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

I move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The reason the Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024 has been recommitted for debate in the 48th Parliament is that the maladministration, the integrity failures and the performance failures of this housing scheme are one of the greatest failures of public policy in my lifetime. And this is a fund, the Housing Australia Future Fund, which holds $10 billion of the people's money. So far, the scoreboard for this fund, for $10 billion, is the acquisition of 300 houses, thereby making the housing crisis worse. Who could imagine that the government of Australia would be competing with people in a constrained housing market? Three hundred houses acquired and 17 houses built in the Australian Capital Territory—that's the scoreboard so far, for $10 billion. It's not going well.

But the broader issue here goes to the integrity of public finances—$10 billion. This integrity bill is designed to ensure that these funds will not be plundered by the criminal mafia elements of the CFMEU and its related party fund, the Cbus organisation. The CFMEU is responsible for a 30 per cent premium on apartment buildings in parts of Australia. For many younger Australians, their first house is not going to be a standalone brick-built house; it will be a small apartment. This 30 per cent CFMEU criminal mafia tax on Australian housing, brought to you by the Labor Party, should not be tolerated.

What we have here is a $10 billion fund of taxpayers' money which could, in fact, be used to go into business with those same people. The people that brought you the housing crisis, the CFMEU, could actually have their fund, the Cbus fund, engaged by the Housing Australia Future Fund. That is an outrage, so this bill principally seeks to exclude that organisation—or any organisation connected with the criminal mafia elements of the CFMEU—from accessing taxpayer funds. That is the point of this bill.

We have seen, over these last few years, a very, very close relationship between the CFMEU, Cbus and the Labor Party. After the government won the 2022 election, one of their first acts was to abolish the Building and Construction Commission. If ever you needed evidence that this is a government for vested interests, that is it—one of its first acts was to abolish the strong cop on the beat.

We saw during the last parliament very close engagement between the Cbus super fund and the government. In fact, the Treasurer, Mr Chalmers, filed a false public interest immunity claim with this parliament to protect documents given to him by Cbus, which is chaired by his former boss, Mr Wayne Swan, who's also the president of the Labor Party. Mr Chalmers filed a false public interest immunity claim to protect documents from being exposed to public glare which were mainly about private lobbying that the Cbus fund was engaging in because it didn't want to disclose certain taxes and fees to its members. This was very untransparent and a very large failure of integrity.

So it doesn't surprise me that in the Sydney Morning Herald today there is the headline, 'Secretive Albanese government goes backward on transparency'. This government has gone out of its way to obfuscate, to block freedom-of-information requests and to frustrate the Senate's requests for documents. We are paid to do these jobs here in Canberra, to get to the bottom of problems, to expose wrongdoing and to give the Australian people the transparency that they deserve in a liberal democracy. This government has gone out of its way to block those processes from being properly undertaken. All you have to do is go through and look at the documents tabled in response to orders for the production of documents provided to this Senate; they are replete with black out. There's more blacked out than there is text, whether it's for an FOI or an OPD.

As I say, what happened in the last parliament was that the Treasurer of the Commonwealth filed a false public interest immunity claim to protect his mate Mr Swan and Cbus. The reason we know the contents of that secret lobbying is not that the parliamentary process worked under the government. It is not. We know because of the Information Commissioner. The Information Commissioner assessed the FOI and found that there was no case for a commercial-in-confidence claim by Mr Chalmers, that this was secret lobbying and that the public deserved to know. Thank God for the Information Commissioner! Or, since I'm an atheist, thank 'goodness' for the Information Commissioner. But we shouldn't have to rely on the Information Commissioner. The government treats the parliament like garbage. They have no respect for our constitutional obligations to hold them to account. They have no genuine commitment to the promises they made about integrity and transparency. The numbers, as published in the Sydney Morning Herald today, give you all the evidence that is required.

Coming back to this bill, we have been able to, because of a largely blacked out OPD, discover the details of the first round of the Housing Australia Future Fund tender. In that tender, the government has given significant funds to an organisation called Assemble, which apparently is going to be building houses in Melbourne. The site and the legal description of the buildings are blacked out, of course. It's top secret. We shouldn't be able to know where taxpayer funds are going to build houses! The funding arrangements through the availability payments, which is how the taxpayer funds are transferred to organisations like Assemble, are also blacked out.

We are not allowed to know how taxpayer funds are being expended in relation to the Housing Australia Future Fund, and the relevance here between Assemble, the CFMEU and Cbus is that this is a consortium of super funds. This is the government funnelling money through the Housing Australia Future Fund to their favourite vested interests, the big super funds, that they want to make the perpetual landlords of Australians. The government's agenda in housing is to give money to the super funds so that they can own houses that Australians can never own because the government is more focused on the narrow, vested interests of their favourite constituencies—the unions, the super funds and all the other bloodsuckers—than they are on the interests of working Australians. They think it's better that a big institutional fund—it could be a super fund, it might be the Qatari sovereign investment fund, which they've given a tax cut to, so they can own build-to-rent houses for 15 years that will never be owned by Australians. They don't care. Their agenda is institutions first and the people last, because they have become the party of organised vested interests and the party of organised capital.

So the reason that this amendment to the housing program is needed is that there can be no place for criminal mafia elements of the CFMEU in the nation's housing program. As bad as this program is, in terms of its failure to deliver—after two years of operation, it has delivered 17 houses in the capital territory, and it has acquired 300 houses, making the housing crisis worse—surely, everyone here would agree that taxpayer funds shouldn't be going to the CFMEU and its constituent bodies. We shouldn't forget that the CFMEU has been put into administration by this parliament. But the CFMEU still controls a number of board seats on the Cbus fund. It still appoints board members to the super fund, even though it's in administration, and the trust that holds the licence that owns the Cbus fund is owned by the CFMEU in part—21 per cent.

