Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the minister's explanation.

In taking note of this explanation, I make the point that the Senate ordered these documents back in July. The order was quite clear. The Senate was seeking advice provided by the Treasury to the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing in relation to the government's expansion of the five per cent deposit scheme. Subsequent to that, we've seen the Prime Minister canvas publicly that fact that there is Treasury advice which did anticipate that there would be an increase in house prices as a result of the government's five per cent deposit scheme expansion.

The Senate ordered the production of these documents in July. Here we are on Melbourne Cup Day in November, and we do not have those documents. The government cries a river about the Senate seeking access to documents properly ordered by this chamber on behalf of the Australian people, but this is yet another example of the government refusing to apply the normal applications that we would expect that they would comply with.

The point I make here is that the five per cent deposit scheme, which has been deployed into a supply constrained market without any income test, means testing or place caps, has shot prices up. Independent economist Nicholas Gruen of Lateral Economics predicted a 10 per cent increase in house prices as a result of this change. That was his prediction—a 10 per cent increase. We now have the first month of data from 1 October to 1 November, and that bears true. Nicholas Gruen's prediction is coming to life. We've seen a 1.2 per cent increase in October, the biggest increase in years for entry level first homes. When you look the complete set of data, what you see is no change to the houses of the wealthiest Australians. But you see a big surge in prices for entry level housing. The policy that was apparently designed to make it easier for prospective first home owners is making it harder. The prices are shooting up.

I make the point that house prices are too high at the entry level point. They are too high and they need to come down because this government has deliberately or recklessly increased the prices in that range when they knew that they had failed on supply. They inherited a housing system which had given the country 200,000 houses a year on average, and they've crashed that down to 170,000 houses a year on average. They have crashed the supply side of the market. We have the biggest population we've ever had, and here they come along with this demand side gimmick which shoots up house prices.

That's why we've sought this document. We sought this document because we know that briefings and modellings were doing by the Treasury. The Prime Minister's confirmed it, but, apparently, we're not allowed to have it. The Senate's not allowed to have the documents it asked for. You have to wonder what sort of country we're living in. All we want to see are the modellings and the briefings that were done. I am sure that Treasury would have flagged the huge risks the Australian people would have to bear if the government was going to uncap and open this scheme up to the children of billionaires. I am sure.

Anyway, we'll play this game a bit longer. The government can keep on covering up and obfuscating, not giving us the documents which have been legally ordered by this chamber, but in the end we'll get the documents. In the end, the government will have enough of extended question times and have enough of the other things that we'll do with the crossbench to ensure that we get transparency. The government can threaten to cut the pay and conditions, like a union bully would, of the people in the House of Reps, and I don't think anyone gives a rat's arse, frankly—