Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Sometimes it's useful or instructive to look at a piece of legislation when it comes to this chamber and break it down into two simple parts: a policy part and a politics part. I've seen some amazing legislation in this place that's truly driven reform, that's been built on years of evidence and testimony from multiple stakeholders and multiple Senate inquiries, with a lot of hard work by a lot of senators in this place and across political divides, like the original NDIS legislation and the Gonski reforms, which the Labor Party should be very proud they brought in. I've seen the Royal Commission into Misconduct in the Banking, Superannuation and Financial Services Industry deliver significant reform that we've all supported. When you get good policy like that, it kind of drives the politics. Everybody gets behind it. But then you get pieces of legislation, like the ones we're dealing with tonight—the Help to Buy Bill 2023 and the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023—where a government tries to drag the Senate by the nose, using politics to get everybody to support legislation when it's not based on good evidence. In fact, the evidence suggests it's actually not good policy. But they try and beat the drum, get up in here and make big statements—very short on any policy detail, I may say, from what I've heard in here tonight.

It's worth having a good look at why the policy is so inadequate, and I would like to start by saying, firstly, that it's not enough. If you want to do something about the rental crisis then you need to do something about the rental crisis. If you want to do something about housing affordability in this country then you need to actually act on housing affordability in this country.

This is my 13th year in this place. My colleagues and I, since I arrived here, have repeatedly debated, brought in legislation and initiated Senate inquiries into multiple aspects of tackling inequality in this country, especially around housing. We've continually tried to remove the distortions in our tax system, like negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, that not only remove billions of dollars of taxpayer funds that should be paying for schools and hospitals but also distort the housing market, make it so unfair for many Australians who are forced to rent and can't afford to buy their own homes, and give a leg-up to wealthy property investors and retirees in this country.

I know Mr Shorten announced his retirement last week. Kudos to him. He not only tackled the banks and did his best as opposition leader at the time to get that debate through this place but also tried within the Labor Party to take on these big reforms, which are absolutely crucial if we're going to fix this problem. But no. It's too politically difficult for the Albanese government: 'Small target—don't want to go anywhere near it.'

What about other reforms that are necessary, like cracking down on money laundering in this country, something that, once again, my Greens colleagues and I have spent many years working on? I'm pleased to say that at least the Attorney-General is doing some submissions and consulting on the tranche 2 laws, which leave a massive loophole in Australia for accountants, real estate agents and other entities to advise their clients on how to hide behind shell companies and avoid transparency for money laundering. Money laundering is a massive issue in Australia, particularly the dark money that goes into our real estate market, where foreign investors pump billions into Australia, buying properties at auctions and competing against everyday Australians who want to buy their own homes. Why is it that respective governments haven't cracked down on these loopholes in our money-laundering laws when other countries have? I certainly hope Mr Dreyfus finally brings in those tranche 2 laws, because every attorney-general prior to him said they would and then never did.

There is so much more that we should be doing on building public housing, but where are the big plans to build public, social and affordable housing in Australia? Across this country, millions of renters are struggling to keep their heads above water. With house prices and mortgages soaring, this scheme that we're debating here tonight just isn't good enough.

That's where it comes to the politics. This is the kind of thing on which the government will go to the next election and say, 'We've acted for Australians to help them get in to buy their own homes and get then out of rental stress, and here's what we've done.' I'm not sure whether the LNP have talked about this, but, as the Senate has heard from my colleagues tonight, this will potentially—I say 'potentially', but in fact it is very unlikely—give a leg-up to just 0.2 per cent of renters in this country. What about the other 99.8 per cent of renters in this country? What are they going to do? Why won't they get access to this scheme? How stingy! Then we're going to see it used as a slick promo going into the next election, saying that the Albanese government has somehow acted on one of the great crises of our time.

I need to say that from the moment this bill was introduced the Greens have been willing to work with Labor to pass this scheme if they negotiate with us on the policy that actually matters, like removing negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts and a whole bunch of other really important policies. We've asked, in our negotiations, for them to take action on freezing and capping rents, to end tax handouts for property investors that stop renters buying their first home and to establish a government owned property developer which would build 610,000 houses to be sold at just above the cost of construction and with rents capped at 25 per cent of income.

I've heard Labor senators talk about the fact that the Greens had a shared-equity scheme at the last election. Yes, we did. You can go online and see it. But it was a shared-equity scheme that bought government-built houses under this scheme from new supply, not gave people money to go out and buy existing dwellings, which is only going to serve to push up the price of existing housing and make the crisis worse. Our scheme was specifically targeted at giving people the chance, like we see in Singapore and other countries, to buy a house off the government that they are renting from the government from new supply.

