Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Yet, despite that dismal record, the coalition now pretend to care about accountability. The same mob of sports rorts and secret ministers suddenly developed a passion for transparency. Give me a break! Give us all a break.

Now let's talk about Senator Bragg's so-called accountability bill and what it actually does. Under the Housing Australia Act 2018, the government issued investment mandate directions. These directions guided how programs like the Home Guarantee Scheme and the Housing Australia Future Fund facility operated. They provide flexibility and certainty, the kind of certainty that investors, builders and homebuyers rely on. The bill that Senator Bragg brought to the Senate would make those directions disallowable—he talked in great length to us about those—and allow either chamber of the parliament to rip them up at any time. That would expose the five per cent home guarantee scheme, which has already helped more than 185,000 Australians to get their first home. What a great figure, 185,000. That would endanger the upcoming Help to Buy program, which will help another 40,000 families. It would threaten the HAFF, the Housing Australia Future Fund, a cornerstone of our $43 billion housing agenda.

That's not oversight. That's sabotage. That's taking a sledgehammer to all of that. What would that mean for real people? It would mean tens of thousands of Australians who have been saving for their first home would have their dreams snatched away from them. I know that that would also mean that first home buyers would need bigger deposits and would be waiting longer and paying more, each of them forced to fork out an extra $23,000 on average on lenders and mortgage insurance. This would also mean that social and affordable housing projects that are under construction right now would also be delayed. Without Commonwealth support, community housing providers would have to stop work on their new builds altogether. This is a real-world impact of this bill—fewer homes, less certainty and absolutely higher costs.

We've seen this behaviour before. We feel like we're having deja vu. For months, as I said, they blocked the build to rent program, and they tried to scrap it. For months they blocked the HAFF, and then they promised to abolish it. That was your election promise. Even then, they were opposed to the Help to Buy program before it even began. If the opposition gets a final say on our five per cent deposit scheme, we all know what they'll do. They've told us time and time again. They'll just tear it up.

Australians know they can't trust the coalition when it comes to housing. While the coalition play politics, Labor is delivering a plan—a serious, fully funded, long-term plan. We have an ambitious $43 billion housing agenda that is already making a difference across the country. We've already taken the Commonwealth from being a negligent bystander under the coalition to being the boldest and most ambitious government on housing since the postwar period. Under our prime minister, Anthony Albanese, we are tackling the housing crisis from every angle. We are backing homebuyers. We are making it easier to buy a home of your own. We took a bold plan to the election, five per cent deposits for all first home buyers, and we delivered on that plan months ahead of schedule, launching it on 1 October.

Thanks to Labor's five per cent deposits, first home buyers are cutting years off the time it takes to save for their home deposit. Instead of spending 10 or 11 years trying to save enough to buy a first home, it now only takes a few years. This is life changing. Soon the Help to Buy program will help low- and middle-income earners into homes with smaller deposits and smaller mortgages. We are partnering with states and territories to build 100,000 new homes reserved for first home buyers—homes that can't be snapped up by investors before families get a chance.

We also know there's no single silver bullet for the housing crisis, but building more homes will ease the pressure for everyone, for renters and for buyers alike. That's why we're supporting the construction of 1.2 million homes nation-wide. We're training more tradies, cutting red tape and investing in the infrastructure that's needed to unlock supply. Through our housing future fund, we are delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes for people who do vital work—as I said, our nurses, teachers and aged-care workers. People should be able to live near where they work. As I said, under the coalition, the magic number was 373. Under Labor, it will be 55,000. That's the difference between neglect and nation building.

The opposition say, 'Why not let the parliament have oversight?' Well, that's exactly how this opposition works. Give them a lever, and they will pull it to block progress. They've got form. For years, they were blocking, delaying, bulldozing every housing initiative that was put before them. This is not about oversight; this is about control. This is about giving themselves power to tear down the government's agenda. They are trying to do it now by stealth.