Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendment be considered immediately.

This is a great victory for Australians who need a place to call home. This is a victory in the people's house that will mean more houses for people. Today is a win for boosting housing supply. It's a win for improving housing affordability across the nation. It's a good day for anyone who wants to see more homes built and more jobs in construction. It is an important day also for our veterans because this fund will build more housing for veterans at risk of homelessness. It's an important day for Indigenous Australians because part of this fund will deliver support to fix up housing in remote communities. It's also an important day for all those who are concerned about women and children escaping domestic violence, because 4,000 of these 30,000 homes will be reserved for women and children escaping domestic violence.

Last month our government brought together every state and territory government in the National Cabinet to deliver the most significant set of housing reforms in a generation. We're already seeing that action take place here in the ACT just this week. Next week I'll be with one of the premiers, outlining exactly how this process will occur to improve housing supply and to therefore improve housing affordability, because that is the key to housing affordability and to people getting access to homes. We need more supply; it's as simple as that.

And today we have brought together the crossbench to pass the biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade. I thank the members of the House of Representatives and the members of the Senate who have voted for this reform. I congratulate the Minister for Housing, who has done such an extraordinary job over a long period of time—and has sat in a lot of small meetings!—as well as advocated very strongly and consistently for why this is important.

This is an example of government policy arising from hard work in opposition to develop policy to see it then implemented in government. I announced this as part of my second budget reply speech back in 2021. When we did that in 2021, I well remember one of our daily newspapers saying, 'Why is it that the Leader of the Opposition is concentrating on housing? Housing isn't a big issue.' Well, you bet it is, and now that's recognised across the board. I certainly made no apologies back then for putting housing at the centre of my agenda in that speech—child care in the first one, housing in the second, aged care in the third. In amongst all of that, as well, was the Rewiring the Nation program. These are significant policies that we took to the Australian people in an election and received a mandate for.

In spite of that mandate and in spite of the broad support from the crossbench in this House and the crossbench in the Senate—we got there eventually—the Liberal and National parties are still saying no. They're saying no to everything, as they always do; there's just one sound. Those opposite did everything they could to stand in the way, and now they are left behind, sidelined as the complete irrelevance to this parliament that they are. They refuse to negotiate. They refuse to ever recognise a mandate. They refuse to have any plan for the future.

We know that they don't particularly like people who live in public housing, and now we also know that they don't want more people to live in public housing. Whenever they've been in government, what you see is less social housing at the end of their term than you did at the beginning. That's what we saw in New South Wales over 12 years, with houses in places like Millers Point and other parts of the community sold off, flogged off. They don't want people who aren't really wealthy living with harbour views. An example is the Sirius building in Sydney, which was purpose-built for people with disabilities to age in place. When I've crossed the Sydney Harbour Bridge with international guests over the years, I've pointed towards that building and said, 'That says something about Australia.' It says that we're an egalitarian country, with purpose-built public housing there on the harbour, in the brutalist fashion, as it was. It's not to everyone's liking, that architecture, but I tell you what: I went to school with people who grew up in that housing, and those people enjoyed that quality of life. It gave them dignity and the security of a roof over their head.

What this bill will do is provide more roofs over more heads—30,000 of them in the first five years. Importantly, by establishing the Housing Australia Future Fund, just like the future funds that have been established by past governments and just like the reason why individuals invest their superannuation, to provide for their retirement, what this will do is provide some security in perpetuity. By establishing a $10 billion fund, which can be added to in the future, what we're doing is providing that secure certainty of future growth in social housing for year after year after year. Importantly, the agreement that at least $500 million will be spent additionally every year is on top of the funding that's agreed through the Commonwealth State Housing Agreement. We have extended the agreement by $1.7 billion for this current financial year. In addition to that, we've put $2 billion into the Social Housing Accelerator. That is an agreement with the states to increase supply—to look at planning laws to make sure they have more supply—and right across the country the states are responding to that. There's the work that the Malinauskas government is doing in South Australia, the changed planning laws that have been foreshadowed by the new Minns government in New South Wales, the work that Daniel Andrews has done in Victoria, the work that Jeremy Rockliff is doing in Tasmania and the work of the Palaszczuk government in Queensland. Here in the ACT there was the announcement this week about eligibility to have increased density of homes by allowing an additional dwelling to be built in appropriate places where there is infrastructure. The new Cook government in WA is building on the good work of the McGowan government. I've been in electorates like Cowan and Pearce, which are growth areas where they are building the infrastructure and the rail lines as well as the community facilities at the same time as houses are being built in those communities. It's best practice when governments are making sure that community infrastructure keeps up with housing supply.

This is an important day. It is a day that completes more of the plans that we took to the election through budget replies, so issues that we campaigned on year after year. We campaigned on cheaper child care, which came in, of course, on 1 July. The Rewiring the Nation program is rolling out, with projects like the Marinus Link between Tasmania and Victoria. Renewable zones are being connected up in New South Wales and Victoria. We made that announcement in the Pilbara, in Western Australia, just a few weeks ago. We campaigned on aged-care reforms, and the minister gave an outstanding response about the practical difference that these reforms are making to older Australians, who deserve to have dignity in their later years as a result of the reforms that we put in place and that we announced. The National Reconstruction Fund will have its first board meeting on Monday. It's a $15 billion fund to support existing industries to transform and support new industries as well. My government is determined to implement the agenda that we took to the election, and that is what we are doing, policy by policy, one by one, and this is another policy that we took to the election that will be legislated before we leave here today.

Other governments have said that they would support recognition of Indigenous Australians. John Howard took it to the 2007 election. When the Leader of the Opposition recently re-announced that he wanted a second referendum, he pointed out that they had taken that commitment to previous elections. If only they had won in 2016 and 2019, something might have happened with those commitments. Well, we actually believe that, when you go to an election and say you'll do something, you should do it, and on 14 October we will give Australians the opportunity to vote yes to recognise Indigenous Australians in our founding document, our Constitution.

This is a very good day. It is a good day for the parliament. It shows that this parliament is functioning, this parliament is able to get things done, this government is prepared to sit down and negotiate with anyone who is concerned about better policy and delivery. At the end of the day, all of us are here for a relatively short period of time in the history of this nation. It is our responsibility to make a difference each and every day, and our Minister for Housing has certainly done that in a short period of time. I pay tribute as well to the member for Blaxland for the work that he did in developing this policy agenda when in opposition. I commend this amendment that has been brought before the House, and I say it is indeed a very good day. It is a very good day for the parliament, but, most importantly, it is a good day for all those out there who understand that we need to boost housing supply and that people, no matter how difficult their circumstance, deserve a government that is determined to make sure they have the security of a roof over their head.