Labor has not made a single counteroffer or engaged in good-faith negotiations in any meaningful way. Why not? The last election result was a clear message from Australians that didn't give them the balance of power in the Senate. It meant they had to negotiate with other political parties to get better representation and outcomes for Australians. Why refuse to negotiate with us to get this bill through?

The Greens believe housing is essential and a basic human need. In a country as wealthy as Australia, the government has a responsibility to ensure everyone has an affordable, quality home. In my home state of Tassie, according to the 2021 census data, Tasmania experienced the largest increase in homelessness in Australia in the five years to 2021, jumping by 45 per cent. Also in my home state, the average renter pays $6,240 more to keep a roof over their head than they did in the five years prior to that, according to the Tenants Union of Tasmania's submission to the inquiry on Homes Tasmania in July 2024. According to ABC reports published in March this year, the waiting list for social housing in Tasmania has essentially doubled, and the average time people wait on the list has gone up by a factor of four, from 16 weeks to 80 weeks. That's more than a factor of four.

This housing crisis, fuelled by the tens of billions of dollars handed out to wealthy property investors every year by the Albanese Labor government, is hurting women and children the most. The Somewhere to go housing report, led by Impact Economics and Policy, published in November 2023, estimates approximately 604 Tasmanian women are becoming homeless each year after leaving a violent partner, while 330 are returning to one. These are the exact kinds of statistics that the Greens plan to deal with. Our massive public housing build would help alleviate that by providing safe and affordable housing at the scale we actually need, not the fraction and crumbs that the Labor Party is offering with this pathetic bill.

It's as plain as day that renters and first home buyers are doing it so tough in my home state and in other parts of the country, but the Albanese Labor government refuses to protect the tens of thousands of people who rent in Tasmania, by implementing a rent freeze and a cap on unreasonable rent increases. The proposed Help to Buy scheme would only help, as I mentioned earlier, 10,000 of Australia's 5.5 million adult renters per year—0.2 per cent. And that's something to crow about? As a result, overall homeownership rates are lowered as more people are priced out of housing.

We have seen these shared-equity schemes before. Other examples are the First Home Owner Grant scheme and the coalition's HomeBuilder program. And let's not forget the scheme we got during COVID, giving everybody a bunch of money to go out and do a house renovation. How did that work out? It massively inflated building costs. Actually, I know people who got on that scheme. By the time they had actually got the quote and got around to building or doing renovation in their house, they lost more than 50 per cent of what they would have had had they not taken up the scheme. That's how out of pocket they were, because prices were that inflated.

The Tenants' Union of Tasmania's submission to the Tasmanian inquiry into Homes Tasmania said that the waiting list for social housing in Tasmania has essentially doubled and the average time people spend waiting on the list has gone up by a factor of more than four. What are we doing about that? We're not building any new homes in Tasmania with any federal money at the moment. The proposed Help to Buy scheme is not going to fix this crisis, as we see homeownership rates fall and as more people are priced out of housing.

I would like to see, and my colleagues would like to see, the government come to the table to negotiate. We would like to see them reform and bring in legislation that all Australians, except perhaps wealthy property investors, would like to see. Now is the time to be courageous. We know costs of living right around this country are a major election issue, if not the major election issue. You only need to go and knock on doors to see how tough people are doing it out there and see how many people are so grateful if their landlord renews their lease. Recently I doorknocked someone, a single mum, who sends a lot of the income she earns—her disposable income, if there's any left at all—to support her mother, who's on a disability pension. She actually cried and got emotional with me when she told me that she was so relieved that, just the week before I knocked on her door, her landlord had renewed her lease for another 12 months—she was that frightened about being put out on the streets. And I know those stories are everywhere.

Why is it that this is the best we can do when there are so many Australians on waiting lists for public housing, when there are so many women who have been forced back into violent relationships because there are no shelters and long-term housing available for them? Surely we can do better than this? The amount of money that has been appropriated for this is a drop in the ocean. This is about getting our priorities right, not just as the government but as a parliament working together on some significant reform. This is not significant reform. The government can go out and do press conferences every day. They can also put up their social media videos. They can ask themselves questions during question time. But Australians outside this political bubble get it. They want to know why they're not being represented and why these issues aren't being taken seriously, why addressing their hurt and pain is not being prioritised by this government. Well, the Greens will prioritise that, and people will vote for us at the next election if you don't stand up for them.