OPD No. 546 seeks 'documents setting out the total number of first home guarantees issued by Housing Australia for the 2025-26 financial year to the end of May 2026, broken down by the top 10 suburbs in each state and territory'. In relation to that order, senators will be aware that the Minister for Housing wrote to the Senate to provide an interim response, advising that more time would be required to satisfactorily comply with the order.

I'm advised that this process continues. The government expects to be able to respond to the order in due course, so we will, as a government, responsibly, to the extent that it is possible, comply with the order of the Senate. That's what we do as a government when it is possible to do so. It is not the same response that I offered earlier this week in relation to another order for the production of documents which was captured by the cabinet confidentiality protections that are there to protect responsible Westminster-style governments in a way that has been the practice of the Australian government and this Senate not just for the last four years, not just for the last four decades, but for the period of existence of responsible democratic government in Australia.

This of course occurs in the context of a record number of orders for the production of documents agreed in this parliament with particular emphasis on this mechanism in the housing portfolio. It's become absolutely clear that Senator Bragg and his colleagues, on this question, as their wheels are spinning in policy terms, are bogged with an incapacity to be able to develop real policy that would build homes. They have substituted a capacity for policy development with a capacity for OPD drafting—abusing and traducing the processes of the parliament and this Senate in a kind of frenzied effort to distract Australians from the fact that this party, which used to be in the mainstream, used to be in the centre-right of Australian politics, has become completely unmoored.

Nothing would symbolise that more than this fact: we now have as many OPDs in this Senate—a record number—as public houses built by the coalition in a decade. There are more orders for production of documents than houses built for Australians, who needed them, by the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments combined. That really should start to bring home to what's left of the sensible centre over there—not much—and to reasonable observers of Australian political life that this is a party that has completely lost its way. They're trying to confect a transparency crisis because they don't have anything to say about the policy issues. Let me give you a tip. OPDs are designed to be used in a sparing way when you're actually onto something. We used them in relation to some of Senator McKenzie's abuses of power and some of the other abuses over the Morrison period that were serious and sustained failures of governance during that sordid period of government. You ought to be a little bit more strategic and treat the Public Service with respect— (Time expired)

I move:

That the Senate take note of the explanation.

Very sadly we see, on this last day of this session, another day when the government is unprepared, and I move to take note of the minister's non-explanation of why the government has failed to provide documents again. The reason that the Senate has ordered the production of these documents and insists on their production is because they are of great public interest. The government has spent millions of dollars on this five per cent deposit scheme. It has spent tens of millions of dollars advertising it across the country in very many different languages. More than 100,000 people have used it in the last year, many of whom will now be in negative equity as a result of the government deciding to encourage people to take 95 per cent mortgages out and then smashing them with new taxes, which pushes the value of their houses down and puts them into negative equity. That's how much this government cares about the Australian people.

The reason that we are determined to use the powers of this chamber in this democracy is that these documents belong to the Australian people and they deserve to see what they say. They deserve to be presented with them. This is the question at hand: how many people are actually in negative equity today? Let's not forget that, in October last year, the government abolished the means testing and said, 'We're happy to give these deposits to people who are earning more than 600 grand.' Apparently, those people need free insurance from the government. They abolished the place caps because, of course, there's no limit on taxpayer funds; we can just shell it out like monopoly money. Then, after they've shelled out all these 95 per cent mortgages, they came along and broke their promise and dumped $80 billion of new taxes onto the housing system. What that has done is push down the prices in hundreds of suburbs across the country.

In Sydney and Melbourne, almost 500 suburbs alone have seen prices go down by more than five per cent since 1 October. If you have a 95 per cent mortgage that you took out sometime between October last year and now and you live in one of those 500 suburbs in Melbourne or Sydney, you're in negative equity. The reason we're asking for this information about a suburb breakdown is that we want to know what exactly the government is doing to help these people that they have ensnared in this ridiculous scheme. What we now see is the government refusing to provide information that it has. We asked for it back in June. They came back in July and wrote us a stupid letter saying: 'We're trying to scratch around in the Treasury. We've got the pick and shovel out. We've got the excavator out down the back of Langton Crescent. We're trying to find the documents and the pieces of paper and the Dead Sea Scrolls. We haven't quite got there yet, but we'll try and come back next time.'

