Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in favour of Senator Bragg's Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024. This bill is a timely and necessary bill, but, more than that, this is a bill that is in the Australian people's national interest. It is a direct response to a failure of policy, a failure of governance and, more than that, as speaker after speaker has said, a failure of ethics by Mr Albanese and the Labor government. But, above all, why has Senator Bragg brought this bill forward? Because he is concerned, just like we all are in the Liberal Party and the National Party, with what is now a growing crisis in our housing system in Australia. This crisis is one that this Labor government has not only failed to fix—and this is the bad news for Australians, and the statistics that we will all go through in our speeches do not lie—but actually made worse.

All Senator Bragg's bill seeks to do is this: amend the governing legislation of the Housing Australia Future Fund to ensure that funds raised for public housing—that is, housing for the Australian people—do not flow into projects tied to entities controlled or influenced by the criminal, quite frankly, CFMEU. Specifically, what this bill will do is this: prohibit taxpayer money being funnelled into housing developments financed by—the name sounds so lovely—Cbus Super. The issue with Cbus Super, and what the Labor Party forgets to tell the Australian people, is that this superannuation fund is an entity inextricably linked to the most lawless union in this country. Even the government can't admit that it's not, because, with the help of the coalition, they put it into administration.

Let's be clear about Senator Bragg's bill. This is not a bill about a question of ideology. This is now about a question of integrity. Labor talked a big game in relation to the Housing Australia Future Fund. They continue to support a big game in relation to the Housing Australia Future Fund. But, instead, they've implemented it. The money is there. Let's actually look at what the real situation is for Australians who are battling to get into a home. 'Housing Australia Future Fund' is a great headline from the Labor government—I'm not going to deny that. That is what they are so good at. I wouldn't give them 10 out of 10; I would give them 11 out of 10 for great headlines. But it's time, quite frankly, that we exposed the great headline and looked at the devastating reality of what this government is actually doing to Australians who are currently sleeping in cars and have no opportunity at all to get into the housing market—and, worse than that, are being sold a pup by the Albanese government.

The Housing Australia Future Fund's central promise has failed, so let's look at what Labor said to the Australian people. This is what they said and continue to say whenever they stand up. The Australian people were told by Mr Albanese that his signature Housing Australia Future Fund would deliver, and I quote, 30,000 new homes. Mr Albanese also said: 'My government will be bold. My government will be ambitious. My government will be urgent.' Let's look at the actual statistics. This is not the coalition speaking; these other numbers that you get from departments at estimates. In other words, we ask the questions of those in charge of the Housing Australia Future Fund and we get the answers. The question we ask is—30,000 new homes; bold, ambitious and urgent—how many has the fund actually built? Australians deserve to know this, and we will be telling this to Australians every single day between now, quite frankly, and the next election: as of July 2025, two years after the fund was announced—this is a fact—approximately 17 homes have been built.