Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) having safe and affordable housing is a basic human right and the absence of which has a huge human, social and economic cost;

(b) housing stress and homelessness are serious issues in Australia—first-home buyers are having difficulty entering the market, rental affordability in cities is at a crisis point, waiting lists for social housing continue to grow, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians are disproportionately represented in homelessness and housing stress and there are rising levels of homelessness with 105,000 people designated as homeless on any given night; and

(c) there are often complex social, financial and medical issues that cause housing stress and homelessness that are beyond an individual's direct control; and

(2) calls on the Government to:

(a) appoint a Minister for Housing and Homelessness to provide the necessary focus and leadership required to address the housing issues being experienced in Australia; and

(b) develop and implement a national housing strategy to ensure a sufficient, modern and equitable housing system for all Australians.

I rise today to move this motion before the House to highlight both the nature and the extent of Australia's housing crisis and the complete absence of a national strategy to address it. At a time when more than 105,000 people are homeless, crisis accommodation services are turning away more than half of those seeking new accommodation—mostly due to a lack of accommodation—and public housing stock is declining, it is astounding that the Australian government has no national housing plan.

There is little doubt that Australia is in the midst of a housing crisis. According to the most recent research, 105,000 Australians are designated as homeless on any given night, including some 1,000 men and women in the Newcastle and the Hunter region. Nationally, there are more than 200,000 households on waiting lists for social housing, with nearly half of those in greatest need waiting for two years or more. Almost 60 per cent of people living below the poverty line are in rental housing, with most in private rental housing. Only 15.5 per cent of people living below the poverty line are home owners.

More than 40 per cent of people who receive Commonwealth rental assistance pay more than the commonly-used affordability benchmark of 30 per cent of household income on rent. Of particular concern is the change in homeless demographics, with older people and, in particular, older women becoming the fastest-growing group of homeless Australians. This change in homeless demographics is certainly visible in my own electorate of Newcastle, which hosts an annual Hunter Homeless Connect Day. Attendance at this year's event saw a 10 per cent increase in the number of homeless people attending from the previous year and a substantial increase in the number of homeless women.

Labor took to the election a suite of policies to address housing need in Australia. Regrettably, the Abbott and now Turnbull governments' neglect of housing and homelessness policies speaks volumes about their priorities. Since 2013 the Liberal-National coalition has abolished the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which provided over 20,000 new affordable housing units and was on track to achieve its target of 50,000. It has refused to provide funding certainty for the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness and the Reconnect youth homelessness program. It has cut $44 million in capital funding for emergency accommodation for women and children escaping domestic and family violence. Inexplicably, it has cut funding for Homelessness Australia, National Shelter and the Community Housing Federation of Australia, reducing the effectiveness of their advocacy and policy functions. It has scrapped the First Home Saver Account scheme which was helping people to save for their first home, and closed its mind to evidence by abolishing the National Housing Supply Council and the Prime Minister's Council on Homelessness.

Australia's current housing crisis impacts on the most vulnerable in our community, which is why the lack of focus by this government is especially concerning. In contrast to the lack of focus by the government, I want to praise the work of our not-for-profit sector and their progress towards housing reform in Australia—organisations like Compass Housing Services in my electorate who, in addition to their work here in Australia, have been granted special consultative status as part of the UN's Economic and Social Council. As we speak in this House, they are participating in the UN Habitat III Conference on International Housing and Sustainable Urban Development. Shamefully, there is no minister from this government sitting at that table. Indeed, Australia is now one of only two UN member states that have not prepared a national progress report on our work towards achieving the goals outlined in the UN's Habitat II conference.

In 2016 it is our NGOs, not our government, that are leading the way on housing reform in Australia. As the ACOSS report released today makes clear, the housing problems experienced by low-income householders are a symptom of entrenched inequality within Australia. Unless inequality is addressed, Australia's housing problems will endure. Appointing a dedicated minister for housing and homelessness and developing a national housing strategy would be a very good start—indeed, it would be the very least that this government could do to try and get things back on track. I commend the motion to the House.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is there a seconder for the motion?

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to. I call the member for Bennelong.

John Alexander (Bennelong, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I start, I would like to say that while homelessness is obviously a serious concern, as the chair of the recent housing inquiry I will focus my comments on the home ownership elements of this debate.

Providing a stable housing market is one of the essential tasks of government. It is our duty as policymakers to ensure that the Sydney and Melbourne bubble does not burst the foundations of our nation's economy. The importance of housing and home ownership should have deeper consideration and exploration to gain a full understanding and appreciation of the benefits of home ownership. A median price of close to $1 million for a house in our nation's biggest city is unsustainable. And while some people benefit personally from the surge in property values, this is not good news for the broader economy and the next generation of prospective home buyers. Home ownership provides a greater level of security for families, leading to stronger and more engaged communities, a more stable workforce and the foundation for the creation of wealth, lifetime security and independence. Home ownership is the key to providing the pathway to an Australia of common wealth.

