Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I listened carefully to the back end of Senator Bragg's contribution. I think it is important, before I deal with some of the merits of the arguments that have been made, to understand precisely what is being proposed here and what the point of this disallowance would be. The effect of this disallowance would be to delay, make more complex and frustrate the ambitions of the government, and, of course, the people who would be the beneficiaries of this scheme. It's not just about the mechanics. In the worst case this would render the scheme inoperable.

Senator Bragg invoked the principle, that apparently he holds dearly, of 'competitive neutrality'—and he asserted that like it was the sort of thing that applied here! The point of this scheme is that it is providing equity to people who would otherwise not be able to get it. There is no principle of 'competitive neutrality'. It is just word salad that is being provided as a justification.

This scheme, the Albanese Labor government's Help to Buy Scheme, will help another 40,000 Australians into homeownership—nurses, cleaners, early-childhood educators, aged-care workers—who would not otherwise be able to afford a home of their own. Senator Bragg says this would create a two-tiered system. There is already a two-tiered system. There are people who can repay a loan but can't repay a loan at the full price for a home. This is about the Albanese government saying, 'We will use the power of the government to step in and make sure that you have the right level of equity to be able to afford to buy a home.' What is wrong with that?

I think what is being put here is a mealy-mouthed position, with lots of complaints. Any number of reasons can be put forward in order to oppose a scheme that puts working-class Australians into homes of their own. These are not substantial, significant reasons. This is just blather. For such a young man, he—Senator Bragg—is an old fogey. They've just come up with all of the sorts of reasons you would want to stop a nurse or an aged-care worker or a cleaner—lower-to-middle-income Australians—from being able to secure their own home. Just imagine: if you get on the other side of the chamber on this question and vote against it, then don't look your cleaner in the face again; don't pretend that you treat low-income Australians with respect. Honestly! Just get out of the way and allow the government to support these people.

I think it's founded firstly in a sense of intellectual arrogance—a sense that those opposite are so clever that, unless they've designed a policy mechanism themselves, there's no way. It's from their sense of entitlement that drives them into public office. It's their way or no way—even if the consequence of that is that 40,000 ordinary Australians stay on the rental market forever, forever paying somebody else's mortgage. It's so utterly heartless, so completely self-involved, so utterly driven by a sense of entitlement.

There's a sense of snobbery that drives this position. Senator Bragg says, 'Australians don't want to co-own their home with the government.' Well, if you don't want to co-own a house with the government, don't buy a house with the government. There's a sort of snobbery that looks down on people in community housing or in public housing. These are people who have a steady income and can repay a loan, and will work their guts out to repay a loan. But the snobbery of the Liberal Party says: 'You're not up to it. We're only for other people—not for people who work hard. We're for other people.' It's that sort of born-to-rule sense of entitlement that means that you can offer a mealy-mouthed phrase like 'competitive neutrality' that means nothing in this context. It's meaningless. Is it because you're entitled by a sort of birthright to the role in the Liberal Party that you just get to say no to these people—say no to the cleaners, the childcare workers, the aged-care workers? You live in your own home, and pay your own mortgage, but you say to them, 'You're not good enough for that.'

Let's put aside all that cruelty and all that snobbery for a moment. Senator Bragg claims that it's reasonable to say that the same prudential regulations should be applied to the government. What a silly argument. What a vain argument. The truth is that these mechanisms will be driven by the banks that offer the loans. The prudential regulations apply to them. They have to discharge their obligations. Why would you set up a regulatory environment that says: 'We're going to double up the requirement. We're going to have not just one set of prudential requirements but effectively two. We'll have two decision-makers who might make different decisions'? Have a look at yourselves. Have a look at the people who you are disadvantaging and think about whether that's really a serious argument that an adult would make.

