Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the House for granting leave for me to continue my remarks on the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill. As I was saying, there is a spectrum of people who face housing stress and housing affordability stress. On the one hand, there are people who have no issues with housing affordability and, on the other hand, there are other people who have no ability to pay for a home. This bill addresses those who require assistance to be able to access the private housing market at 20 per cent below the market rate. It is significant and it is an important policy—a Labor policy, one that was brought in because we understand that for people to be in their own home as part of the private market is good for industry. It's good for construction. It's good for those in the building industry. But, most importantly, it's good for families, for working parents and often single parents on one income, who face that rental stress.

So we in the Labor Party recognised that people were on a spectrum of housing affordability, and that's why we came up with a plan. It wasn't about having a very targeted, one-year approach; it was about making sure that, over the next 10 years, we tackled this problem, because it's not going away. More and more Australians can't afford to buy their own home. Thirty years ago, as I said in my first speech in this place, six out of 10 people my age could own their own home. Now it's fewer than four and it's plummeting. The number of Australians, on our watch, able to achieve financial security is plummeting.

We need to create pathways to financial security or to at least help people, especially young people who are entering the workforce, who are often on lower wages and often have young kids and high costs—as we know, childcare costs are not going down; they are going up on this government's watch—by having a long-term plan to address housing affordability. And that's what we took to the last election. It was not one tinkering with the edges but rather a 10-year plan, and that plan had building 250,000 homes at the core of it. It also included 15-year subsidies, $8½ thousand per year, to investors who built new houses on the condition that they rented them out at below the 20 per cent market rate, in line with the National Rental Affordability Scheme. We didn't just want the scheme to continue; we wanted there to be new stock.

My electorate of Macnamara includes the many amazing social services in St Kilda that do an incredible job, on a shoestring budget, of looking after those people who for whatever reason are facing financial stress and facing rental or housing affordability stress and may require a new home or a safe place to sleep. That reason can be something as simple as having lost their job and not being able to find a new job. But, way too often, it's women with kids who need to leave their home quickly and find a new home, a safe place to go.

A few weeks ago I went out with Launch Housing, a fantastic organisation, a hardworking organisation, in St Kilda to look at the stock—to look at where people are going when they are facing housing affordability stress or a crisis situation where they need to find a new home. It's amazing to see what's in your own neighbourhood when you actually have a look. I have to say some of the places are okay, especially places that women and children are going to on a short-term basis. It's certainly nothing flash and you would never choose to be there, but it's safe, it's clean and it's a place to go. But we spent about 35 seconds at a rooming house in St Kilda—I'm not going say which one—and it was not a place where I would want to spend much time. It was not a place where my friend from Launch Housing felt particularly comfortable. It was quite intimidating. And it was certainly not a place that I think it would be appropriate to send vulnerable people to, especially women over 55, who are increasingly a group of people in our society facing housing and rental affordability stress. It was very intimidating.

I had a conversation with Launch Housing about what we need in order to address housing affordability in this country. The answer came back to me very quickly and very clearly: there is just not enough stock. There are not enough homes being built out there to house Australians—certainly not enough affordable homes. People then slide down that scale of housing affordability. While they may have been fortunate enough to be at the higher end at one stage, they slide down. Housing affordability is becoming less and less tenable for Australians.

This bill is important because it does support an important scheme that the Labor Party supports, because it is our scheme—the National Rental Affordability Scheme—that we created in 2008 under Prime Minister Rudd. We understood that, wherever they are on that spectrum of housing affordability, sometimes a bit of help can make a huge difference to people's lives. However, I would absolutely say that the government should not think that the job is done after this bill has passed. The problem is not getting better. Australians are finding it harder and harder to own their own home. We can take this situation and, like many of the attitudes around the economy right now, simply say: 'We're doing a great job. Well done, government—tiptop! Let's all hit the watering hole.' Or we can actually do some work and realise that this is a serious societal problem in Australia that is not getting better. Housing affordability is not getting better. We don't need just one bill; we need a plan—a proper plan that's going to increase housing stock, that's going to support families, that's going to support single parents and that's going to support people in Australia who don't earn enough money because wages are flatlining.