The home ownership inquiry that I chaired uncovered evidence of a disturbing trend, but if appropriate action is not taken dire consequences will result. Negative gearing has been a commonly used method for many to invest in property. Ideally it provides affordable rental housing for those who are unable to buy, with investors willing to operate their investment at a loss with the object to make a capital gain on sale. Previously these losses restricted investors to their capacity of funding these losses from other income. As interest rates came down, investors became more empowered as opportunities to neutrally or positively gear became a reality in many markets. This not only pushed up prices but also created a market dominated by investors, which led to the virtual exclusion of the first home buyer from the market.

Clearly something needs to be done; however, in a market as volatile and as sensitive as this one, it is vitally important that further changes happen incrementally. The stakes are too high for anything else. Labor's negative gearing policy would have created a crash the likes of which Australia has never seen. Investors currently account for about one-third of new lending for houses. The stampede for the exits by investors would, therefore, have removed one-third of the potential market for every property, slashing the prices of our family houses that are the basis of many people's wealth. We must do more to help first home buyers into the market.

What we need are more measured and calibrated proposals that help people enter the market without devaluing the homes that thousands of families pour all of their wealth into. Any changes must be finely calibrated and implemented incrementally to avoid destabilising our nation's biggest asset. APRA has already made changes in the past year that have slowed the levels of lending to investors by restricting borrowings on investment property to 80 per cent. This has had the desired effect of calming the investor driven heat. The RBA recently responded with a concern of an overcorrection in major markets by reducing interest rates, citing a concern of a possible crash in major markets. Both of these regulators have acted with a great deal of consideration and concern for the strength of the market—our biggest asset class—and to have stabilising effects, effectively a counterbalancing of demand by investors and the concerns of those wishing to buy a house.

Josh Wilson (Fremantle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Newcastle for bringing this motion and the other speakers, because affordable housing and homelessness do need attention at every level. It is an effort that must be led nationally and that is not happening at the moment. Of course it is especially relevant in Anti-Poverty Week.

The starkest measures of deprivation relate to the absence of safe and secure housing. The inability to live and sleep warmly and in peace, to have a place where you can prepare food and eat properly, a foundation from which people can work and children can go off to school in the morning and have a bed each to themselves at night. Without safe and affordable housing, everything else is contingent and at risk—health, education, employment, social inclusion and participation, the opportunity to breathe out, to think about the future, to play, to love and be loved. That is why safe and affordable housing is a basic human right.

Not long after the election, I was invited to help prepare and serve breakfast at St Patrick's Community Support Centre on Queen Victoria Street in Fremantle. I have been there many times. It is always a privilege. It is always a reminder of the acute and complex disadvantage that exists even in a prosperous country like ours. But it is also a reminder that there are many good people like Gary, Stella, Victor and Vanya, who put their hearts into helping people in desperate need.

It was a dark wet morning. It had been a bad night, a rough night. What struck me was seeing people come in through the door and walk with dignity and restrained urgency to grab a towel from the counter and go through to have a hot shower before coming in for breakfast. That shower and the prospect of food and a cup of tea or coffee in a clean and dry room must occupy your mind intensely for the last few hours of a bad night.

This year, during registry week, a survey of homeless people was conducted in Fremantle between 28 June and 1 July coordinated by St Pat's with funding from the City of Fremantle and the Department for Child Protection and Family Support. Registry week is an initiative of Ruah Community Services. It seeks to identify the most vulnerable homeless people in order to prioritise them for housing and wraparound assistance as part of the 50 Lives 50 Homes Project. This targeted campaign tackles complex needs with the Housing First approach.

The survey effort in Fremantle involved 44 volunteers across seven street teams, and I want to acknowledge all the people involved in that effort for their good work. Around 68 homeless people participated in the survey—62 men and six women—of whom 49 were sleeping rough. A further 15 rough sleepers declined to participate. Of those surveyed, 65 were older than 25 years of age and three were younger than 24. One in five were suffering from liver disease. In the older cohort, 32 per cent reported a history of foster care or institutional care as a child; 34 per cent were Indigenous; and a third of the older cohort had been victims of violence or, of the younger cohort, had been victims of violence.

In the face of that bleak picture of disadvantage, I can tell you what is making a difference in Fremantle. St Patrick's Community Support Centre does incredible work. The Sisters' Place, which I mentioned last week, provides a safe house for women to sleep at night, some of whom are escaping domestic violence. The Fremantle Foundation, a community based charity, led by the inspirational Dylan Smith, has channelled substantial donations into projects like the commercial kitchen that was installed at 100 Hampton Road, a supportive social housing centre.

