Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

(Quorum formed)I inform the Senate that the President has received the following letter, dated 26 September, from Senator McKim:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for a nationwide rent freeze, given the biggest annual rent increases in fourteen years and rents growing seven times faster than wages in our capital cities."

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders h aving risen in their places—

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The need for a nationwide rent freeze, given the biggest annual rent increases in fourteen years and rents growing seven times faster than wages in our capital cities.

There is nothing short of a full-blown rental crisis happening right now in Australia. In my home state of Tasmania, since 2016, the median rental rate in Hobart, where I live, has grown by 50 per cent. That is 50 per cent in six years. It is absolutely critical that we address this crisis in rental affordability, and in housing more broadly. If you are lucky enough to be able to rent a place, so many people cannot afford to pay their rent and where so many people cannot even find a place to rent because vacancy rates are too low.

The explosion in rental costs and the ensuing rental crisis represents a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich and, in general terms, from the young to the older. It is not by accident and not just bad luck by the tenants; this has been done and driven deliberately by successive Liberal and Labor governments. The class war by property owners and the banks has been going on for a long time, and, make no mistake, the tenants are losing the war. The Labor Party and the Liberal Party have backed in landlords and they have backed in the banks. They have backed them in to continue to make massive profits and they have done that by ensuring that the return for the banks and the return for the landlords is guaranteed by the taxpayer.

The great Australian dream is no longer that you can one day own a home of your own. The great Australian dream today is owning a property portfolio, with tenants who pay your income and who pay, ultimately, for your assets. So if you own a house and it is rented out, even though you may be renting it out for a loss, that loss is subsidised through tax breaks for you, paid for by the taxpayers. What that means, tragically, is that not only do tenants pay off their landlords was mortgage, they pay the tax that the landlords don't. On what planet is that fair or reasonable? It is an absolute scam, and the scammers are the political parties in this place that deliver on those tax breaks. In real terms, what that means for people on the ground is they are skipping meals, they are not paying power bills and they are not paying for much-needed medicine, just to keep a roof over their heads. In a country where a landlord can own 283 rental properties and still complain about the prospect of a freeze in rents, this is an obscenity. Enough is enough.

It is time to cap rents. We should do it for two years and then peg them to the CPI thereafter. That is just the start. We should scrap the capital gains tax discount, we should end negative gearing and we should actually start building enough homes so that everyone can have a home to live in. Most importantly, we need to shatter the class gap between those who own housing and those who don't.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the motion moved by Senator McKim. The Albanese government recognises the challenges that Australians are facing because we talk to them every day, so we know families are struggling with a decade of low wages growth, cost-of-living pressures and rental affordability. The private rental market has been put under significant pressure as a result of strong numbers of people moving within states between towns and cities and people moving across state lines, putting pressure on particular rental markets. Also putting pressure on rental markets have been shrinking household sizes which, in turn, put pressure on the supply of private rentals. Major cities and regional towns are experiencing low vacancy rates and really fast-growing rental prices. This is forcing Australians into insecure housing arrangements like caravan parks and other temporary solutions. In a wealthy country like Australia, this is just not acceptable. We do understand how tough it is for Australian households. We know that long waiting lists for social housing are forcing vulnerable Australians into the private rental market. And we know that more Australians are being forced to rent because they've been unable to buy their own home, which is why our ambitious housing reform agenda is working to address the underlying causes of housing unaffordability, using the levers that we have available to us as a federal government to get more Australians into affordable homes.

But these challenges that we face today have of course not come on overnight. They've been very real challenges for the past 10 years—challenges that the former government took absolutely no interest in addressing. Those opposite oversaw shamefully low numbers of new social housing builds when they were in government. By 2020, seven years into their term, they had built only 7,500 new dwellings. Compare that with the more than 30,000 new dwellings from the previous Labor government over a similar period of time. But in their dying days the coalition finally had a lightbulb moment on housing policy and finally came up with one that they said would address housing affordability and help people own their home. And what was that solution? We of course will all remember that it was to force Australians to raid their own superannuation to be able to afford a house deposit—a policy that would have driven property prices up even further and left Australians with higher debt and depleted workers retirement savings. Why does the coalition hate superannuation? Why do they hate it so much? It was a policy that would have left even more Australians without financial security.