Question agreed to.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendment be agreed to.

I said, when I first introduced these bills into parliament, that it marked a turning point for housing policy in this country, ending a wasted decade of a national housing policy in Australia under the former government that failed to address Australia's housing affordability challenges. Today we take another step forward in turning around our housing challenges. Today we move from what could be to what will be: 30,000 new homes through the Housing Australia Future Fund comprising 20,000 homes to provide social housing, 4,000 of which will be allocated to women and children leaving domestic and family violence and to older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness, and 10,000 affordable homes for frontline workers, like police, nurses and cleaners, who kept us safe during the pandemic.

There is also new funding to deliver the government's commitments to address acute housing needs: $200 million for the repair, maintenance and improvement of housing in Indigenous communities; $100 million for crisis and transitional housing options for women and children impacted by family and domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness; and $30 million to build housing for veterans who are experiencing homelessness or are at risk of homelessness. We will ensure that each state and territory and rural and regional Australia as well as our cities get their fair share of this critical housing. All of this will be in the first five years alone of the fund.

The legislation passing the parliament today will also create the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and Housing Australia. This housing legislation is a critical part of the government's broad and ambitious housing agenda. There will be a $3 billion new homes bonus; $500 million for a housing support program to help meet our National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million well located homes from 1 July 2024; the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator to deliver thousands of new social homes across Australia; funding for the 10,000 affordable homes over five years from 2024 as part of the National Housing Accord; an increase of 15 per cent in the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the largest increase in more than 30 years; the additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing; new incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation; and the $1.7 billion one-year extension to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement with states and territories, with the states and territories committing to a better deal for renters and supporting the national rollout of the help-to-buy program, which will reduce the cost of buying a home.

As I keep saying, this agenda is ambitious because it has to be. I want to thank the members and senators who worked constructively with the government to pass this critical legislation. I also want to thank the housing experts, the community housing organisations and the ordinary members of the community who have supported and backed this legislation. I know our friends in the media can be preoccupied with the back and forth that leads to legislation like this passing the parliament, but today I'm not thinking about what got us to this point. I'm thinking of the people whose lives will be changed because of this bill: the vulnerable Australians who have been left to languish on housing waiting lists for far too long and the key workers, the heroes of the pandemic, who've been locked out of a home in the communities that they were meant to serve.

I'm thinking again of Lauree, who I met on the north-west coast of Tasmania. She told me the new home she had meant she could finally go back to school and get the education she always wanted. Today is for Australians like Lauree. This is what drives our government and keeps us working every day for Australians. Today we make good on the promise we made to Australians to establish the Housing Australia Future Fund and we move from promises to action. This is our government's priority: more homes for Australians like Lauree; building, not blocking; delivery, not delays; and practical action, not protests. This is what our government is focused on. From today, the Housing Australia Future Fund becomes a reality, an enduring promise from an Australian government that more Australians should have a safe, affordable place to call home. I commend these bills to the House.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a humiliating day for this government. They've paid the ransom. We should look over to the Greens, who are contributing the housing minister to this government. This government has absolutely buckled to the Greens in order to get this hopeless policy through. We listened to the Prime Minister and the Minister for Housing speak about their commitment to housing. Why on earth, on every measure of housing, are things going backwards?

Since the election of this government, we have seen first home buyers down, new home starts down, new dwelling approvals down and rents up. So we've got an absolute disconnect between the very happy, self-satisfied group over here on the government benches and the people that they represent, because the people they represent are not sitting around grinning, laughing and patting themselves on the back as they are today. You never hear this government mention first home buyers—not once. The Prime Minister didn't speak about first home buyers once. The housing minister didn't speak about first home buyers once. That might be part of the reason why they are down. Every time this housing minister says, 'There was a wasted decade under the coalition,' I think, 'Why are things worse under you since your election?' They have no connection to or focus on the people that they represent.

Then we see this faux war with their frenemies in the Greens. The Greens stood in this place and demanded a whole lot of things. I must say that the Greens buckled a fair bit themselves from what they originally demanded. In the end, we see a tawdry deal between the government and the Greens. Why? It's because, in the end, so many of the members on the government benches only got elected because of Greens preferences. So it is a bit of a faux war and a bit of a faux argument because, in the end, they are addicted to Greens preferences. They rely on the Greens to sit in this chamber. So we always knew they would cut a deal in the end. We always knew that they would buckle.

For the taxpayers out there, in order to get this through, the government just magically recently found $1 billion behind the cushions on the couch, just a lazy billion dollars that they found at the eleventh hour to get this deal over the line. But that's actually a good outcome for Australians because that last billion dollars, credit to the government, they put into the coalition government's Housing Infrastructure Facility. Our government thoughtfully put in place policies like the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, soon to be renamed Housing Australia. We set that up. I set it up as Assistant Treasurer. This minister is renaming it. That's her legacy—she is renaming an entity that is a proud coalition achievement.

We don't see, though, anything else from this government. If this policy delivers, which I have serious reservations about, it will not even be a drop in the bucket. This is 6,000 homes a year over five years at the same time as this government is bringing in 1½ million new migrants. Those people in the gallery watching here today will see a lot of backslapping and people patting each other on the back. But, at best—at its absolute best—it might see 30,000 homes, they claim, being delivered over five years at the same time as there are 1½ million new migrants, with absolutely no idea where those people will live. What do you think that is going to do for rents? What do you think that is going to do for potential first home buyers, people today who are renting and saving for that first home?

What else has been on this government's agenda? They took to the election the so-called Help to Buy Scheme, a very small, niche program, not particularly original thinking. It is already nine months later. It was supposed to have started on 1 January. What on earth has this government been doing? Nine months after they proposed this bill, we've got no investment mandate. We've got no investment mandate at all. All this government can do is issue media releases. I fear that we won't see anywhere near these 30,000 homes. I would say with a great deal of confidence today that we will not see close to what is being promised. But, even if they do meet it, it will be inadequate.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Nine months ago, when this bill was introduced and the Greens stood up here and refused to just roll over and support it, we faced a torrent of noise and abuse from the Labor members in this House—although, I would say, with the notable exception of the Minister for Housing. It was overwhelming. We stood up here and we said a few things. There was no direct investment in public and community housing. It didn't guarantee a cent in public and affordable housing. We stood up and we fought, and now, today, there is $3 billion of direct investment in public and community housing as a result of the Greens pressure, as a result of the Greens fighting.

