Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move amendments (1) to (3), as circulated in my name, together:

(1) Clause 24, page 16 (line 14), omit "Note 1", substitute "Note".

(2) Clause 24, page 16 (lines 17 to 19), omit the note.

(3) Clause 24, page 16 (after line 27), at the end of the clause, add:

(5) Despite regulations made for the purposes of paragraph 44(2)(b) of the Legislation Act 2003, section 42 of that Act (about disallowance) applies in relation to a direction given under subsection (1) of this section.

Prior to the last election the Parliamentary Budget Office reviewed the Help to Buy policy. It estimated the scheme would involve equity contributions from the taxpayer of up to $22 billion over the medium term. While I support the intent of the scheme, I'm deeply uncomfortable providing any minister with this amount of public money with so little in the way of oversight and accountability.

If you look at the Help to Buy Bill 2023 you will not find any rules about who is eligible for the scheme, the number or value of the mortgages it will underwrite or how different jurisdictions will be treated. None of this is contained in the bill. Instead it is all within the power of the minister to determine by regulation, which is not subject to disallowance. Similarly, when it comes to the scheme's public reporting about how many Australians will benefit, how much support they're receiving and where those benefits are going, this is left out of the bill and put entirely in the minister's hands. In other words, the public will only know what the minister wants us to know about the scheme.

There are some restrictions on the minister's power. The minister must consult with the states on some matters. The minister may not intervene to support a specific borrower or property. The minister must undertake a review of the scheme after three years. For someone who believes in public integrity, I find the lack of restrictions deeply concerning, especially when we're talking about billions of dollars of public money. I'm not making any claims about the current minister, but this scheme will run for years, potentially decades, and ministers will come and go. We ought to legislate the integrity of the scheme right from the beginning.

My amendment would simply make the minister's directions a disallowable instrument. It will give the parliament the opportunity to scrutinise the minister's decisions about eligibility and reporting. Where the minister has tried to make directions that fall short of the community's expectations, parliament will have the power to veto those decisions. The minister's office have said that they do not support this amendment because the scheme needs certainty and because it would delay the commencement of the scheme. I appreciate the need for certainty with a scheme that involves our state and territory governments and a number of private lenders, but a disallowance only needs to stand for 15 sitting days before the directions become permanent and participants have complete certainty. Certainty is only created when there is some possibility of disallowance when the minister's directions are at odds with what the parliament is willing to support. If the parliament does not support what the minister intends to do or how she intends to use billions of dollars of public money, it is appropriate that that investment or expenditure does not proceed.

Letting this bill go through without adequate checks and balances is a dangerous precedent to set for future governments. I strongly support action to help people get into homeownership and I believe a shared-equity scheme is one of the right ways to go about it. But I was elected on a platform of integrity, as were so many of us here today, and integrity means that we cannot give a minister a blank cheque without adequate oversight or accountability, even if we support the underlying policy.

I commend my amendments to the House.

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