On the other hand, the Albanese government have a comprehensive plan to address prices and we are wasting no time getting on with it. We're establishing the Housing Australia Future Fund, investing $10 billion to build 30,000 new social and affordable housing properties. That of course is going to get more people who need them into those homes and it's also going to put downward pressure on rental prices and help really vulnerable families to access housing when they're fleeing family and domestic violence. In addition to that massive investment—an unprecedented $10 billion of federal investment in social and affordable housing—we're unlocking up to half a billion dollars through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to invest in even more social and affordable housing. That is a move that will encourage investors, such as super funds, to invest in projects that drive down housing prices, rather than gutting workers' retirement savings and driving house prices up.

That's where we think the super funds can come into the housing equation, in partnering with government to invest in projects that create more homes and drive down prices. Again, we think that's a better option than forcing people to raid their own super in a desperate attempt to afford their own home while of course gutting their retirement savings and putting themselves in an even more vulnerable position in the future.

Our government is also helping Australians to enter the housing market and own their own home. We've brought forward the start of the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee to 1 October. That will help up to 10,000 Australians to purchase their first home. This joins the up to 50,000 Australians who are being assisted to buy their first home under the Home Guarantee Scheme. Our government is also introducing the Help to Buy program. That is going to help cut the cost of buying a home by up to 40 per cent, making it easier and cheaper for Australians to own their own home.

When it comes to rental affordability, our government is stepping up and bringing the states and the territories together, because that's what we do. We work with the state governments and the territory governments. We bring them together with us to solve the big challenges that Australians face. So, we're working with the state and territory housing ministers to explore innovative solutions to address these housing challenges. We're developing a new national housing and homeless plan that will form a key part of our agenda and we're introducing a national housing supply and affordability council to ensure the Commonwealth is playing its role in increasing supply and improving affordability. Our government is stepping up to bring new national leadership on housing—national leadership that was sorely missing under the previous government—because, while we recognise that some of the levers to fix these problems sit with state and territory governments, we also recognise that the previous government simply was missing in action on this question.

Now, we know the security that housing can bring to Australian workers and we also know that one of the key barriers to accessing housing is insecure work. The crisis of insecure work is a legacy of those opposite—one that they absolutely refused to admit to in their 10 years in government; one that they refuse to admit even exists. Coalition senators have said that insecure work is a Labor lie—it's a Labor lie. One of their ministers earlier this year called job insecurity 'made up issues'. So it was Labor lies and made up issues, despite the evidence right in front of them, including evidence about the links between insecure work and housing insecurity.

This was despite what they themselves were hearing from workers. These were workers who came and told their stories to, for example, the job security inquiry, led by my colleague, Tony Sheldon—stories of low pay; stories of low, irregular hours; stories of having no ability to provide stable income on a rental application. These were people who were working and having to live in caravan parks because they couldn't get enough secure hours to actually fill out a successful rental application. So fixing the very real crisis of insecure work is part of our government's plan to give people security at work and also in housing. The legacy that those opposite left behind is a crisis of insecure work, a decade of low wages growth and nothing—nothing at all—to help Australians afford a home.

We know the importance of good, secure jobs. We know they're a gateway to good, secure lives. We know that they're a gateway to good, secure housing as well. And we know what insecure work is doing to households and families. That's why we have a secure jobs plan, which is about giving workers the permanency and security that they need to plan for their future. We'll make secure work an objective of the Fair Work Act, making sure that the Fair Work Commission puts job security at the heart of its decision-making, and we're introducing a secure jobs code to ensure that taxpayer money spent through government contracts is being used to support secure employment too, because we know people need secure jobs and secure houses.

Our government takes these housing challenges very seriously. We're getting on with delivering answers to them. We know that having a good job is critical to good housing. We know we can't require the state and territory governments to freeze rents, as the Greens want us to. We know we can't force Australians to raid their retirement savings, as those opposite want us to as well. (Time expired)

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In speaking on this urgency motion, I'd first like to address some of the comments made by Senator Walsh, whose thoughts and views I deeply respect. But there are three points I'd like to make with respect to Senator Walsh's contribution.