How many times did Labor members get up in this place and have a go at the Greens for fighting for more? How many times did Labor members get up in this place and say, 'No, that's all that we're going to offer'? How many times did the government shift as a result of the Greens pressure: when we got the guaranteed $500 million, when we got the $2 billion for the Social Housing Accelerator, when we got the extra $1 billion—and every time, every time in the lead-up to that, we were told there was no more. The Greens are happy about getting $3 billion of direct investment in public and community housing, because that is real, direct money going to build public and community homes. There will be tens of thousands of people that will get a home because the Greens stood up and fought.

The other thing we talked about is the one-third of this country who rents. We made the point again and again and again: rents are going up at the fastest rate in 35 years. We got up and we said at the start of this the federal government could coordinate freezes and caps on rents. We were told it was impossible. And then all of a sudden things shifted. All of a sudden, for the first time in the history of this country, at least since post World War II, National Cabinet was forced to meet and talk about renters' rights. We went from a situation where the Prime Minister got up and called rent caps 'pixie dust' to a situation where National Cabinet was sitting around the table, every premier and first minister, chaired by the Prime Minister, and was forced into admitting it was in fact possible.

And then what did they do, when the Greens had campaigned so hard that 74 per cent of the country now support rent increases? What did they do, while rents were going up at the fastest rate in 35 years? What did they do, as we sat through rental inquiries? In one situation, I remember, we heard a 30-year-old doctor going through Stage IV breast cancer treatment begged her real estate agent not to evict her because her immune system was low and asked for an extra two months on that lease, and the real estate agent issued her an eviction notice in response. What did the government do when we gave them that opportunity to freeze and cap rents, when even 58 per cent of coalition supporters now support a cap on rent increases? They instead locked in unlimited rent increases, and not a single renter in this country should ever forgive them for that.

The promise I want to make every renter across the country, watching this at home, is: this fight has just begun. After nine months, there is now a supermajority of people who support caps and freezes on rent increases. We're seeing Germany now contemplating a three-year freeze on rent increases. We've seen Scotland, Spain and countries across the world capping and freezing rent increases. Let me be very clear. There is going to be a time in this place when a Greens member will stand up and celebrate a freeze and cap on rent increases, and it will be the result of the hard work and fight of hundreds of thousands of renters across this country.

The message I want to send to you at home is: so often the political and media establishment in this place try to create a separation between what happens here and your lives at home. But the only way, the only reason we have this $3 billion, the only reason we got the $500 million guarantee, is not just the work in this place; it's that thousands of you stood up and fought. Thousands of you stood up and fought. You knocked on doors, you went to rallies—all things, by the way, that the government attacked us for doing, and the reason they attacked us is they are terrified of what happens when ordinary renters find their voice.

Let me be very clear: they are just starting to find their voice, and over the next few years and over the next few months you're going to see what happens when one-third of this country stands up and fights back against a system that sees property investors get $39 billion a year in tax concessions while renters basically get nothing. Nine months of Greens pressure got $3 billion. Let's see what happens when we really start to mobilise and the Labor government realise that they can't keep turning their backs on the one-third of this country who rents.

We've seen across the world what happens when ordinary people get together and organise. They wield real power and they get real results, and that's exactly what's going to happen in Australia. There's going to be a moment in Australian history when finally renters get to live with dignity. Finally renters will get to live with dignity and basic laws and get to live in this country as first-class citizens, not second-class citizens. That will be a great day indeed.

Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate the member for Griffith for his passion on this issue and his work over recent months to extract the concessions that he has out of the government. Of course, we have very different views as to how we tackle Australia's housing crisis. The member for Griffith talks about a rental freeze. I think that the key is to get more supply. Unfortunately, the amendments to the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill do not go anywhere near what we need to do in this country to actually address the housing crisis we're facing—not just in the rental market, not just in social housing supply, but across the housing continuum.

Unfortunately, despite the amendments, which we can't change, this bill is a fundamentally flawed way of delivering more supply. We have seen that increased borrowing will add to inflationary pressures in the economy, which will of course lead to higher interest rates, and the amendments can't paper over the fact that Housing Australia Future Fund will be capitalised by $10 billion of additional Commonwealth government borrowing. It's not a $10 billion fund; it's $10 billion of additional borrowing. We've now seen a guaranteed minimum for what will be invested in social housing, but, unfortunately, these amendments provide no long-term certainty as disbursements from the fund will be wholly reliant on the financial performance of the fund's investments in equity and other financial projects. We're borrowing and we're going to have to bank on the fact that we will beat the market and then that investment will go from there if we're lucky. We know that recent history has been that we haven't been so lucky with those levels of investment.

When you look at the numbers directly, if we take the government's best case scenario, we end up with 30,000 additional homes over five years. As the shadow minister, the member for Deakin, pointed out, that's barely going to touch the sides. That's not a lot of homes when you put it over five years, particularly when you consider that we're going to be facing, according to the government's statistics, an extra 1.5 million migrants over that period of time.

These amendments cannot guarantee that a single home will be built before the next election, if at all, and we will only see the housing crisis get worse. The legislation will do nothing to help those first homebuyers struggling to get into the property market—it's only looking after one segment of the market—and on every measure this legislation won't even scratch the surface when it comes to Australia's challenging housing crisis.

When we look at the broader government objectives around the Housing Accord and the other policies they have in place, there is an ambitious target there of a million homes by 2030. Unfortunately, NHFIC is telling us that we actually need 1.7 million homes to be built by 2030 because that's the number of new households that will be built—and I don't believe that figure included the government's ambitious migrant policies either. When you think about the government's ambitious target, it's not getting anywhere near to the number of new homes that we need to get built and we know that by the end of this decade the crisis will be even worse. We are facing a significant crisis in this country. We're facing a massive rental crisis in my electorate, in Brisbane's bayside, and I know, from talking to my colleagues, that we're facing it across the board as well.

It's important to remember that investor interest has never been an obstacle to housing supply in Australia. Supply is currently not being constrained by lack of capital, but by a lack of land, and it's our states and territories that control most of the policy levers that currently restrict supply. The Albanese government's approach does very little to put pressure on the states and territories to actually increase housing supply. And I'm not just talking about social housing here, I'm talking about housing supply across the continuum. We need more supply. The government can't just be offering the carrot; they've got to be offering the stick as well. I'm hoping that now this bill will pass that the government can focus more on those broader planning and tax reforms that are needed to boost housing supply across Australia.

