Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

It's a real delight to follow the remarks of my colleague. There was a lot of common sense and wisdom in that presentation. I've got here the State of the housing system 2025 report from the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. If you were to listen to those opposite, they would say to you that all the issues in relation to housing supply occurred under the previous government. But this report actually tells the truth. This is the government's own agency giving its report with respect to what the reality is of housing supply.

I want to quote a number of the key findings of this report. I quote from page 1 of the report:

The supply of new housing is near its lowest level in a decade. 177,000 dwellings were completed in 2024, falling significantly short of underlying demand for housing, which was estimated at around 223,000 for the same period—

This is under Labor—record lows over the decade in relation to new housing constriction—

This shortfall added to already significant unmet demand in the system.

…   …   …

938,000 dwellings are forecast to be completed during the Housing Accord period, which falls short of the 1.2 million target. Scenario analysis indicates that even under optimistic economic scenarios, the target will not be achieved—

Even under the most optimistic scenarios, it will not be achieved—

No state or territory is forecast to meet the share of the target implied by its population—

So you're not going to meet the target on a national level, and no state or territory is going to meet the target of its share of the 1.2 million target. The report goes on to say:

When factoring in demolitions, the net new supply is expected to total 825,000 over the Housing Accord period, which is 79,000 dwellings fewer than expected new underlying demand.

Then page 5 says:

Over the Housing Accord period that commenced on 1 July 2024—

under Labor—

the Council forecasts that gross new housing supply will be 938,000 under baseline macroeconomic conditions and current policy settings … or around 188,000 per year on average. This implies a shortfall of 262,000 relative to the 1.2 million Housing Accord target, which is a little more than the 256,900 shortfall forecast in State of the Housing System 2024.

So the shortfall actually went up in 2024-25. That's what the independent analysis is telling us.

Then, if senators representing various states and territories want to look at the position in their own state or territory, they can do so at a table on page 7. This indicates the following in terms of gross new housing supply and its ratio to share of target: New South Wales, 65 percent—so the government's own agency is saying that New South Wales will only meet 65 per cent of its share of the new housing target; Victoria is doing much better at 98 per cent; my home state of Queensland, 79 per cent; Western Australia, 81 per cent; South Australia, 71 per cent; Tasmania, 51 per cent; ACT, 78 per cent; and the Northern Territory is at an extraordinarily low 31 per cent. The report goes on to say:

After accounting for the expected demolition of around 113,000 dwellings, net new housing supply is projected to be 825,000 over the Housing Accord period, or just over 165,000 dwellings per year on average.

In comparison, new underlying housing demand is forecast to be 904,000 …

So 825,000 is projected compared to housing demand of 904,000. Houston, we have a problem, and that's what the government's own National Housing Supply and Affordability Council is telling us. There's a real issue.

During the contributions made by those opposite, they failed to refer to the positive policies the coalition took to the last election which would have made a real difference in relation to housing supply. I want to refer to some of those policies to correct the record in this place. I think one of the best policies the coalition took to the last election was to provide a $5 billion fund for road, sewerage and power works—infrastructure works—that could be applied by state and local governments to open up new land for development and to provide the infrastructure for new land to be opened up.

There was also a very good policy, in my view, with respect to processing environmental approvals under the EPBC Act. My office is in a beautiful place called Springfield in what's called the south-west corridor in Queensland, which is one of the fastest-growing areas of Queensland. There are thousands of lots which could be built on tomorrow and which are stuck in the EPBC Act process in Canberra. Some of these thousands of lots have been stuck in that process for up to five years. It is madness.

I assisted one owner of a property—I won't provide their details to protect their confidentiality—who wanted to build a childcare centre, which the area was also desperately in need of, and the rigmarole that they had to go through in terms of dealing with the EPBC Act was extraordinary. It made absolutely no sense at all; on any objective rational basis, it made no sense. It was a question of the bureaucracy simply saying no and being obstructionist until, after numerous representations, a pathway was found. The system has got to work better than that. It's just ridiculous. Thousands of lots which could have been built upon are still going through an EPBC Act process—absolutely absurd. So the coalition was right to take a policy to the last election with respect to that.