First, in relation to the policy that the coalition went to the last election with, the policy was to give superannuation fund holders, especially the young, a choice. It wasn't a question of forcing; it was a question of giving them the choice, if they decided to do so, to take a certain amount out of their superannuation fund in order to get them into the housing market and buy their first home, the most important asset for the rest of their life. That's the first point.

Second, I believe that, in relation to the supply of housing, we need to be more creative, in terms of working with community organisations, being innovative—social housing doesn't necessarily have to be owned by state governments, federal governments or whichever government—and working with community organisations at the front line to try to get solutions for local communities. Some of the most passionate people in this space, as I'm sure everyone would agree, are those frontline community organisations that are dealing with this issue every single day.

The third point I'd like to make in relation to Senator Walsh's comments is on the question of supply—supply, supply, supply. We need more supply for people who are seeking to rent accommodation. That's the question. We need supply. Green tape and red tape are frustrating supply. I see it where my office is located, in Springfield, the south-west growth corridor of Queensland, the fastest growing region in Queensland, where the people who want to construct housing for new home buyers, for others, for renters et cetera are being frustrated by the green tape and the red tape. We need supply.

Regarding Senator McKim's urgency motion, whenever the Greens put forward a motion dealing with economics, I always go to my library and bring out my book called Basic Economics by Dr Thomas Sowell. I see what my book on basic economics says, because that always provides the answers. I only needed to go to page 45 of my book, Basic Economicsby Thomas Sowell, to learn that the history of economics teaches us that rent controls do not work. Rent controls do not work. They might be proposed with the best of intentions—

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They don't work for the landlords, but they work for the tenants.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

but what frequently happens when a policy is proposed with the best intentions is that it actually hurts those who it is intended to help.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is the case with respect to rent control.

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me quote from page 43 of Thomas Sowell's book, Basic Economics. It says:

Nine years after the end of World War II, not a single new building had been built in Melbourne, Australia—

Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Sorry, Senator Scarr. Senator McKim, I'm pretty relaxed with interjections, but I did ask you a number of times to shoosh. Okay? So let's hear from Senator Scarr, and you two can sort it out in the hallway afterwards. Senator Scarr?

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Acting Deputy President, for your usual firm hand in this place. I do appreciate it. Let me quote from this book.

Nine years after the end of World War II, not a single new building had been built in Melbourne, Australia, because of rent control laws there which made buildings unprofitable.

That's what happened. They introduced rent control in Victoria at the time of World War II, and not a single new apartment building was built, because it wasn't profitable to do so.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was the impact on supply.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's the impact on supply. And it wasn't just Victoria. How about Egypt?

In Egypt, rent control was imposed in 1960.

So this isn't new.

An Egyptian woman who lived through that era and wrote about it in 2006 reported:

The end result was that people stopped investing in apartment buildings, and a huge shortage in rentals and housing forced many Egyptians to live in horrible conditions with several families sharing one small apartment.

And it's not just Egypt. Let's go to England. I quote again from the book. This is page 45:

In terms of incentives, it is likewise easy to understand what happened in England when rent control was extended in 1975 to cover furnished rental units. According to The Times of London:

Advertisements for furnished rented accommodation in the London Evening Standard plummeted dramatically in the first week after the Act came into force and are now running at about 75 per cent below last year's levels.

That's what happened in London in 1975. Let's go to Toronto. Let's go to another continent. We've been to Australia; we've been to Africa; we've been to Europe. Let's go to North America. This is what happened in Toronto:

Within three years after rent control was imposed in Toronto in 1976, 23 percent of all rental units in owner-occupied dwellings were withdrawn from the housing market.

That's what happened in North America. You don't have to have a PhD in economics like Dr Thomas Sowell to work out that rent control does not work. It has never worked. In fact, it actually hurts the people it's intended to help.