Housing has not become more affordable. We need a plan from the government. We took a plan to the last election, and we accept the result of that; it hurts, because policies like that would have made our country better. Now is the time for the government to do more and actually address housing affordability in this country.

Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I, too, would like to make a contribution to this debate, and, in particular, support the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Blaxland. As has just been said, the National Rental Affordability Scheme is certainly near and dear to the hearts of everybody on this side of politics. It was a Labor program that was embarked upon. It was ambitious. It was about doing the right thing, particularly for people who were increasingly being confronted with the prospect of homelessness. As such, I emphasise that, being a Labor program, we have every interest in seeing it succeed; therefore we will be supporting the passage of the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019. But I ask those on the other side to have regard to the intent of the amendment—that is, to ensure that the National Rental Affordability Scheme continues to form a role in addressing homelessness in this country.

The bill was examined by a parliamentary inquiry in the last parliament. As a consequence, changes were made—and, by the way, I congratulate the government for picking up many of the recommendations moved by Labor members on that matter. But what this bill will actually do—and I'm not sure whether those opposite appreciate this—is make it impossible for future governments to continue with the scheme, because it removes the power of the secretary to make any new allocations under the scheme. It will not grow. It will not continue to provide what is the very object of the scheme itself.

That's why Jason Clare, the member for Blaxland, moved his amendment. The government should give consideration to looking at the ongoing operation of the scheme. The current government may not want to continue with the scheme, as it is determined to restrict any future development. But any of us representing electorates which are finding themselves in stress at the moment. Electorates like mine in which people living with disadvantage are overrepresented—and I dare say many of those opposite wouldn't have to look too hard to find disadvantage in their communities as well—will tell you that restricting the operation of this scheme will have deleterious consequences well into the future.

Labor's original scheme provided 50,000 new affordable rental dwellings to be built. That was a pretty significant undertaking. But the Abbott government, in its 2014-15 budget, announced that the scheme would be capped at 38,000 dwellings—38,000 and no more. That wasn't a decision taken because homelessness had suddenly decreased; it was one of those budgetary decisions taken by the Abbott government, regardless of the electoral mandate he thought he had, to change what we do in this place—which, after all, is looking after people in need—into a budget line item.

That decision was criticised by various stakeholders: the Property Council of Australia, Homelessness Australia, National Shelter, Mission Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Federation of Community Housing Associations, Anglicare and St Vincent de Paul. That's just to name a few. They all came out and criticised the government's decision to cap the scheme, because, particularly for Anglicare, St Vincent de Paul and Mission Australia, they are at the sharp end of looking after these people in need. They are the ones who see that we must do something. The decision that the Abbott government took was very, very short-sighted, and they failed to bridge the funding gap, which has now severely curtailed the supply of affordable rental housing in our communities.

Housing policy experts are pretty well unanimous that bridging the funding gap is essential to improving housing affordability and securing better housing outcomes for Australians. We understand that. We understand that having affordable, secure and appropriate homes with reasonable access to services is essential to the financial and social wellbeing of our people. All Australians should have the right to secure, affordable and appropriate housing throughout their lives. You'd think, in a country like Australia, that would be a basic human right. For too many people housing pressures are getting worse, not better.

Australia has a housing crisis. You see that on display in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and no doubt in other capital cities around our country. But that doesn't mean to say that all of a sudden people are able to access social housing. As Associate Professor Lisa Woods from the University of Western Sydney succinctly put it, addressing the real and intergenerational effects of the failure to invest in people in respect of housing:

We see there is a risk of inequality. A lot of people who are homeless have experienced childhood trauma. There are mental health issues. Many of them are victims of … sexual abuse. So they are complex cases. Those inequalities are deep rooted.

And she's right. It's not just the battling low- and middle-class families that are feeling the brunt of this government's problems; it extends to all those areas where there are complex needs. I'd just ask other members here to reflect upon the vulnerable Australians in their own communities. What about those victims living with domestic violence or mental ill health, people who have no option but to seek refuge in crisis accommodation?