We hear today from Minister Ayres in his non-explanation that the pick and shovel are still out and the excavation is still going on down at Langton Crescent. In fact, they've decided to enhance the landscape down there and they're going to tip the Treasury building into Lake Burley Griffin because they can't find the documents. So they're going to try and float it away down to the other end of Canberra, down to the Molonglo. That's going to be their plan for giving us documents that they've lost, apparently. There you go.

The curious thing about all this is that on 1 October our good friend Mr Albanese and the housing minister put out a statement. They said they knew exactly how many people had taken out these guarantees in Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, Western Australia, South Australia, the ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory. They knew it exactly, down to the last number—102,594. They knew which state and territory they lived in, so I would have thought that they'd also have the information about where they actually reside because that's how the scheme works. When Housing Australia gives out their guarantee, the person has to have a house.

We know you have the information. We know you treat this institution like garbage. We know that you think that the Australian people are idiots. We know that you think that your patronising approach in this chamber and your patronising approach on social media make you look good, but that doesn't actually solve any of the problems which the Australian people want you to work on. The reason the Australian people are so agitated and angry is that they're tired of being treated like this.

This is a basic request for information about how many people have these guarantees in which suburbs. You have the information. You're pretending that you don't. We want the information. You're happy to make your stupid press statements, bragging about your terrible achievements, including how many people you're probably putting into negative equity. Give us the documents. It is just not good enough for you to say you haven't got them. You know you've got them. (Time expired)

I'd like to take note of the comments already made, particularly those by Senator Ayres, in response to this matter. I agree with Senator Bragg about one thing: Australians aren't idiots. What I disagree with is what we should be focusing on here in this chamber. We should be focusing on building more housing for Australians. That is what this government is absolutely focused on. Senator Ayres, I think, rightly pointed out the government's response to this matter but also the record number of OPDs in this place to try and deflect and play politics with an issue that is very serious and important to the Australian people. It is about delivering more housing for Australians and delivering more housing that is affordable, and that is what we care about. We care about getting Australians into affordable housing.

We know Australians aren't idiots, and we know also that Australians don't want us to be playing politics with getting them into housing. We heard some entertaining words from Senator Bragg just then—something strange about Lake Burley Griffin and the like—but let's focus on what we really need to be focusing on, and that is the housing pressures that Australians are facing, which of course didn't emerge overnight. There's no single solution and there's no single fix. On this side, we know this and we want to work on this rather than play political games with the matter. Because of this, the government has taken a comprehensive approach to tackling the housing challenge. We are getting on with the job, not playing politics.

Since coming to office, the Albanese Labor government has transformed the role of the Commonwealth in housing from a passive observer to implementer of the most ambitious national housing agenda that we've seen since the postwar era. We've commenced the largest housing build in Australia's history, with a goal of building 1.2 million homes, including 55,000 new social and affordable homes for the Australians who need them most. But increasing supply is only one part of the solution, and we're also making homeownership more accessible. Since coming to office, more than 260,000 Australians have purchased their first home through the government's five per cent deposit scheme. That has allowed eligible buyers to purchase with a five per cent deposit without paying lenders mortgage insurance. For many Australians, these changes will cut years off the time required to save a deposit while saving tens of thousands of dollars in lenders mortgage insurance. That is getting on with the job; that is not playing politics with people who want to get into housing.

We've also launched Help to Buy, our shared equity program enabling Australians who are eligible to purchase a home with as little as a two per cent deposit and a smaller mortgage. And, of course, parliament has passed our housing tax reform package. These reforms have a number of objectives. One of them is to create a fairer balance between the taxation of income earned through work and that of income earned through capital gains. The second is, importantly, to help more Australians achieve homeownership—again, delivering on housing rather than playing politics. The third is to improve productivity by directing investment toward more productive uses across the economy. On this, we know that the negative gearing aspects for residential property will change from 2027-28 to be limited to newly built homes, encouraging investment where Australians need it most, into—you guessed it—increasing more housing supply. The current 50 per cent capital gains tax will also be replaced with the inflation indexation from 1 July 2027, which ensures that tax concessions apply to genuine capital gains rather than inflationary increases. These reforms are expected to help around 75,000 additional first home buyers enter the market over the next decade while also helping to fund further tax relief for working Australians, because we on this side know that housing is important, we know it is a challenge, and we are absolutely focused on delivering more housing and getting more people into housing.