The government's approach to housing has so far created multiple strategy documents, multiple new bodies, and we'll end up with multiple new funds and amended financial facilities. And while I think the Commonwealth has a role to play here, it certainly isn't this. The point I always try to make is that more government is not going to be the answer to the challenges facing our nation's housing market.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since I last spoke in the House about this package of legislation, the imperative to address supply and structural challenges in the housing sector has become increasingly urgent. I'm pleased to see that the Australian Greens, parts of the crossbench and the government have come to an agreement in the Senate and that the housing package will pass, along with an additional $3 billion commitment to social housing. This is the first piece of the puzzle. It won't fix the problem, but it's a start. More than 9,000 Western Australians are currently experiencing homelessness on any given night, and more than 4,100 people access specialist homelessness services every day in WA. Social housing makes up 3.8 per cent of homes in Western Australia. In 1983 we approved 14 social houses for every 100 private houses. Now it's only 1.4 per 100. The social housing waiting list numbers in WA have been steadily increasing since 2019, and the average wait time for a social house is 113 weeks. There are currently 39,000 individuals and 19,000 applications on the social housing waiting list in WA, with 4,700 priority applications. Additionally, WA currently faces an unmet need for 19,000 affordable homes. These are big numbers, and it puts the 30,000 homes over the next five years into context. On our current trajectory, the figures that I've quoted will double in the next 15 years, so let's not kid ourselves that we're solving the problem completely with this package. Even if we built all of these 30,000 homes instantly and all in Western Australia, we would still have a shortfall, but the extra $3 billion committed to social housing in negotiations with the Greens will also help. We need to see a sustainable pipeline of investment that represents an annual commitment to tackle more than just 30,000 homes.

The HAFF is at least a bigger investment in housing supply than we've seen for a while, and the amendments made in the Senate are improvements. I'm glad to see the guaranteed minimum annual distribution of $500 million, as I called for last time the legislation was before the House. Guaranteeing that $500 million as a minimum will provide greater certainty to the market so investors will know that their returns are protected and will be more willing to invest. The National Housing Accord was initially a shared ambition to build one million homes over five years. It's now updated to 1.2 million. It depends hugely on the states and on private capital, and I fear it might be more aspirational than realistic. I note the government's recent announcement to provide states and territories with a new home bonus of up to $3 billion if they help reach that updated target, and I hope that the WA government will rise to challenge set by the Commonwealth government to address the housing issue in my home state. I welcome the inclusion of social and community housing and disability accommodation expertise on the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. It will be really important that the members of the council act in the overall interests of the country, rather than defending different parts of the housing industry, and it will also be important that the council retains its full independence. Bringing forward the review date to December 2026 is also welcome. The package's success depends significantly on the response from the states and the market, and settings may need to be adjusted, especially after the National Housing and Homelessness Plan is finalised and the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement is renegotiated.

It's worth noting that the current $10 billion commitment pales in comparison to the $290 billion the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation said would be required over the next two decades to meet the current and projected shortfall. I commend the government, the Australian Greens and some of the Senate crossbench for finally coming to an agreement on this housing package so we can start to address this fundamental need.

Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting these amendments, which make very little difference to the fundamental flaws and weaknesses in this government's approach to the housing policy challenges facing Australia. Of course, one of the fundamental flaws of what is proposed is that the so-called Housing Australia Future Fund will be capitalised with $10 billion of additional Commonwealth government borrowing. It's a highly cynical exercise in being able to quote a large number—$10 billion—but it's not $10 billion that's going to be spent on housing. It's going to be a much more complicated exercise, producing much lower amounts.

This also comes at a real cost to the Commonwealth and to taxpayers. With a 10-year government bond at four per cent, it'll cost around $400 million per annum in interest-servicing costs on the debt, and of course that will simply add to inflationary pressures in the economy.

Critically, a very serious policy objection to the convoluted and complicated framework this government has devised is that this fund provides no long-term certainty, as disbursements from the fund will be entirely reliant on the financial performance of the fund's investments in equities and other financial products. If the fund had been established in the last financial year, the Commonwealth would have lost approximately $370 million, on top of the $400 million in interest costs that the Commonwealth would have been required to pay. In other words, rather than providing any money at all towards the policy objective of funding additional social and affordable housing, the Commonwealth would have gone backwards by $770 million, and not one house would have been funded. It is for these very good reasons that the International Monetary Fund has rightly been very critical of these kinds of funds and has specifically warned against the proliferation of such funds.

And of course, this policy measure will do nothing for renters in the private market. It will do nothing for Australians who want to purchase a home. As has been pointed out by a number of speakers in this debate, with 1.5 million additional people coming to Australia over five years, the quantity of additional housing needed is massively in excess of the outcomes that will be delivered, even if this policy achieves the high expectations that the present government has of it—although, as the shadow minister for housing has rightly pointed out, there's every likelihood that those expectations will not be met at all.

The process that we've seen here is yet further evidence that the so-called Housing Australia Future Fund was an ill-thought-through policy, hastily put together by a party, the Labor Party, that was looking for something that would help its members get through television and radio interviews when being asked about housing, but does not go to the substantive issues. The policy does not guarantee that a single home will be built before the next election. And these amendments certainly make no difference to that fundamental flaw. The policy proposal embodied in this legislation, together with the amendments that are put before the House this morning, will do nothing to help those first home buyers struggling to get into the property market. The government cannot say how many homes this fund will build, where those homes will be located or when the fund will first make a return. There's a troubling lack of detail—although, sadly, that is all too common in the approach this government takes on so many policy fronts.

The simple fact is that this government's policy framework and policy agenda on housing is in tatters. It's clear from Australian Bureau of Statistics figures that dwelling approvals have hit their lowest point since the days of the Gillard government. They're at their lowest level in over a decade. Detached housing approvals, as at April of this year, were over 15 per cent lower than at the same time last year, and all the evidence suggests that we're going to see a further, continued decline.