An organisation I've spoken about many times in this place is Bonnie Support Services. They operate in my community, in Fowler. They do a fantastic job, particularly looking after women and children who are victims of domestic and family violence. Tracy Phillips of that organisation often tells me how desperate they are to find alternative accommodation for people, particularly in crisis situations. There is a lack of crisis accommodation across the board, and here's this organisation that's working in an area which has a very high proportion of domestic and family violence. They go shopping around, trying to find accommodation for these people, because they don't have access to sufficient available crisis accommodation.

According to the 2016 census, homelessness in Australia increased by 13.7 per cent over the previous five-year period. That's approximately 116,000 Australians who experienced homelessness on any given night in this country. While homelessness and housing instability is a very real problem across the nation, can I just particularise it to my electorate of Fowler, where, as I indicated at the start of my contribution, there is an overrepresentation of people living in distress situations and trying very desperately to survive within a community. Regrettably, we have an overrepresentation of people living with disadvantage, and clearly a lot of it is associated with mental ill health, disabilities, unemployment, relationship breakdowns, substance abuse, gambling addiction or family and domestic violence. All these matters significantly contribute to the rental stress that has occurred in my community.

In talking about rental stress, I note that a research paper prepared by the University of New South Wales, entitled Everybody's home, showed my electorate of Fowler being the area most impacted by rental stress. In other words, it's the area where it is most likely that more than a third of a person's income goes to paying the rent. When you consider that, in my electorate, the average household income—not the average income but the average household income—is just a little over $60,000, it surely shows the demographics that we are trying to represent and whose voice we are trying to make sure is heard in this place and not just papered over by the Abbott government's idea of capping access to affordable rental housing at 38,000, as they did, cutting it back from Labor's proposed 55,000. In real terms, it certainly has an impact on the community as a whole. We have so many people who just cannot afford to live beyond pay cheque to pay cheque. It's simply putting it that way. This impacts on those people who belong to very low-income families.

If you look at how the Parliamentary Library would delineate areas such as that of my colleague in Werriwa or mine in Fowler, they will talk about these areas' industry as being largely light manufacture. The truth is that a lot of that light manufacture is already gone. Those blue-collar workers who were engaged in those industries are now out of work. We just had that debate earlier today about what happens to them. The truth is that a lot of these people are now on welfare, and they are highly unlikely, if they're aged 55 or over, to be able to secure another job. So, when we talk about access to affordable housing, these people should be front and centre in our minds. They didn't participate in the debate that said, 'Okay, we can go into a world trade competition, and whether your industry survives or not that's it.' They were just people who were going to work, day in and day out, and a lot of their incomes went on rent. They are now people living on welfare and still struggling to find somewhere safe and affordable to live. They are seriously impacted now because of the restrictions.

Also, the objective of this government with the idea of affordable social housing is that the scheme will stop. There will be no more. We've got to be better than that. Any of us who have the honour of being elected to represent communities in this place must start thinking that this goes beyond base politics. This has to be something where we talk about making a difference for the better in the lives of people. And it's not just those of us on the Labor side of politics; we're talking about all those communities represented here—the whole 151 electorates in this place. We actually need to be doing more. To simply put a cap on this scheme is not going to help anybody.

So I fully support the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Blaxland. The government should have access to breathe life once more into this scheme. Not only will it provide affordable social housing for people in need; it will also have a significant impact in terms of driving construction and job generation within our respective communities. The impact of this will be long lasting. Quite frankly, one of the reasons we have the honour of being in this place is to make decisions that affect people's lives now and into the future.

I urge those on the other side of politics, those on the other side of the chamber, to have regard for the fact that the bill, as it's currently proposed, will restrict the secretary of the department from making any further additions to dwellings under the National Rental Affordability Scheme—no construction of any more buildings. Please have regard to what has been proposed through the amendment and give these people who we have the honour of representing a chance to survive in life.

Rebekha Sharkie (Mayo, Centre Alliance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019. When the National Rental Affordability Scheme was introduced by the then Labor government back in 2008, the stated aim of the scheme was to provide financial incentives to increase the supply of affordable rental housing, to reduce the rental costs for low- to moderate-income households and to encourage large-scale investment and innovative delivery of affordable rental housing. The scheme seeks to achieve this by providing investors with 10-year contracts through both state and federal funding and by specifying rent for more vulnerable Australians to be provided at 20 per cent below the market rate.