But what is missing is the leadership, program guidance, funding support and clarity from the Turnbull government. As the member for Newcastle rightly points out: there should be a dedicated minister in this space. We are still waiting to hear about the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness even though the delay itself will be doing harm to the many organisations that are trying to plan for the future, give certainty to their staff and manage budgets that are tight enough as it is.

It beggars belief that from July next year community legal centres will face substantial funding cuts. When the work of CLCs often goes directly to keeping people in stable housing and we have to remember that, with every dollar you cut from community legal services and financial assistance services, you push $2 or $3 of additional costs directly onto another part of the social safety net.

The evidence shows that homelessness is not decreasing, which itself is not that surprising when you consider that poverty and inequality are growing. However, nothing will change unless the government is prepared to change or unless we change the government.

Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The supply of affordable housing in Australia, particularly in the capital cities and the large regional centres, is at the centre of a great range of social service challenges currently facing the nation. Housing is a basic human right and, despite the significant investment by governments to date, more needs to be done to ensure that all Australians have access to stable and affordable housing. In what we refer to now as a gap year, when I finished school I volunteered for a year and with the De La Salle Brothers started up a youth crisis centre for kids who were living rough, so I have a pretty good understanding of what it is like for young people to be homeless.

I know that no single level of government can act alone on this issue. Solutions that increase the supply of affordable housing while not undermining the overall strength of Australia's housing industry can only be found by all levels of government working together. Solutions must be collaborative, innovative and consistent across the nation, which is why the government will openly work with all Australian states and territories and, importantly, with local government area authorities who control the planning, zoning and land release mechanisms which are vital to increase the supply of housing.

The coalition recognises that homelessness is a complex issue that affects too many Australians. Solving it takes more than just rhetoric; it requires a long-term and systematic effort across all levels of government, agencies, business sectors and the broader community. In July 2015, after Labor's neglect, the coalition took the responsible step of restoring funding for the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness, the NPAH, by providing $230 million over two years, to be matched by the states, to fund frontline homelessness services in communities across this nation. In March 2016, the various ministers responsible for this program in each state and territory agreed to receive a report on future arrangements and funding options for NPAH by the end of 2016, which will feed into the COAG report.

Further to this, the coalition has finalised a number of initiatives to encourage new and innovative solutions to provide housing for people with a disability, including finalising the Specialist Disability Accommodation Pricing and Payments Framework, which will enable the National Disability Insurance Agency to establish a competitive price that attracts market players to supplying new and appropriate dwelling stock under the NDIS for people with a disability. The coalition is allocating $10 million to the Specialist Disability Accommodation Initiative to encourage the completion of housing projects for people with a disability outside of NDIS trial sites, and it is establishing housing pilot projects in NDIS trial sites. In February 2016, the coalition established the Affordable Housing Working Group to investigate ways to boost the supply of affordable rental housing through innovative finance models. Additionally, in the 2016-17 budget the government has committed to implementing a compulsory Rent Deduction Scheme for social housing and welfare recipients to help them sustain their tenancies and reduce the risk of eviction.

It would be remiss of me to ignore the hypocrisy and neglect of this issue from the Labor Party. It would come as no surprise that under Labor's administration of the National Rental Affordability Scheme, money was shovelled out the door with no accountability and no responsibility. From the very beginning, the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd government scheme was poorly designed with multiple flaws, ambiguous legal requirements and mountains of red tape. Predictably, it was slow on delivery and it failed to meet its own targets. In fact, the usual hallmarks of Labor policy manifested themselves yet again with this scheme, in that more effort went into the announcement of the scheme than actually making it work. As always, the devil was in the detail—or lack of it—and they failed to put in the work in the planning stages in order to see the successful implementation of a scheme that promised so much. Since then, the best that Labor has been able to come up with are proposed changes to negative gearing that have been very poorly thought through, a housing tax plan that would deliver a reckless trifecta— (Time expired)

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

I support the motion. Australia's housing crisis is surely one of the most important policy debates that this parliament needs to have. I say 'parliament' as there is no apparent prospect of the government having this debate. They have absented themselves from the field. We have heard from the member for Newcastle that the 2011 census statistics showed 105,000 people were homeless. I fear it will be worse when the next census comes out.

As we know, homelessness has complex causes. Much of it is caused by housing stress and people falling out of the housing market. In much of Australia, we are in a diabolical mess. Over the last few decades, we have stuffed up the housing market to the point where it takes 10 to 12 times—or, for young people, 15 times—average weekly earnings to purchase a house in Melbourne or Sydney. I know from doorknocking that this is a powerful discussion point with young people in my electorate. It is that core question of: how will I ever afford a house? Ownership rates for young people aged between 25 and 34 have spiralled down from 60 per cent to 48 per cent. Generation Rent are not doing well as renters either. In fact, between 1994-95 and 2013-14 private renters have seen a 62 per cent increase in average weekly housing costs. That is compared to only 42 per cent for owners with mortgages. The market is especially diabolical where we want people to live—that is, in major cities near employment.