I understand that the Liberal Party and the National Party don't like government engaging in the economy to support ordinary people. I don't agree with it, but I get it. But we have been elected to perform this function by people who saw Labor's Help to Buy scheme and said, 'I can get into the housing market.' I know these people. These are people in my family and in my community who say: 'I could get partial equity. The value of my home will grow over time. I'll pay that mortgage. I can sell the home, with the government share declining in real terms over time as the value of the home increases. I can make a quid out of this. I can get a foot on the ladder.' But the Liberal Party and the National Party, under Ms Ley, say, 'No, it's not for you; it's just for us.'

I've had people in my office in tears with the hope that our five per cent deposit scheme gives them. One of them, just a few days ago, said: 'My HECS debt is gone. I can do a five per cent deposit. It's a real thing for me.' And these guys say, 'No, it's not for you; it's just for us. Don't worry about it, young people. You can flog yourselves for 15 years and try to save a deposit,' while, under the Labor Party government, these young people get to have a crack in a period of time that they can see and imagine.

Honestly, I can't believe the pile of garbage arguments that get mounted up in order to justify it—that it's a demand-side mechanism and all this econobabble. It is a real thing, and these are real people. These are people you might never meet or want to associate with, but they are real people. They may not be in the gentlemen's clubs and all that sort of stuff that you lot carry on about, but they are real people—young people, low-income people—who get to have a crack. But you want to just stand in the way and say, 'No, it's not for you.'

The majority of our package, our $43 billion package, is of course allocated on the supply side. It is working with the states and territories and with the community housing organisations to drive more activity in the housing market. We've set ambitious targets to do that, and we'll be measured on our success over time. The problem with the Liberals' argument is that they say, 'How many homes did you build?' on Wednesday and then they say, 'How many homes did you build?' on Thursday and it's not less than the day before. The number keeps increasing. It gets bigger. Those are hard things to do, and they require the government getting active and working with developers, and you get this nitpicking, undermining, snobbery driven response from the Liberal Party. That's what you get. It's mean-spirited. It's snobby. It's obstructionist. It's intellectually arrogant. It's born to rule.

The problem is that when you wreck things and try to establish a coalition of support across the chamber that has everybody engaged, and sometimes con the Greens to supporting your position, ordinary people pay. When you wreck these things it hurts cleaners, it hurts nurses, it hurts coppers, it hurts council workers and it hurts tradies who just want to have a crack. They just want to have a go. Maybe spend a bit of time over the Christmas break reflecting on what actual effective opposition should do. It actually involves sometimes backing the government, or backing policies that you wouldn't have written yourself. We did it plenty of times in opposition between 2019 and 2022. It was a pretty good model, a pretty successful model.

I watched Niki Savva with some interest on Sunday. I'm often out doing things on a Sunday morning, usually trying to do a few things around the house to make up for the fact I'm not often around during the week. She said the problem for the Liberal Party is they have got an existential crisis. Then she went on to say that the problem for the Liberal Party is they have an identity crisis. They don't know who they are. I've been around politics for a little while now for a young bloke. I've been around for a little while. I know from experience that you can have an existential crisis after a bad result, but if you know who you are and what you stand for, and you understand what makes up the movement you are in and your place in history and Australian democracy, then you can work your way through a tough existential patch. If you have an identity crisis, you have your existence to rely upon. You've got time to figure it out and you're not in a mad rush. But if you have an identity crisis and an existential crisis at the same time, you are in all sorts of trouble because you don't know who you are, you don't know what you stand for and your capacity to solve these problems in the interests of Australians gets smaller and narrower every day. That is the problem with your policy formulations, whether it's this or your approach to the energy questions.

I can see the sea change that's happening across this chamber as One Nation and Mr Joyce and all these characters actually in charge—Senator Sharma shakes his head, but he's in a diminishing part of the old moderate part of the Liberal Party. It doesn't really exist anymore except in a tiny little fraction of New South Wales. It's been bullied out of existence by these other characters who have given the game away on the centre ground of Australian politics. They want to move to the extreme right, and that's where you end up wrecking things and hurting ordinary people and ordinary Australians. That's what voting for this proposition would deliver—nothing more, nothing less. It's just pain for Australians you will probably never meet.