And then what happens to these places? What happens in these places when they actually remove rent control? Let's take the corollary. What happens when you remove rent control and you let the market act and let people make their individual decisions? Again, I quote from page 47:

In Massachusetts, a statewide ban on local rent control laws in 1994 led to the construction of new apartment buildings in some formerly rent-controlled Massachusetts cities for the first time in 25 years.

You ended rent control, and actually got new apartment buildings for the most vulnerable in society for the first time in 25 years when you removed rent control. That's basic economics. We need more of that—more basic economics. This isn't new, this stuff. You don't have to be John Maynard Keynes or Milton Friedman to get it. It's not new; it's all there. I'm happy to lend my copy to anyone in the Greens at any time; just come around to my office. I'll even buy you one! I quote it so often to you, Senator McKim. I'll buy you one! I'll get 12 of them.

At the same time, I must say, it's a bit difficult to sit here and be lectured to by those opposite sitting in the Labor Party coming from my home state of Queensland. I see what the Queensland government is doing; they're drinking the same Kool-Aid as the Greens in terms of this urgency resolution. They have this ridiculous proposal at the moment with respect to land tax. They want the land tax threshold for Queensland investors to take into account properties which are held in other states. That's absolutely crazy stuff. And what's the consequence? What happens when you change the tax system in this way? What happens when you introduce rent control? The investors leave. The landlords say: 'It's too hard. If it's not going to be profitable for me, I'll go and invest my money somewhere else.' That's what happens. It's basic economics. That's what we're seeing in Queensland.

I want to take the opportunity, because I think it is relevant to this debate in relation to housing supply and what we need to do, to quote from an article by Nila Sweeney in the AFR of 25 September 2022:

Queensland's new land tax rule will not take effect until the middle of next year, but property investors Peter and Joanna Meek are not waiting around.

They're not waiting around; they're selling up. What do they say?

"We have three rental properties in Queensland; we've already sold one, and we're in the process of selling another," Mr Meek said. "We're planning to move into the last property as we're unable to find a decent rental, so that's three rentals off the market already."

That's what those landlords are doing in response to the Queensland Labor Palaszczuk government's proposed land tax reforms. People are simply leaving the market; the landlords are leaving the market.

Further from the article:

SQM Research managing director Louis Christopher said the rental supply crunch would worsen as a result of the state government's tenancy and tax reforms.

"I fear it will get worse for tenants as the scarce supply—

Supply and demand, that's what it's about—

pushes rents higher," Mr Christopher said. "But the proposed rental freeze and the new land tax rule will not solve the problem. It will only encourage landlords to walk away …

That's the problem. That's what basic economics tells you. That's what the experience from all over the world tells you: when you introduce things like rental freezes, massive changes to land tax and laws which make it more difficult for landlords to be flexible with respect to their investments, they walk away. Then the supply of rental properties decreases and rents go up. And who's hurt? The most vulnerable in our society.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaking with people in our communities at the moment or even picking up a newspaper, you would have to have your head buried deeply in the sand if you fail to recognise housing affordability is absolutely top of mind for so many. And there is no surprise why—rents has gone through the roof. The dream of owning your first home has become a real nightmare. Across the country, many areas have seen the steepest annual rent increases on record this year. In Sydney, where I live, the annual increase has been a whopping 19.6 per cent. A very grim tale is told in regional New South Wales as well, especially by those who have been so deeply affected by the climate induced floods.

The unfolding rental affordability crisis is destroying communities. A recent ABC article tells this story:

Single mother Tilly Eastwood says the worst part of being priced out of the rental market isn't living in a garage with her three children. It isn't the absence of windows for light or fresh air. It's not even the 150-plus failed rental applications.

It's the gnawing feeling that she's letting down her kids.

How is it that the Labor government is willing to put $244 billion for stage 3 tax cuts back into the pockets of the wealthiest and the billionaires yet refuse to act for those who are struggling to keep a roof over their head—a very basic human right? We need a national rent freeze and we need it now. With more and more people renting long term, it's beyond clear that people in our community of all ages, backgrounds and walks of life desperately need relief from skyrocketing rents and poor tenancy protections.