This Labor government has no idea how to energise and activate the private sector to deliver the housing volumes that Australians need. The reality is: it has always been the private sector that has overwhelmingly constructed the great bulk of homes in which Australians live, and, to address the housing needs of Australians, it is very important that the private sector is supported and encouraged to do its work. Of course this government is putting all kinds of barriers in the way of the private sector, including a new round of very troubling industrial relations changes. This policy and the amendments before the House today are not supported by the coalition.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd really like to say that Labor was in a policy vacuum, but unfortunately it is not. The trouble is: the policies being put forward by this government are bad, wrong-headed and short-sighted, and you only need to look at the amendments that have been brought into this House now, under the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023. This is just going to be just another policy that Labor has brought forward that—along with the Murray-Darling Basin Plan which doesn't include Victoria; and along with the truckie tax, which is going to have our farmers paying for international competitors' biosecurity—in every regard, in every way, shape or form is just not properly thought through. The member for Bradfield was right when he asked where and when these situations with the housing are going to occur.

I spoke yesterday about the number of companies that have gone to the wall—gone bust. They're not small companies. Clough Group, Probuild, Dyldam Developments, Snowdon Developments, ABG Group and Condev are some of the larger construction companies that have folded. One of the more recent casualties is the Porter Davis Homes Group, rated the 13th-largest builder in Australia. That put 1,700 projects alone in jeopardy across multiple states.

I said yesterday and I reiterate today that Labor is proposing to put tens of thousands of new homes—originally it was a million—and new housing constructions into the market. They won't build one. But, if they do it, if they do pull this off somehow, some way, who is going to build these homes? We've got so many housing companies at the moment struggling from the financial hardships brought about by that side of politics. And, then, where are we going to source the materials? It's so, so difficult to find labour in metropolitan areas, let alone in regional areas like the member for Capricornia's electorate or mine. You just cannot find people to build houses. I know those opposite go on about fee-free TAFE. The situation is stark. You can't find sparkies. You can't find carpenters. You can't find plasterers. You can't find labourers to do the jobs that are expected when Labor say they are going to build tens of thousands of homes. It's a nonsense. It's absolute nonsense. It's utopia.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On one hand you're saying we're not doing enough and on the other that we shouldn't do anything at all.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear the housing minister calling out. This is a dirty deal done not cheap with the Greens. The last time I saw a deal like this was when the Gillard government was in power, and we saw a deal struck with the Greens—Bob Brown was the leader then—and we all remember how that ended up. The situation is this: this is a deal done with the Greens to appease inner-city voters. It's not done to try to get people into homes. It's not done with social housing policy in mind. It's done because they're worried about what the Greens might be doing to their votes in inner-city electorates, and what a shame that is.

The UNSW put out a media release on 29 June this year talking about the number of construction companies collapsing—collapsing under the weight of not being able to find labour, collapsing under the weight of just not being able to make ends meet. Then we have a Victorian Labor government which wants to just shut down the timber industry. We've got a Victorian Labor government which doesn't want to have—

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How is this relevant to the amendment?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is very relevant to the amendments because you build houses out of wood; you build houses out of timber. It's very relevant. I know you've cut Victoria out of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Maybe cut Victoria out of the amendments to the housing plan too. Maybe Victoria doesn't exist anymore in the minds of those opposite. It very relevant because the fact is that you just won't have the materials and you certainly won't have the labour to build homes. Since this time last year, new home starts are down by 6.6 per cent. It once was the great Australian dream to own your own home—not anymore, because people are burdened down by the weight of the cost-of-living crisis brought about by Labor at the federal level and at every other level that they are in power.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is an important discussion that we are having today around housing. There is no doubt it is one of the challenges, if not the biggest challenge, many people in our communities are facing. It's so important that people can own a home if they so choose, because it builds those connections to their community and it gives them that security that is vital for them to be engaged in their community. We all, on all sides of this House, support getting as many people as possible into housing.

However, the reality is this is a bad bill that will not deliver housing for Australians. It's all about politics and spin. It's all about the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and those opposite being able to stand here in this House or in front of the media and say, 'We are investing $10 billion in housing.' But they're not. It's a mirage. Its political spin. There is not a dollar of that $10 billion being invested in housing. It is being invested in a future fund, which is completely different. It is bad policy. It is off-budget spending. That means it doesn't count in the budget. So the Treasurer can stand there and talk about his surplus, the Prime Minister can talk about a surplus and have this facade of economic management, but there is $45 billion at least of off-budget spending that this government continues to hide.

But it gets worse. This $10 billion is being funded by debt. I will give the government a pass on this. This policy was announced in 2021 and interest rates were at zero. So at that point I could understand it. But, as many say, when the facts change, your opinion should change. Interest rates are now at four per cent at least, which many Australians know. That means that on that $10 billion of debt this fund has to spend $400 million to service that repayment. That's $400 million before a house has been built. That's before we even look at the fees that the future fund will charge to manage that money. We're looking at maybe $500 million.

But it gets worse. In their need to capitulate to the Greens, this government has committed to a minimum spend of $500 million a year, which means there is $1 billion each year that this fund has to spend. So the future fund has to generate, from the $10 billion, $1 billion to stop it eating into the capital that is being invested. That's before we even factor in the chance of the future fund losing money, which it did two years ago, over $300 million. So if this fund was put in previously we would be paying $400 million in interest repayments, we would have lost $300 million on the $10 billion and the fund still would have had to invest $500 million in housing.

It is bad policy. It is designed purely for this government to pretend that it is solving this problem. The reality is that it is a complex challenge, involving local governments, state governments and the federal government. But this government when in opposition promised Australians it would fix this problem. They campaigned on this issue knowing the challenges. We will hold them to account for that in this House every day, because it is not an easy solution. This $10 billion is a mirage.

Supply is crucial. Working with local councils and working with state governments is crucial. Being able to get more into the market will bring prices down. As the member for Riverina so rightly said, the cost of construction is also increasing significantly and we are seeing less timber being used, which is going to drive prices up. This is a government that has no solutions to the problems Australians are facing in housing and with the cost of living, with energy prices going up. We see a consistent theme 16 months into this government. It is all spin. It is all politics. There are no answers to housing. There are no answers to the energy crisis we face. There are no answers to the cost-of-living crisis we face. In fact, we know this government is not even focused on these issues. Once this bill passes and they've got their headline, there will be no more answers from the government. At best, we might get another summit, roundtable or talkfest from this government on housing, but we won't get solutions. (Time expired)

Colin Boyce (Flynn, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023. Housing is no doubt one of the most significant issues across Australia and also in my electorate of Flynn in Central Queensland. However, all this legislation and amendments provide a bandaid solution which over time will only make this problem worse. Let me be clear: this is another desperate, dodgy deal that's been done by the Labor Party with the Greens. The Labor Party and the Greens are working together so much that I wonder when they are going to form a coalition.