Alongside these reforms, we are investing a further $2 billion in enabling infrastructure, accelerating planning approvals, reducing red tape, expanding the skilled construction workforce and extending the ban on foreign investors purchasing existing homes until mid-2029. This is a comprehensive housing agenda—addressing supply and addressing affordability, homeownership and rental pressures simultaneously. The contrast with those opposite could not be clearer. We've heard that this morning, and I'm sure we'll continue to hear it—their policy solution, to tie this place up in arguments and debate about politics rather than actually deliver for Australians.

I rise to also take note of the nonanswer given by the minister. Once again, Labor ministers enter the Senate chamber and refuse to be transparent with orders that the whole Senate has agreed they should comply with. The order that we're debating here is for a request for information from June. It's now mid-October. You'd think they could find the documents. In order to access the five per cent deposit scheme, you actually have to have a house. You actually have to put that on your application. The support is given to you so the government knows exactly where these people reside. The only reason they are refusing to comply with the order of the Senate is that they're embarrassed. They're absolutely embarrassed about another failed housing policy, a housing policy that has seen over 51,000 noncitizens access the scheme. We heard Minister Ayres and previous speakers stand up and talk about how they 'want more Australians to own a home'. Well, stop giving taxpayer money to non-Australians—51,000, in fact.

When we think about getting young Australians in particular into homes, we want to make sure that those that are earning the median income in this country can help get them into their first home. But what does Labor do? They're supporting the fat cats. If you earn $600,000, you can access this scheme—taxpayer support competing against tradies and hairdressers trying to get into their first home. So it is no wonder the Labor Party is ashamed to come in and actually put on the public record the failure of this housing policy. They should hang their heads in shame.

I'll tell you what—they've been hanging their heads in shame all week. We've got the Treasurer and the PM at war with each other. Poor Chalmers! The PM just keeps driving that bus over him, reversing back over—

Senator McKenzie, could you please refer to people by their correct title?

Roadkill?

Roadkill? No, sorry—I'll take that interjection but then reject it!

No, no. If that's directed at a person, I'll ask you to withdraw.

It's not. Treasurer Chalmers and Prime Minister Albanese are at war with each other. We've seen that the Prime Minister had to backflip—to override his Treasurer, time and time again. Now the backbench are in revolt because they're sick and tired of having to defend the indefensible from this government. Here we have Labor senator after Labor senator come in and try to say they shouldn't have to comply with an order of the Australian Senate. Well, sorry, that's the great privilege of being in government. When the Senate orders the production of documents, you may not like it, but you need to comply because that's what a democracy is about.

The Australian people deserve to know where these first home buyer grants have gone to and whether those individuals are now in negative equity because the other policies you put in place around the housing industry have meant that prices have plunged. These first home buyers are now in negative equity. When this was first raised, the Labor Party didn't know what negative equity was. Remember that ABC interview where poor old Matt Thistlethwaite struggled to explain what negative equity is? That's where the Labor Party's economic agenda on housing leaves first home buyers.

This government's lack of compliance with the Senate's order for the production of documents is staggering. And what do they do? Minister after minister and senator after senator come in and complain about needing transparency. It is the Australian Senate that has required this on behalf of the Australian people, and you are beholden to comply with it. It shouldn't be up to us to have to use freedom of information processes to back up the order for the production of documents. Stop being ashamed of your policy. We know it's failed. We know that people are in negative equity. We know that non-Australians are accessing the schemes. We know that fat cats are able to access your schemes because you are a failure at economic management and at getting Australians into homes. That's okay. Why don't you be men and women of conviction and responsibility—leaders? Own your failure and get on about fixing it instead of pretending it's not happening.

I also rise to take note of the contribution from the Minister representing the Minister for Housing this morning. This OPD was passed in June, and we're still waiting. From what the minister said this morning, we understand that the 'process continues'—those were his words—and that the government expects to respond 'in due course'! Well, who knows when that will be? It's certainly not this week. And yet this is really important information. We want to know who has access to the scheme, which the Labor government has taken the lid off to allow people on unlimited incomes to get access. We need to know this. It's important that we find out. We're asking for it to be broken down by the top 10 suburbs. That information is important. We need it, and we need it soon. 'In due course' is no date at all. Here we are, still waiting.