The federal government cannot just wash their hands of the responsibility of ensuring a home for everyone. They regularly play a role in issues like industrial relations, energy and other issues which would usually be left up to individual states and territories, so surely they can do the same for housing. A two-year rent freeze would be followed by ongoing rent caps, an end to no-grounds evictions, minimum standards for rental properties, and rights for tenants to make minor improvements to their homes as well as to have companion animals.

The Greens have been fighting hard for rental affordability, renters' rights and homes for all. Here are a couple of examples. Jenny Leong, the Greens member for Newtown, has been leading this work in the New South Wales parliament. Earlier this year Jenny introduced a private member's bill to introduce eviction bans and rent gaps in flood impacted areas in New South Wales as well as an end to no-grounds evictions and a limit to rent increases for renters across New South Wales. Further north, the Greens MP for South Brisbane, Amy MacMahon, introduced a bill that would freeze rents for two years. In her second reading speech, Amy said:

Across Queensland families are struggling to make ends meet with rising costs of rent, fuel and groceries and it is hitting renters and first home buyers the hardest. … Families are living in tents because they cannot afford a secure, affordable home.

This is an outrageous situation, and it requires decisive action now to finally tackle it. The housing affordability crisis is harming too many people. We need a rent freeze right now. We need strong national renters' rights standards. We need to build a million publicly owned affordable homes. We need to end the tax loopholes for the richest in the country. Nobody should be without a home. Whether you own a home or rent, our housing system should work for people, not for profit. The government must make the choice of fixing this crisis.

Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm very pleased to rise to speak to this motion today. Let me tell you, one of the reasons I'm in the Liberal Party is that the Liberal Party actually believes in home ownership. While I'm speaking to the issue of freezing rents, I think the best way to get around this issue is to actually own your own house. That is why I'm in the Liberal Party.

I want to quote from the speech that's often considered the original speech, or the manifesto—if I could use that word—of the Liberal Party. That statement is a bit of an oxymoron but anyway. It's interesting to note that Robert Menzies in his Forgotten People speech mentions the word home 23 times. He says that the rich and powerful can look after themselves. He also says that we should not go back to the 'old and selfish notions of laissez-faire' capitalism. If they'd actually read the Forgotten People speech a lot of people would be surprised by that.

I'm happy to give anyone on the other side of the chamber that speech, because you would see that it appeals to those people who just want to remain quiet in the suburbs, who don't need other people telling them what to. They just want to be left alone in their house with their family, and everyone else can get out of their lives. I know I speak for many who feel like that and that's why I'm in the Liberal Party.

I want to talk about what homes mean to the Liberal Party and quote a part of Robert Menzies' speech. Firstly, he describes homes as having a:

… stake in the country. It has responsibility for homes—homes material, homes human, and homes spiritual. I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs …

He is not a big fan of the blowhards. I know a lot of people think the Liberal Party are the blowhard party. We do have blowhards and sometimes we tend to take their line but we shouldn't do that. We are the party of battlers and we've got to remember that. This country is all about 'wealth for toil'. It's founded by the battlers, not the blowhards, and we need to remember that. Menzies says:

It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race.

Exactly. Who doesn't love their children?

He says:

The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety—

I can vouch for that. I have to admit that in my youth I drank a lot of beer. When I bought a home—it took a couple of years—I slowly weaned myself off the bottle—

it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.

I have mentioned homes material, homes human and homes spiritual. Let me take them in order. What do I mean by "homes material"? The material home represents the concrete expression of the habits of frugality and saving "for a home of our own." Your advanced socialist may rave against private property even while he acquires it—

That's a good point there, pointing out the hypocrisy of some people who think we should all own nothing, but meanwhile they're flying jets and everything like that—

but one of the best instincts in us is that which induces us to have one little piece of earth with a house and a garden which is ours; to which we can withdraw, in which we can be among our friends, into which no stranger may come against our will. If you consider it, you will see that if, as in the old saying, "the Englishman's home is his castle", it is this very fact that leads on to the conclusion that he who seeks to violate that law by violating the soil of England must be repelled and defeated.

