what the previous 30,000 have in the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme: an extremely low rate of loan failure. That rate, below 0.5 of one per cent, is not really different to the overall market as it stands at the moment.

This deposit assistance scheme was I think a big change, but I'm never going to stand here and say that it's a solution for highly vulnerable, almost homeless families, who will always rely on the provision of social housing, That is something I'd encourage the Labor MP who moved this motion to take to Labor governments—not have a debate like this but just fix the problem with more social housing, and broaden their stock. I'm not going to say it's their fault. I'm going to say that they should go to all state governments so they can work on stock for those who are in and out of homelessness, just as this government works to bring the threshold of home ownership down to solve an equivalently important problem, and that is the challenge that those who can otherwise service a mortgage with their eyes closed are prevented from achieving the dream of home ownership, purely through mortgage insurance and the creation of a large deposit requirement that is otherwise utterly unnecessary.

I will stand here today and be measured on my words in 12 months time, that those single parents benefiting from the Treasurer's announcement last night of a two per cent deposit will be living in those homes—12 months from now, five years from now. That is something to which they could never otherwise have aspired without the policies of this federal government and the opportunities that we deliver at the Commonwealth level in order to do our part to ameliorate what is otherwise a significant housing crisis that has perennially been the responsibility of state governments.

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