These price rises may be the subject of talk at the dinner table for those of us in the housing market, but no society should want to see prices rise in the way we have in the last couple of decades. We have lost our way. Housing is a social good to house people. Placing too much focus on investment and profits is forgetting its core role.

We have heard from the minister for Newcastle—the member for Newcastle, rather; the minister for Newcastle sounds good too, but let's see where we go—but there is nothing of substance to say. There is no minister. But that is a common trend. I remember there was a period when we stopped believing in science and had no minister for science, but eventually rationality returned, Tony left and we now have a minister for science. Perhaps when the Prime Minister's turn is up, we will see a minister for housing return, because 'get rich parents' is not a policy.

The government, of course, is wedded to policies that make things worse—in particular, tax system arrangements that fuel investor demand and contribute to ongoing, unsustainable price rises. Through the election campaign, we heard a ridiculous scare campaign, and we had a touch of it earlier from the otherwise earnest member for Bennelong. I agree with the previous member that this is a complex policy area. I have been a mayor of a major council. I actually ran metropolitan planning for a while in Victoria for both sides of politics and managed the land supply in Melbourne. Both sides of politics have done very well in managing the land supply and keeping affordability up, but there are supply and demand factors. Unavoidably, the logical conclusion of saying we need cooperation between the Commonwealth, state and local governments is that we need national leadership and a coordinated strategy. Random cuts and randomly distributed budget initiatives—in which someone has a good idea or thinks, 'Oh, we haven't got anything in housing this year'—are not a national strategy.

There are many levers that sit with the Commonwealth that need coherent thought. The reforms to taxation arrangements—negative gearing and capital gains tax—are some of them. I am proud that we have put forward a thought-out policy on this. They have been sacred cows for too long. It is difficult politics at times, but great policy. The majority of economists also agree, including think tanks and Joe Hockey in his retirement speech. One Malcolm Turnbull, before he became Prime Minister, used to think this was a good idea and that reform was needed. The consensus was that these arrangements increase demand, push up prices, reduce financial stability—as the Financial System Inquiry and the Henry review made clear—and reduce investment in the economy and more productive assets.

We do not want a society in which people are shovelling all their spare cash into the housing market to jack up prices, because it is the best tax break around. We want them to put money into more productive uses in the economy. Overwhelmingly, the benefits accrue to the top 10 to 20 per cent of people. On banking regulation, we have heard that there is a decent rationale for APRA's changes to moderate lending practices, but try telling a young person trying to buy a house that it has had the desired impact—as the member for Bennelong did.

The final point I would make is that, in a new strategy, we need new ideas. We need to see the Commonwealth incentivising actions by state and local government and working in partnership. With rental housing, larger numbers of renters means we need to rethink how renters are treated, including national rental standards and more secure tenure. We need more long-term, affordable rental housing and a nationally recognised asset class of community housing. We need promotion of more and longer term investments, perhaps by superannuation funds, in a stable environment; national regulation of community housing providers; and inclusionary zoning—a percentage of affordable housing. National leadership is what we need. (Time expired)

Craig Kelly (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I partly agree with the member for Bruce. We do have an issue with housing affordability and housing stress in this country. But the fundamental problem is an imbalance of demand and supply. We simply do not have enough supply in the market, and the reason is simply that we have Labor and Greens state governments and local councils putting undue restrictions on the supply. That is what causes the stress. It is simple. You cannot defy those laws of supply and demand.

In fact, the ANZ Bank estimates that we currently have a shortage of 255,000 dwellings in this nation. That is the shortage that has crept up almost every year since the turn of the century, and it has all come about because of the green and red tape put on by Labor and the Greens. This is the whole cause of the problem.

And what is their solution? Their solution is to attack investors in the housing market through a misguided plan to try and distort the taxation system by getting rid of negative gearing. What will happen? All that will do is pull more supply out of the market, because those investors are actually investing in providing more housing. You have never seen a more confused policy from the Labor Party. This is what we see time and time again from the Labor Party. They see a problem and they introduce a solution that they think fixes it but actually causes more problems than they are trying to fix. That is exactly what we will see in the issue of housing.

The only way that we can solve this problem is by allowing the laws of supply and demand to work—allowing people to put more housing on the market. That also should be in our regional areas. That is the way to tackle it—not through a misguided distortion of the taxation system.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time allotted for this debate has expired. The debate is adjourned and the resumption of the debate will be made an order of the day for the next sitting.

Sitting suspended from 13:32 to 16:00