National patriotism, in other words, inevitably springs from the instinct to defend and preserve our own homes.

Senator McKim, I totally think we need to get people in houses. There's a lot to be said for home ownership. One of the problems we've got with the rental market at the moment is that not enough people own their own homes. I've often ranted against the fact that when Keating made a lot of amendments in the eighties—as you well know, there was a lot of neoliberal stuff that was brought in in the eighties—one of the biggest mistakes that was made was that we didn't have capital gains tax on housing for the wealthy. I'm not against the common man having a house, but you could take, say, five per cent starting at $2½ million or something. There's a level above which you shouldn't have capital gains tax free housing. You've got multimillionaires living in Bondi and the eastern suburbs of Sydney. They buy a house for $3 million, they sell it for $10 million, they clean up $7 million in profit and they don't pay a cent of tax.

Meanwhile, you've got the battlers out there, who get out of bed every morning and put their nose to the grindstone. They will start paying tax above $18,200 at 19c in the dollar plus two per cent for Medicare. They will also lose 50c in the dollar if they're on Newstart, or jobseeker or whatever it's called nowadays. Then they lose another 10½ per cent for super. Earning between 20 and 30 grand, you end up losing 80c out of every dollar you earn, and that's completely absurd. I think we should have a capital gains tax on housing—above $2 million or $3 million; somewhere in that range—and use that to give a tax offset to the low-income earners who struggle. Basically, if you earn less than the cost of living, which, let's say is $40,000 a year, you're actually losing money. Why do we tax people below the cost of living? It is complete nonsense. I'm very passionate about homeownership.

While I know that your intention is good, we do have a bit of a problem at the moment because we've also got a very incompetent RBA, which blew up the housing bubble throughout COVID, even though we already had a housing bubble before that. I should note that in 1985 we had $8 billion in foreign debt. When Keating opened up the economy to foreign banks, by 2008 we had $800 billion in foreign debt. All of that money mainly went into the property market in Sydney and Melbourne, which meant that the housing prices went from four times average earnings to 13 times average earnings.

We've got to start to learn how to control the volume of capital in this country and not let so much money go into housing. At the same time, we don't put any money into manufacturing and being productive. If we're going to get ahead in this country, we have got to stop relying on other countries. As I say to people: if you got washed up on a desert island would you (a) go to the bank, try and manipulate interest rates and get a Fitch credit rating or (b) look to provide essential services to the people like dams, water, housing and productivity? Of course you'd choose the latter. We know that that's exactly what happened in this country about 210 years ago when Lachlan Macquarie came here.

Lachlan Macquarie was the first governor to see Australia as a country, not a colony. He realised that in order to run a country properly you've got to have your own currency. We don't really have our own currency today. We do in name, but what people don't realise is that, whenever we go to build a dam or anything like that, we use foreign currency. This, of course, means that when you build a dam for $1 billion and you borrow $1 billion in foreign currency the first $1 billion in wealth you create has to be repaid offshore. What people don't understand is that not all money printing is the same. If I'm a company and I want to become a bigger company, I can issue shares, or equity. It's not called debt; it's called equity. Equity is title. As a sovereign country, we have title over this country. If I want to build a dam, I can issue shares in a dam that is productive. I don't need to borrow for it. All you need to do is get the RBA to lend $1 billion to whichever state government's going to build the dam, and all they have to do is repay that debt. But I digress a little bit.

The reason why I talk about the RBA and this whole volume of money in the system is that we need to lower the cost of living as well. We currently have a supply shock because of Russia and all these other things. Supply has gone down. What the RBA is going to do is try to crush demand as well by pushing it down. They're going to use an austerity policy. That is complete and utter madness. What we need is a productivity policy that is going to increase supply. Rather than reduce demand and make people suffer through not being able to rent a house or buy their own house, we need to increase productivity. We need to build.