It should come as no surprise that the actual coalition, the Liberal-National coalition, will not be supporting these amendments. These amendments attempted to paper over the cracks of the Albanese government's crumbling signature housing policy. The amendments can't change the fact that the Housing Australia Future Fund will be capitalised by $10 billion worth of additional Commonwealth borrowing. These amendments can't change that that increasing borrowing will add to inflationary pressures in the economy, leading to higher interest rates overall.

Last October the Albanese government announced an aspiration to build one million homes over five years, yet multiple housing industry groups have since confirmed that this building activity is falling off a cliff. This target will not be met. Now the government has plucked another figure out of the sky, 1.2 million homes over five years. This figure is out of thin air too, knowing full well that these homes will not be built. The outcome of August's National Cabinet meeting has cemented the harsh reality that this housing crisis is going to continue and get worse under the Albanese Labor government, who has absolutely no plan on how to deal with this problem.

What this bill and the amendments fail to do is provide incentive for private industry and business to build homes. Labor is doing the Oprah Winfrey of politics, saying, 'You'll get a house, you'll get a house, you'll get a house.' Why isn't the Labor government encouraging private businesses to build with more incentives, rather than copying and pasting the Karl Marx manifesto? While I understand that social housing must be provided by governments, where do we stop with this policy? According to Master Builders Australia, the Flynn electorate has almost 4,000 small-size building and construction businesses, the largest number in any electorate across Australia. What we are seeing is business after business go bust with no plan in sight from the government.

In a desperate last-ditch attempt to get its troubled housing bill through the parliament, the government was forced yet again to cut another deal with the Greens on 11 September 2023. An agreement by the government to allocate an additional $1 billion towards the coalition's highly successful National Housing Infrastructure Facility just reiterates that investments of this kind should be made directly, not through Labor's convoluted HAFF money-go-round. The NHIF was set up by the former coalition government, and Labor continues to adopt coalition initiatives as its own.

Let's be clear: Labor's housing legislation does nothing to ease the supply pressures on first homeowners seeking to buy their first home and get into the property market. It will only see Australia's housing crisis worsened, with the added inflationary pressures on the economy ultimately leading to higher interest rates and more difficulty for those Australians looking to enter the housing market. Despite all of this, Labor is still planning to bring 1.5 million immigrants to Australia over the next five years with no plan on how to house them on top of housing our own growing population. It is clear that Labor's recent deal with the Greens is nothing more than a political stunt, which is typical of a government reliant on Greens preferences in order to be re-elected. More disappointingly, this is a government that is completely out of touch with Australians facing the current real hardships and painful cost-of-living pressures.

The housing crisis is an issue that needs cooperation on all three levels of government, local, state and federal. States and councils need to introduce policies that unlock land for development and not make development of new housing stock more expensive. All too often we have seen local governments lock up land and prevent housing development while continuing to adopt policies of ongoing cost. We need to be thinking about policies that support the Australian dream of homeownership. I wish to conclude by saying that I will not be supporting these amendments.

James Stevens (Sturt, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In my adult life the orthodoxy of election campaigns has been for the major parties, in particular, to put forward their spending priorities and talk to the Australian people about the policies and plans that they have and that they'll implement if elected, which is why it is particularly curious that we're confronted here with a policy position that the government took to the last election that involved actually committing no money whatsoever towards it.

We can understand and reflect on the sorts of meetings and discussions that would have happened between the government and the Greens when the government first sat down with the Greens and said, 'We want to get your support to pass this legislation through the parliament to establish this Housing Australia Future Fund.' I suspect that the first question from the Greens logically would have been, 'How much money will we be spending on housing in exchange for supporting this policy?' No doubt the government then explained what this policy actually was. This policy had no money committed in the forward estimates. This policy involved the government not having to put anything in their costing document at an election. This policy, as it would have become evident to the Greens, was a way for the government to have a policy without having a policy, to have a policy to address housing that would miraculously cost them nothing whatsoever, that would require no sacrifice in their election costings document and that would not require them to increase taxes in any way or cut expenditure from anything else in the budget to make their numbers stack up.

I suspect that in some kind of campaign strategy meeting someone said, 'We don't have a policy for housing and we need one.' And someone else, I suspect, said: 'I've got a great idea of having a housing policy that won't cost us anything, and it'll sound really good because it'll be $10 billion. Imagine when we pick up the newspaper the day after we announce that and someone says, "Labor announces $10 billion commitment to housing." It's going to be fantastic because we're not actually putting any money in whatsoever, but we'll be able to trick and hoodwink some people into thinking that we've got a $10 billion housing policy.' When this was all put to the Greens, I suspect they were a bit onto the fraud of this concept and said, 'We're not voting for a policy that will achieve nothing whatsoever when it comes to housing.'

I've got a lot of issues with the Greens, but, to be fair, I think in this one they've shown a great deal of integrity in calling out the scam, the lemon of a policy that this is, and demanding that, to vote for this fraud that will deliver nothing, they want actual money spent on housing. As I've said before, I congratulate them on being a party that actually got some money spent on housing through this charade that we're going through of debating this bill. There is evidently $3 billion being spent as part of a deal to get the Greens to vote for a policy that they weren't going to vote for without this $3 billion, because they would have been voting for a policy to spend nothing on housing whatsoever, and they've exposed that through this whole thing.

This is a political fix. The government's had to spend $3 billion of actual money to get support for a policy to spend nothing on housing whatsoever. I suppose the outcome's there, but it is a very curious and unorthodox way—which I've never seen in my time in this parliament—of achieving actual expenditure in an area of public policy: the now government having an election policy to spend nothing; trying to get the policy of spending nothing on the topic through the parliament; and, in exchange for getting support to spend nothing on something, actually spending money on it as part of a negotiation with a minor party in the Senate. I wonder what this holds for other government decisions into the future—we're going to find out—because the model's very clear now: for dud government policy, it costs around three billion bucks per bill to be passed through the Senate by the Greens. This is going to get very expensive.

The Greens may well continue to get mega spend on their pet projects in exchange for supporting other government legislation. That's how our democracy works, and I wish them well with that quest. But it is a completely ridiculous situation we've got, where we're being asked to support a bill to spend nothing on housing in exchange for a deal with the Greens to spend $3 billion on it. (Time expired)

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an outstanding contribution from the member for Sturt. I'm going to change what I was going to say because what he's highlighted is this almost comical situation we find ourselves in. It's like an episode of Seinfeld: this was a policy about nothing. It was a lot of sound and fury, with some things flashing up on the screen, and absolutely nothing happened until the intervention of the Greens. We saw this magnificent kabuki theatre—the Prime Minister snarling at the member for Griffith as he walked out, all the articles and all the hubris and the animosity that's been thrown about—but of course any quarrel can be solved if enough money is thrown at it. It was $3 billion. That's how much it cost the taxpayer to bring this lovers' tiff to an end. But what a great episode of kabuki theatre it was.