One of the really consistent characteristics of this government around housing is its failure to actually meet its targets and, most importantly, its failure to give us timely, accurate information about all the ways in which housing is affecting Australians. One of the most important issues—the biggest crisis, and a most important element of the cost-of-living crisis—is the housing crisis, and yet here we are begging for data, here in the Senate, to understand what's going on.

We have governance arrangements around housing, put in place by this Labor government, that are completely inadequate. Where is the data on so many aspects of this crisis? We need it to make sense of what we're doing—to evaluate policy, to work out what's going right and what's going wrong, and to see who's being left behind. We know millions of people are being left behind. The governance on data and information and all of these programs is utterly inadequate, and it's one of the reasons why, in this recently tabled report on the housing crisis in Australia, particularly focusing on how it's impacting on young people, we have made a recommendation that it's time for a department of housing. We need real structures in there so that we don't have to chase data through OPDs and all these other little devices and crevices that are available to us to try and work out what's going on. We need regular data.

The day before yesterday, I had a meeting with the ATO: 'Tell us what's going on with tax.' There is so much information available to us publicly and privately, directly from the ATO. Where is the equivalent information on housing? The Minister for Housing is failing us in terms of timely data, so we use OPDs. Yes, we use a lot of them sometimes to try and get to information that is basic decision-making data in a crisis on housing, and Labor is failing us. They need to be dealing with this data and our requests in a much more timely way, and we should not be waiting on reports from the ANAO to know what's going on. That's what we're currently relying on. We've got reasonable information from the ANAO.

The day before yesterday, we heard the Minister representing the Minister for Housing in this place attacking his opponents for using the figure of 1,432 homes so far created through the HAFF, the jewel in the crown of Labor's policy. There are 1,432 homes of the 40,000 promised, two years into a five-year program. The ANAO are saying they're very sceptical that we're going to get to 20,000 homes in two years time and then to the target of another 20,000 homes a year later. We are so far from realistic assessment about what's going on here. The ANAO are one of the few sources of information available to us, and they say that this program and its transparency are insufficient. That's the ANAO saying it's insufficient.

So we in the Senate are joining in a complaint that the transparency of information available to us to judge this policy, in a massive housing crisis, is utterly inadequate, and we are going to continue to come here and ask for information because Australians want to know what's going on here. We heard data yesterday that nearly 80 per cent of Australians are really worried about the unlimited rent increases and want a regulation system around renting. Where are the government's proposals on this? Where is the data on what's going on out there for renters? Average rent is now over $700 a week. No-one on minimum wage can deal with that and put milk in the fridge. That is a massive crisis, and the government is not giving us the governance we want. Its systems are failing, and we need action. (Time expired)

Never has the contrast been more stark between those of us on this side of the chamber and the Liberals and the Greens, who are again teaming up to tie up this chamber's time in endless OPDs, stand in the way of budget savings and tackling intergenerational inequality and stand in the way of us fixing the integrated assessment tool that older Australians are asking for. It's the same pattern, day after day, in this place. Certainly, we're seeing it very clearly this week.

I wonder what the 102,000 Australians who've entered the housing market just in the past year since Labor expanded the five per cent home deposit scheme would say to Senator McKenzie's and Senator Bragg's claims that our housing policy has failed. That's 102,000 Australians who are living in their own home. Do Senator McKenzie and Senator Bragg and the Greens want them to just stay in rentals? Senator McKenzie and Senator Bragg want to tie Australians up in paying rent to their property investor mates instead of living in a home that they own. I know that my generation don't want to be paying rent for the rest of their lives to the Liberal and National parties' property investor mates. They want to be in a home of their own, and I am proud of our Labor government's agenda and of our action to help young Australians get into their own home. A hundred and two thousand Australians have been able to buy their very first home with only a five per cent deposit. And it's not just those Australians who've benefited. Over the life of our five per cent home deposit scheme, it's 280,000 Australians since 2022, since we came to government. That's nearly 300,000 Australians who I'm fairly confident don't believe the scheme is a failure of government policy. I think it's exactly what young people want to see from their government, and that's why we are committed to continuing to do that work.