You will get all the neoliberals and all these people who think they're economists, but let me tell you: economists are to finance what climate modellers are to scientists. They rely on assumptions and false ideas. The idea that building dams is going to cause inflation and is a bad thing is completely ridiculous. If you build more dams, more power stations, more roads and better transport infrastructure, you increase supply. If you increase supply and you push the cost of essential services down, then you make it cheaper for business to actually operate. If you make it cheaper for businesses to operate—guess what!—they employ more people. If you employ more people and you're making more money you can pay them more, and then they can afford to buy a house. It becomes a virtuous circle.

Let me say that, while I can't agree with you entirely on the premise of keeping rental levels entirely flat, we do need to look at the way we run this country, and we need to look at becoming much more productive. We've got to stop all this paper shuffling and pandering to markets and start pandering to genuine productivity. That means fewer academics and more tradesmen. We need to get rid of payroll tax in this country by bringing back stamp duty on share trading. It is completely nuts that if I buy a house, a farm, a business or a truck I've got to pay stamp duty but I can flip shares all day on the stock market, which is manipulated by foreign investors, and pay no stamp duty. I'll leave it at that.

Penny Allman-Payne (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Housing is an essential service and a human right. Everyone has a right to safe, accessible and affordable housing. Yet, in the midst of Australia's cost of living crisis, millions of Australians are struggling to make ends meet, while also paying increasingly high rental prices. We have seen the biggest annual rent increases in 14 years. The cost of rent is increasing seven times faster than wages. That's insane. It's crushing people. This is a housing crisis, and we know that the implementation of a nationwide rent freeze is essential. It would press pause on rent increases and allow wages time to catch up and would stop the profiteering by landlords from becoming even worse.

During this debate we've heard about strategies for increasing the number of houses in this country, helping people into home ownership, but that is not going to help the family who can't afford their rent this week, and there are hundreds and hundreds of people across our country in that situation. This is a national emergency. That we have parents, carers, families and children sleeping in cars, sleeping in tents, at risk of being evicted from their housing because their rent has been put up and they can't afford it, is something that every single person in this place should want to move heaven and earth to fix today. That's why we need to freeze rents, and it's why we need to cap increases to two per cent each year thereafter.

We are currently undergoing one of the most significant transfers of wealth from non-property owners to property owners. It is deepening economic inequality in this country. Our current willingness to accept skyrocketing rental costs is creating a growing generational wealth divide as young people are forced to rent for longer, at higher prices and at lower wages. Tenants are being saddled with the cost of increasing interest rates through these rent increases. A rent freeze is one of the most important things we could do to alleviate the cost of living pressures of Australians. Let's get it done.

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are in a housing crisis. Australia is seeing the biggest rent increases in 14 years, putting millions of Australians into severe rental stress. None are more affected than the millions of Australians who are forced by this Labor government to survive under the poverty line on grossly inadequate income support payments. I've heard from so many people who are struggling to keep a roof over their heads. One person who receives the disability support pension contacted my office to let me know that they were evicted from their rental property of nine years because their landlord wanted to double the rent and couldn't do it while they were still in the property. This person is now homeless and staying in a caravan park with no heating. Someone else told me that their rent had gone up by $60 a week. It's now well over half their income. Once they pay the rent and their bills, they have $18 left over for food and all other items. They are forced to buy out-of-date food. They can't afford fresh fruit and vegetables, and their health is suffering because of it.

Poverty is a political choice, and this government is choosing to leave people without food or heating as they struggle to pay the rent. Just as the government coordinated a national response to the COVID-19 health crisis, the federal government should coordinate an emergency national response to the housing crisis, including an urgent rent freeze. The Greens are also fighting for all government income support payments to be lifted so they are above the poverty line, ensuring everyone has enough to cover their basic needs. Our plan would raise all government income support payments above the poverty line. It would abolish mutual obligations and remove unfair restrictions on who can access payments, ensuring that everyone has enough to cover their basic needs. Don't let the government convince you otherwise: this is possible. I've said it once and I will say it again: poverty is a political choice.

This government now has a choice. Labor can either work with the Greens, not go ahead with the stage 3 tax cuts and fund services to support everybody, or they can choose to side with Peter Dutton and funnel more money into the pockets of billionaires and the ultrawealthy. It is a choice. Poverty is a political choice. We have the choice to end people living in poverty. We have a chance to institute a rent freeze, which will help people survive. Poverty is a political choice, and we call upon this government to make the right choice.