I've got to give it to the Greens here. This is the greatest political play, and I think it's been undersold. I want to go through just how great this political play by the Greens has been. The issue of housing supply in Australia is due to the deployment of Greens policies at a local government level: their continual refusal to allow developments for housing—for kids, like those sitting up in the gallery here, to grow up and buy one day—their absolute nimbyism and their rejection of anything. This was caught magnificently in the Courier Mail recently. In just the three electorates of our new Greens members in Brisbane, they have fought against the development of—you won't believe this, Member for Deakin—1,900 apartments.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How many?

Garth Hamilton (Groom, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Of 1,900 apartments! The very people who come in here now and want to tell you how much they care about the housing crisis, who want to tell you about renters rights, are stopping the development of properties at a time when every CEO of every major bank will tell you the issue is critically low levels of housing supply. This is an amazing play by the Greens, and part of me sits back with admiration, saying, 'How did you pull this off?' This is brilliant. You caused the problem, and then you extracted $3 billion from the government as part of the solution. It's a fantastic play by the Greens. Hats off to them. I mean, it's sinister, it's underhanded and it has hurt the Australian people—it's particularly hurt younger Australians—but it has probably benefited the Greens. This is Labor's attempt, right now, to try and fight back. That's what this is. That's what this housing policy is aimed at: to try and save a few Labor seats in these inner-city suburbs.

But we've gone through this before. The amendments do not change the fundamental problem with this bill. In fact, they make it worse. We have $10 billion that is borrowed at an estimated cost of $400 million a year. It will be invested, and, hopefully, returns on that investment will be above the $400 million, so that nothing can happen. You've got to get $400 million return just to get to that Seinfeld episode where nothing happens. That's a fair amount. That's a good day's work to get to Seinfeld. Then, on top of that, the government has made a commitment now—this is the amendment we're speaking to—of $500 million per year to be spent on housing.

You get to a certain level with figures, and they sound incredibly impressive. Gee, $500 million sounds like a lot of money. I'm going to go through this again. At an estimated cost—and I'm being generous—of $700,000 a property, that's 714 homes. That's less than half the number of homes that the Greens have blocked just in their three electorates, by the way. This is the signature, the key, the building block, the masterstroke around which Labor's policy is built. It's 714 homes.

Once again, Member for Deakin, you'll forgive me for talking about how great Toowoomba is, because without a Housing Australia Future Fund, without $10 billion, without the genius of the entire Labor economics team, we were able to build 830 homes. We just did that because that's what we felt like doing. We just got about our work. We didn't need all of this money. We didn't need all of this exaggeration. We're just one country town, an hour and a half in from Brisbane—the most beautiful place in the entire world—and we managed to beat that.

Even with the $3 billion extracted by the Greens to solve the problem they caused, even with the commitment of $500 million, this remains a policy about nothing. All it's going to do is hurt the Australian taxpayer.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to talk today about gambling reform. The shadow minister may say, 'What's this got to do with what we're debating?'

Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You need to speak to the amendment.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I reckon gambling reform is really important, and I think governments have got to learn about gambling. They've got to learn about gambling on the stock market with borrowed money. I reckon that's a really important reform that's got to come in. We've got to make sure that they can be educated about that, that if you do borrow $10 billion at a certain interest rate and whatever the returns you make don't match that interest rate, then you might lose money.

This is gambling reform writ large. Losing your own money is a problem. We've all done it. I went to the Melbourne Cup last year. I can't remember which horse I had my 10 bucks—which is all I bet each year—on, but it certainly wasn't a winner. You feel a bit sad about it. But when you're gambling with other people's money you've got to understand how hard people work to earn it, and that's the problem with this Labor government and many Labor governments, with a couple of exceptions, over the past hundred years The Andrews government are a classic example of a government who doesn't understand how hard people work to earn money, and they show that they don't understand that by callously flushing it down the toilet, such as with the Commonwealth Games—classic example.

Housing reform's really important. When talking about housing developments and working with my constituents, some of whom are developers, some of whom are builders, I've always found that the problem with building houses isn't the capital—the capital can flow into the housing market. It's not about taxpayers money. It would be one thing if it were taxpayers money from the budget, but this is like, 'Let's borrow something and hope we have a bit of a win so that we've got some money for housing.' The problem is more the red and green tape, the time, the effort and the expense it takes to turn something from a paddock—and there are plenty of paddocks around Shepparton, the city I'm from; Shepparton's expanding—into a development where someone can go and pour a slab and start building.

Hopefully a young family can go and buy a house, the great Australian dream that many of us have been lucky enough to participate in, and I hope that many more can. The dream's alive in regional Australia, but I'll tell you what, the way state and local governments approach planning and the time and expense it takes means a lot of development companies just say, 'It's too hard.' We could get more houses built if we focus our reforms there, focusing on the real issues, and not by gambling, not by saying, 'Let's borrow $10 billion and see if we can make a little bit of money out of it.'

There are developments outside greater Shepparton. There is a development just outside a place called Tatura which is in my electorate. Tatura's got a really small population, but it's got all these huge industries: Tatura Milk, Unilever and all of the service industries—and I hope Tatura Milk thrives as an industry, but I'm worried about it. They're worried about it because of the callous disregard of those opposite to the Murray-Darling Basin Plan, one of the most productivity-destroying pieces of legislation I've ever seen come into this place. Hopefully Tatura Milk can survive, keep going, thrive and provide dairy products not only to Australians but to people all over the world, but what they need is more people.

If we need more people to move to Tatura to work in these industries, they need to build more houses. They need to make available the land to build more houses. It's very hard to do that because of what you've got to go through with local government planning schemes and state government planning schemes. I read somewhere—correct me if I'm wrong—that approvals in New Zealand take something like six to 12 months. It can take six to nine years for approvals in Australia. That doesn't help us build houses, that helps us build bureaucracy. We need less bureaucracy and more buildings. We need less taxpayer money wasted. Let's pour some slabs and build some houses.

Bridget Archer (Bass, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Given I gave my initial speech indicating my support for the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 back in February, I'm incredibly pleased that the stalemate has ended and I can begin to hold Labor to account for a promise that I and my electorate have put our faith in them to deliver on.