I welcome the day when the Liberal Party come into this place with their housing plan. We know that for most of their time in government they didn't have a housing minister. They barely built a home for Australians to live in. Perhaps one day they might walk into this place—the National Party might too—with a plan to get young people into a home of their own. I'm all ears. I'd love to hear it. Young Australians would love to hear your plan to get Aussies into their first home, but you don't have one. Instead, you come in here and you call our scheme a failure. You tie us up in OPDs. You complain. You stand in the way of our agenda. That's all a way of hiding the fact that you don't have a plan. Young Australians know it. It's why they're not interested in voting for the Liberal and National parties at the moment: they know you're not interested in listening to them about what they want from government, about what they need from us in these times, which are challenging. Saving for a home deposit is not easy, and we don't want—

Exactly! I'm going to take that interjection from Senator Allman-Payne. Rents are high, and that's why we don't want young Australians to have to keep renting and paying rent to the Liberal and National's property investor mates. That's what this entire scheme is about. This entire scheme is about making it more affordable for young Australians to get into their own home.

Australians have saved more than $2.5 billion in LMI under our home deposit scheme. That's money that could have been going to the banks; that's money that, if the Liberals and Nationals had their way, would have been going to the banks in LMI. Instead, hundreds of thousands of Australians can be proud of the fact that they have a home of their own. The average first home buyer purchasing a national median priced home with a five per cent deposit are saving just over $23,000 in LMI. That is not a failure. Our government is proud of the work that we have done to help Australians get into their own home, and we will continue to do it day after day.

In speaking to this motion for attendance by the minister, I want to remind the chamber that this is actually about two issues, both equally important, and they are the issues of transparency and accountability. It is the role of this chamber to be the house of review, through the committee process, through how the chamber is elected with senators from each state. It is not designed to be a partisan rubberstamp for decisions of the executive. It is the role of this chamber to hold the executive to account, and part of that role is through a mechanism called the order of the production of documents. That allows this chamber, on behalf of Australians—the taxpayers and the voters but all Australians—to actually find out what the government is up to. The opposition and the crossbench use this on regular occasions, and the government doesn't like it. The government doesn't like it when this Senate passes orders for the production of documents. My considered position I put to the government and to those who wish the veil of secrecy to be held over government is that, if you have nothing to hide, you should not be concerned or worried about the release of documents. They often go to how the policies of the government of the time—at this point, it's the Labor Party—are being enacted in practice. If the governing party, the Labor Party, are so proud of the policies put into practice through the government, then they should not be worried about releasing the relevant documents concerning that policy, which is why we in the opposition—I don't want to speak for the crossbench—are bemused at best as to why the Labor Party are kicking up such a stink about releasing documents that have been ordered through the processes of the Senate.

An order for the production of documents isn't 'we would like you to do this'. It is an order of this elected chamber to the executive. What we are seeing increasingly with this Labor government is that they are refusing to submit to the will of the people and submit to the will of this chamber. I remind this chamber that the Prime Minister, before the 2022 election, said he would lead 'the most transparent and accountable government ever'. It was one of those core election promises. He went around the country saying how transparent and accountable he would be as prime minister. But, ironically, Prime Minister Albanese is leading the least transparent and least accountable government since Federation, and that has been shown this week with the number of orders for the production of documents that have passed through the Senate chamber that have not been complied with by the Labor government and that have subsequently resulted in the responsible minister being forced to attend this chamber to give an account as to why the Labor government are refusing to comply with the order. Yesterday we saw very ugly scenes in this chamber, where Labor Party senators, with wilful intent, attacked opposition senators rather than giving a factual account as to why those particular documents had not been provided.

The particular OPD that Senator Bragg has put through this chamber goes back to June of this year. It was four months ago that this order was put in; it wasn't put in last week. The government have had four months in which to comply with this order for the production of documents. It's not to do with some obscure policy or some particularly detailed and complex policy. It is to do with a key policy of the Labor Party concerning housing, and housing is an important issue in Australia. What we're seeing from this government, sadly, is a refusal to admit that they have made a mistake and a refusal to admit that their policies are actually hurting Australians.

Question agreed to.