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Housing is a human right. Every single person in our community should be able to have a roof over their head—somewhere to call home, somewhere that is safe, somewhere that is affordable, somewhere where they can belong in a community. And making sure that every single community member is able to have a roof over their head is one of the top priorities of the Australian Greens, and it should be a top priority of this government.

Now, the reality of being a renter in Australia in 2022 is not something that we often hear in parliament because—shock! horror!—there aren't too many renters who are elected members of parliament. But let me just fill you in on what it is actually like to be a renter right now in Australia. One of my friends in Perth rents a house for $500 a week. Inside this house, in the summer, it is 40 degrees. When this person contacted the landlord and said, 'Hey, you've just put my rent up. Could you please fit an air-conditioning system?' the response of the landlord was: 'The amount of money you're paying is commensurate with a house without an air-conditioning system.' No.

Another friend of mine in the lower south metropolitan part of Perth spent one year arguing with their landlord about whether or not their internet was functioning. They couldn't get online. They couldn't access government services at home. They couldn't socialise with their friends during lockdown. Every time they sent their landlord an email saying that this was a problem, the landlord responded that the telecommunication company had not registered a fault, and round and round it went for a year.

Now, whether it is telecommunications, air conditioning, the leaky pipe in the back of the cistern that causes black mould to grow or the holes in the roof, people are struggling in such deep insecurity, such absolute uncertainty, and they are suffering such a profound power imbalance with their landlords that it causes incredible mental health impacts upon them. You literally don't know whether this week is the week the landlord is going to evict you, whether this week is the week that they're going renovate and kick you out or whether this week is the week the landlord will simply put your rent up so high that you cannot afford your home. This government must follow the Greens' lead and institute a rent freeze so that, at the very least, people renting across this country can know what they're going to have to pay and that it will be affordable for them so that they can keep a roof over their head.

Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to reject this motion in the strongest terms. Forcing a rent freeze will only make our housing crisis worse, not better. Don't get me wrong, I'm fully aware of the huge rent increases that have occurred since the COVID-19 pandemic. I'm fully aware that many Australian families are struggling with it. But freezing rents will only force more landlords out of the sector and further reduce the amount of accommodation available for rent. You need to address the underlying causes of this crisis—lack of supply, in part driven by the fact we allow foreigners and multinationals to buy new residential property. Actually, stop all foreign ownership of any housing, new or established; massive and costly regulation imposed on landlords; and high demand largely driven by the unsustainable flood of immigrants coming into this country as part of Labor's plan to outsource jobs that should go to Australians. State governments should release more land in a timely manner, address costs and red tape, and revise stamp duty.

Most landlords are not wealthy property tycoons. In many cases it supplements an otherwise meagre income. Many have spent all their lives making sacrifices to invest in a single property to make things a bit more comfortable in their retirement. Their costs are going up too, like council rates, insurance and interest rates. They have no control over these costs. If they cannot raise rents to accommodate these costs, they will leave the rental game and Australians will have an even lower supply than before.

Landlords are also tired of increasing regulation which takes away their rights as property owners. These days, when a tenant moves in they effectively become the owners, and if they become a problem they can be impossible to remove in exchange for responsible tenants. Bonds worth four or six weeks rent are wholly inadequate to cover the cost of repairing property damage, wear and tear. Landlords in some cases can't even refuse tenants who own pets they don't want in their properties.

Now the Greens want to take away another right. Are they completely ignorant of the short-term holiday accommodation market? Are they not aware of how much easier it is for property owners in this market than the rental market? Insurance costs are taken care of. Most stays are only for a day or a week, limiting the amount of wear and tear a landlord might need to fix. Property owners can make a lot more money from this market. A home that might attract $25,000 a year in rent can earn double that figure in the short-term holiday accommodation market without much of the regulatory burden forced on landlords.

I know the Greens mean well, I really do, with this idea. I look forward to you freezing rents on your own investment properties, but don't impose your economic illiteracy on Australia.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion moved by Senator McKim be agreed to.