Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Recently I was reminded of a quote I'd seen a while ago. I tracked it down to former senator Rex Patrick's website. He quotes former Labor minister Barry Jones as saying:

In Canberra I feel like a member of a football team which never plays at home—the public servants have collectively about 85% of the information and we have about 15%—much of which is acquired from leaks and newspaper reports.

Every day, many of us in this place try to get that number up to 16 or 17 per cent. What we saw yesterday was the 85 per cent punching down on the 15 per cent. I thought I'd fallen through a portal to 10 years ago. I thought I was back at UWA, with the student politics that was on display yesterday afternoon. It was an act of juvenility and arrogance in equal measure. It was summed up when Senator Scarr sought to clarify the purpose of an amendment to the motion which gave rise to this attendance. Now, I'm not sure who it was—perhaps it was Senator Gallagher—but someone from the government benches called out that its purpose was 'to annoy you'. That just about says it all.

OPD 208 relates to the Australian Government 5% Deposit Scheme. Now, a five per cent deposit sounds great. The bar to get a mortgage is lowered and more people have the opportunity to buy their first home. But let's think about what a five per cent deposit means. It means a 95 per cent mortgage. It means hundreds of thousands of dollars more in interest for banks over a period of a loan. The banks love it. Just yesterday it was reported that the Minister for Housing's director of policy, the guy who came up with the five per cent deposits, has left for the Commonwealth Bank. That's not a bad little rort! It also means, as more people are able to enter the market and demand increases, the cost of housing will increase. Even Treasury has said that this program will push up house prices. So if you get into the program, congratulations. You'll soon be joining the ever-expanding group of Australians who are behind on their mortgage payments as the RBA tells us that inflation is back on the rise and that the rate-cutting cycle is over.

For those who don't manage to get into the scheme, its effect on house prices means the Australian dream will just keep drifting away. I'd like to acknowledge the efforts of Senator Bragg, who has struggled to have the modelling for the five per cent deposit program released through freedom of information, a system which this government believes needs to be more secretive. I don't want Australians to think that this is just a Canberra-bubble transparency issue, however. For the Australians who have been priced out of the housing market, it's all too real. The government hiding evidence that their programs exacerbate unaffordability means they can avoid having to take action on the things that would make housing more affordable in a systemic way.

We've heard that this government is thinking about addressing the tax concessions that have turned housing from a place to live to an investment vehicle. A reform budget is reportedly in the pipeline, and I hope those reports are accurate. The capital gains tax discount and negative gearing, as I have said for years now, must be addressed. They've been putting upward pressure on house prices for decades, and first home buyers of Australia have been increasingly unable to keep up with these price rises. If we want to make homeownership something that is available to many and not the few, we must attack housing affordability from every single angle.

In October it was reported that we were on track to fall at least 27 per cent short of the 2029 housing target. We cannot leave current settings as they are and hope that things will just miraculously get better. We need to look at tax settings, we need to alleviate the skills shortages, we need to reduce the cost of building houses, and we need to break free of the ball and chain of nimbyism. If we do not do so, the trend towards Australia becoming a nation of renters subordinate to a landed elite will accelerate.