In South Australia, the impact has been significant. As at June 2019 there were 3,542 allocations under the scheme in South Australia. Considering that we have just seven per cent of the population and given that we have 10 per cent of the scheme, I think that's quite a commendable uptake. A practical example of the scheme, and one that I've worked in, was called HYPA Housing. For more than 20 years, HYPA Housing had just seven units, but because of the NRAS we were able to expand that program. Not only were we able to expand that program to 39 units but that small amount of money that we could get from NRAS meant that I was able to manage a social worker to support young people across all 39 units. I was also able to have a youth worker installed part time in the afternoons so that the young people, aged 17 to 25, who were in that transitional housing were supported to study and to learn living skills—cooking and financial support. It really was an excellent program at HYPA Housing. I urge every member of this place to go and visit the HYPA Housing properties. I'm sure that Service to Youth Council, SYC, would be very pleased to accommodate you. Importantly, the program was designed to move young people out of the homelessness circle and into the private market. It's about exiting homelessness for good, and that could only happen because of the NRAS program.

With respect to this bill, we know that it's to amend the act to clarify certain provisions and specify that the objects of the NRAS Act are to be achieved by protecting tenants and investors, providing rights to investors and recognising state and territory contributions to the scheme. What I think is really important, and other members have touched upon this, is that initially the NRAS scheme was supposed to have 50,000 new rental properties across Australia at a cost of $623 million, but, unfortunately, in the 2014 budget—the budget that continues to haunt Australia—just 34,000 places were budgeted for, and it was capped at that. That budget also provided that the scheme would conclude in 2026.

I don't think the government sees what's coming here. What's going to happen here, because we are not continuing to refresh and acquire new stock, is that at the end of the scheme we are going to have many people who own an NRAS property take that property and increase the rent by 20 per cent—or perhaps more, as they will no longer have a contract with government—or sell that property. We will greatly reduce the stock of affordable housing.

In August this year I attended the Adelaide Hills, Fleurieu and Kangaroo Island Housing roundtable, an event designed to assist the South Australian government to formulate a comprehensive housing strategy. The event brought together stakeholders from across the housing sector to discuss the issues that we are seeing at the coalface in our community. I might just say, with respect to my community, it is incredibly hard to find a private rental that is affordable if you are on a low fixed income; it is impossible if you are on Newstart or youth allowance.

I would urge this government to plan for the future—because it has what is essentially a crisis ahead of it. If you think homelessness rates are high now, just give it a couple of years, when all of this stock will leave. We need to be encouraging mum-and-dad investors to be part of the social housing mix. While the scheme did have a few teething issues to sort out, I think it was a commendable scheme. It's not just about creating more government stock housing; it's about having the private sector involved in social housing. The government has a huge storm awaiting it if it does not address this issue soon.

Jason Wood (La Trobe, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Customs, Community Safety and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This bill, the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019, makes amendments to the National Rental Affordability Scheme 2008 to streamline and simplify the administration of the National Rental Affordability Scheme, known as NRAS, until it ceases operation in 2026. The amendments introduced in this bill clarify ambiguous provisions in the NRAS Act relating to the powers to make regulations and lay the foundation to strengthen and simplify the future operations and administration of the NRAS.

The NRAS Act requires the NRAS Regulations to prescribe that the rent charged for an approved rental dwelling must be at least 20 per cent less than the market rent at all times during the year. The term 'at all times during the year' has been subject to conflicting interpretations over the years. The first amendment supports the correct interpretation of this provision, which is that each time rent is charged it has to be at least 20 per cent less than the market rent. The NRAS Act requires the NRAS Regulations to prescribe maximum vacancy periods for approved rental dwellings. The prescriptive nature of the current vacancy provisions has been amended to allow greater flexibility for the NRAS Regulations to prescribe permitted vacancy periods. This flexibility will assist the future administration of the NRAS, should changes be required to how the maximum vacancy periods are to operate. Two new provisions will be added to the NRAS Act to provide express legislative authority for the NRAS Regulations to vary conditions of allocation and to put it beyond doubt that conditions may be varied or imposed after an allocation has been made. These provisions will reduce the risk to the Commonwealth when varying—

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The debate is interrupted in accordance with standing order 43. The debate may be resumed at a later hour.