I commend Senator Bragg on this disallowance motion. I think the dream of the vast majority of Australians is to own their own house or apartment; it is not to be renters for life. You have the most control over your future destiny by being an owner of a place where you live. Owning your own house, owning your own apartment—I think that is the Australian dream, and it should be a realisable dream. Every single Australian family should have the opportunity to own their own house or apartment. I don't want us to pass policy which contributes to this notion that we're going to become a nation of renters; I think it will be extraordinarily unfortunate if that is the Australia we become.

In relation to the mechanics of the relevant regulation, I'll give you my definitive legal advice with respect to the regulation and the details. It's extraordinarily complicated. It's a maze of requirements you need to go through in relation to meeting the build-to-rent development determination. For a start, in order for something to be an affordable dwelling:

… the rent payable under a lease for the dwelling must be 74.9% or less of the market value of the right to occupy the dwelling under the lease

Just think about that. We're saying that, for something to be an affordable dwelling in a build-to-rent development, the rent payable has to be less than 75 per cent of what the market is saying the rent should be. How's that going to work? And the landlord needs to go out and test the market in terms of demonstrating that a comparable property in the same area would have a rent which is at least 25 per cent more than what the build-to-rent affordable dwelling is to have.

Then we've got income thresholds for those who are renting. If a tenant is a single adult, the income threshold is 120 per cent of average annual earnings, which I find curious. I'm not sure what the policy reasoning is behind that threshold but I find it a bit curious, if we're talking about affordable housing, that the income threshold for a single adult is 120 per cent of average annual earnings. I'm not sure why that's the case. I would have thought that, if you're providing affordable housing, your target market should be those who aren't earning over average annual earnings; that's my thought, anyway. If the tenants include two or more adults but no dependent children, then it can be 130 per cent of average annual earnings. I would have thought that what you're trying to achieve is providing dwellings for people earning less than annual earnings, so I'm not sure why the thresholds are at that rate. Then you need to test the annual earnings of your tenants on the basis of certain events which occur; you've got to do that after each assessing event, and then there is a list of assessing events. So this is complicated. And there are situations where the owner of these developments can go get a tax ruling. There's got to be monitoring and supervision of this. There will have to be auditing et cetera. Wouldn't it just be simpler to come up with policy parameters and settings which incentivise builders to go and build dwellings? Wouldn't that be simpler than coming up with this complicated scheme, which is giving tax benefits to offshore investors? It's quite extraordinary. And this will just be a tangle of red tape which will add to development costs every step of the way.

It'll be very interesting to see how this works in practice. But, on the face of it, I find it difficult to understand what the incentive would be for someone to build a dwelling—for an investment manager who's investing the funds of someone they owe fiduciary duties to with respect to how their funds are invested. I find it difficult to see how it can be in the best interests of investors to build dwellings for which they can only charge less than 75 per cent of the market rate. How do you justify that? If I was investing in a fund and someone was saying, 'I'm going to build a dwelling but charge less than 75 per cent of the market rate,' my question would be: 'Well, why am I investing in your fund? Why don't I go invest in a fund that charges the market rate?' So I'm not really sure how this is going to work in practice, and I'm not sure how withholding tax dispensation actually provides the motivation for people to do this. But it is a tangle of red tape. There's no question about that. And I really do question whether or not this will work the way it's intended to in practice.

That's why I'm very pleased to have the opportunity to support Senator Bragg's disallowance motion. I would like to take this opportunity, Acting Deputy President—and I'm sure you would agree with me—to commend Senator Bragg with respect to his advocacy in relation to housing issues. He has been a champion of the Australian dream. You dream of every single Australian owning their own home.