I make no apologies for supporting the Housing Australia Future Fund. In the northern Tasmanian region of Bass, we are in the midst of a social and affordable housing crisis. According to data published by Everybody's Home, Bass has the highest proportion of people waiting for social housing in the state, at around 6.2 per cent. And it's not just confined to Launceston and surrounding suburbs. I encounter it in rural areas, from Scottsdale to my home town of George Town and the beautiful but remote Flinders Island. We shouldn't have to see people leaving the towns they grew up in, where they're connected to their families and their communities, because they can't access housing. Many tourism and hospitality businesses in some of our regional and rural hotspots are also struggling to recruit and retain employees, as there is simply nowhere for them to live.

As Nick Proud, CEO of PowerHousing Australia, shared with me recently, housing affordability has only deteriorated since the election, particularly as migration has rebounded post COVID, and the fund could help more than 80,000 Australian renters in need. He also noted that the delays in passing the Housing Australia Future Fund legislation have already jeopardised the 8,000 households and up to 25,000 Australians that could have had housing approved by mid-October.

The No. 1 constituent issues that come to my office are issues due to a lack of social or affordable housing. Every single day, I am contacted by someone who has been searching for secure accommodation for far too long. While there is strong anecdotal evidence I hear from local organisations—including Strike It Out, City Mission, Shekinah House, St Vinnies and the Salvation Army, who deliver essential services week after week—anyone in the region, and in Launceston particularly, can see it with their own eyes, as tents are now popping up in areas that we would never have seen them even 18 months or two years ago. Shekinah House coordinator Louise Cowan said that demand is ever-increasing. She said:

Generally across all the services we provide, we are seeing new people every week who haven't been homeless before and we know of others who are doing their third winter in a tent.

Paul Giddins, the wonderful owner of the Green Bean Cafe, provides meals to the homeless and to community members doing it tough. Paul has said that demand has grown to the point that, even though they have increased the number of meals they provide each week, there are still others missing out. CEO of St Vincent de Paul Heather Kent said the issue of supporting the community doing it tough was reaching a critical point, as costs of living continue to rise and housing availability remains low. Heather says:

We know that state, local and federal governments are working to stem that supply issue but it can't happen fast enough. We look at the vacancy rates in the major areas across Tasmania and we know that people are waiting weeks if not months to find a safe, appropriate and stable roof over their heads.

What I said in my initial speech stands today: how can I, in good conscience, say to them that I commit to doing what I can to help them and then turn around and vote against a policy that, although flawed, may help?

Back in February I called the then housing minister, Guy Barnett, to inform him of my decision to support the HAFF. I was pleased to see him speak out a few months later and call on his federal counterparts in the Senate to stop talking and start building. Minister Barnett said:

The top three priorities for delivering more homes faster is: supply, supply, supply.

…   …   …

And we just encourage Canberra get on with the job and give us the funding and the support that's needed to build more homes faster.

I will always fight for what's best for my community, no matter who is responsible for putting the legislation in front of me. If it will deliver better outcomes for the region I represent, it will get my vote.

I also want to acknowledge the work of Tasmanian senators Tammy Tyrrell and Jacqui Lambie, who in Senate negotiations will ensure that 1,200 new homes will be built in Tasmania over the next five years, double the original amount allocated to our island state.

Now the work for the federal government begins. You have my support on this, but I will be watching you closely to ensure that you do deliver what you have promised. There is far too much at stake for my community who are living in their cars, camping in public spaces or a friend's backyard, and for the pregnant women couch surfing, for this to fail.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In summing up the opposition's position on this, I'll say: we won't be supporting these amendments. I think it's useful to reflect on some of the specific amendments that have flowed through as part of the government paying the ransom demanded by the Greens political party.

We still have no explanation from the government on the minimum drawdown each year of $500 million, in the instance where the fund does not deliver a return. What I mean by that, for those watching, is that this entire policy is premised on borrowing $10 billion. That will cost about $400 million a year in interest. So they'll borrow that and then hand it over to the Future Fund, who will probably charge the Commonwealth about one per cent to manage that money—so another $100 million to manage that money. That's $500 million, just to establish this fund. And then they hope that the returns in that fund are greater than those costs, and, now, greater than the additional $500 million of minimum drawdown each year. Then take the instance where the fund loses money—and, had this fund been in place last year, it would have lost $370 million, plus the $400 million of interest, plus the $100 million in management fees, so it would have lost close to $900 million. As to the requirement that the Greens have now extracted from the government, of a minimum drawdown of $500 million: does that diminish the corpus of the fund? Therefore, are we now not talking about a perpetual fund but instead about a convoluted money-go-round to get this off the budget bottom line?

The member for Sturt was absolutely right: this policy is simply a policy designed to have a big number in a media release that would not hit the budget bottom line before the election when they were releasing their costings. That's all it is; nothing else. Now the government will be held to account on what they have legislated.

We have significant doubts that this will deliver anywhere near the numbers claimed, and, even if it does, it's a drop in the bucket. To some extent, while the parliament has been looking at this issue—watching the frenemy-ship between the Labor Party and the Greens, and their fights and the Kabuki theatre that the member for Groom spoke about—it's been somewhat entertaining, of course. But, really, we're talking about a policy that's tiny—tiny! If this thing clears every hurdle and if the future fund has a phenomenal next five years, with huge returns, which is a big if, then, they're saying, they'll build 6,000 homes a year for five years—6,000. Over that time, they are seeking to bring in 1½ million new migrants. Just think about that. The government is saying: 'Our signature policy may build 6,000 homes a year, at the same time that we're bringing in 300,000 people for each of those years—1.5 million people for 30,000 homes.' So the fact that we have spent so much time on this—a very small policy, in the scheme of Australian housing—is quite remarkable.

As the member for Sturt rightly outlined, it's a huge humiliation for the government that they've had to pay the ransom of the Greens. My concern is that even the ransom that has been paid will not benefit Australians. The government has handed over $2 billion in the form of a blank cheque to the states and territories—the same people who led us to this disaster; the same people who have seen and presided over public and social waiting lists getting longer by the year.

People don't want to see media releases from the Labor government. They want to see action. Sadly, under this government, we've got first home buyers down, we've got new home starts down, we've got new home approvals down and we've got rents up. We will be opposing this bill, because this bill and this fund will do nothing to arrest that disastrous decline under this government.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the amendment be agreed to.