We're living in a country where a union can be put into administration by the parliament, but it can still own a massive retirement fund, and that retirement fund, which makes distributions back to that union in administration, can apparently participate in a taxpayer funded housing scheme. It is very regrettable that we are in this situation, and we want the government to be the best government it can be, but the reason it's failed on housing and has built fewer houses than the last government is that it's put all of its faith in Canberra based bureaucracies which don't build houses, and it's obsessed over its favourite vested interests.

The housing crisis will never be solved by a singular Canberra bureaucracy. The government needs to go out there and talk to the people who are needed to solve this housing crisis. It may shock you, Deputy President, but Canberra bureaucrats don't build many houses. They shuffle a lot of papers—very well, I'm sure, and I'm certain there are many paper cuts. But the people who build houses are builders, tradespeople and developers. The government needs to talk to these people to work out how it might actually achieve its target because, under the last coalition government, on average, there were 200,000 houses built every year. Under this government, we're down to 170,000 houses a year, despite allowing more than a million people into the country. This government has presided over a massive collapse in housing. They have built bureaucracy and not houses. They have wasted billions of dollars on bureaucracies, which don't build many houses, and, apparently, they are allowed to get into bed with the criminal mafia elements of the CFMEU and Cbus.

In closing, the government has talked a big game on transparency and integrity. We know that it has failed to deliver on its proper obligations in relation to FOIs and OPDs. It has been the most secretive government in living memory and it has presided over a disgraceful maladministration of taxpayer funds in relation to the Housing Australia Future Fund.

One small change the government could make to improve the governance integrity of this scheme is to guarantee the Australian people that taxpayer funds will not be exposed to the people who helped cause the housing crisis—the CFMEU, the same people who added a 30 per cent tax to new apartments, which squeezed the life out of the Australian dream for young people. Young people can't get a first apartment because of the CFMEU's 30 per cent tax, brought to you by the Labor Party. These people should not have access to taxpayer funds, and I urge the Senate to look at this clearly and cleanly and to vote for integrity when this comes to a vote.

Lisa Darmanin (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We might have begun a new parliament, but it seems like nothing much has changed with those opposite. What we see with this bill is the same tired attempt to play politics, with ideological attacks on superannuation and unions, at a time when Australians are crying out for real action on housing. While the Albanese government is focused on building more homes and delivering more affordable homes across the country, those opposite are once again choosing to waste the time of this Senate with legislation that does nothing to address the actual challenges in front of us. Frankly, we are sick and tired of it. Australians who are struggling to get into the housing market just want action on new homes.

Let me state this plainly and simply. This proposed bill reveals a deep misunderstanding, or perhaps a deliberate misrepresentation, of how both the Housing Australia Future Fund and Australia's superannuation system work. It also repeats a series of misleading claims about Cbus Super and its relationship with the CFMEU—claims that, again, do nothing to further the national interest and everything to serve a narrow political agenda.

This bill shows Senator Bragg has no idea how the Housing Australia Future Fund even works, so let's start with some of the facts. Cbus Super is not the CFMEU. Cbus is a profit-to-member industry superannuation fund and one of Australia's best-performing funds, with more than 900,000 members and $90 billion in funds under management. It exists to deliver strong long-term retirement outcomes for its hardworking members—not 'bloodsuckers'—many of whom have spent decades working on construction sites, in trades, in building and in allied industries, building our homes.

Cbus has a longstanding commitment and has been a leading fund, in fact, in providing investment capital to deliver affordable and social housing in Australia. In fact, since 2019, Cbus has invested more than $150 million in Housing-Australia-issued bonds—including at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, when it provided construction finance for more than 150 apartments being built for a community housing provider. They, just like many other profit-to-member funds, do this solely for the best financial interests of members, as required by the law, aiming for this through a diversified portfolio of which investment in housing is just one part.

This is not theory and it is not ideology. In the case of their investment in construction finance, it is real, tangible investment that delivers real homes for real people. So to suggest, as this bill does, that Cbus is somehow unfit to engage in affordable housing finance is not only wrong; it is offensive to the hardworking Australians whose superannuation savings have helped make these projects possible.

I would also like to draw the chamber's attention to the former member for Deakin, Michael Sukkar, in his former role as the Minister for Housing. In 2020 he issued a media release to announce the pilot program for additional community housing. In this media release, he acknowledged the important role of Cbus in supporting a joint debt funding package with Housing Australia—formerly the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation—to deliver social and affordable housing in New South Wales.

I move now to the HAFF. This bill is built on the flawed assumption that super funds like Cbus are recipients of HAFF funding. Let me be clear: they are not. The Housing Australia Future Fund does not distribute taxpayer money to superannuation funds. That is not how the Housing Australia Future Fund works. What actually happens is this: super funds, which must act in the best financial interests of their members, may choose to provide debt financing to community providers or project proponents. These proponents, in turn, may be applying for support from the HAFF. The superannuation fund is not a recipient of HAFF money; it is a co-investor, a lender, an external financier. To legislate to prohibit the HAFF from supporting any project that happens to have received private financing from a particular superannuation fund, as Senator Bragg proposes, is not just bad policy; it would severely limit the pool of investment available to help build social and affordable housing in our country. And, as we have already heard time and time again in this place, and just in the last two days of the 48th Parliament, this country desperately needs more housing.

This is yet another example of those opposite blocking, instead of supporting, the building of affordable homes for Australians—blockers, not builders. At a time when Australia is facing a serious housing shortage, when we need all levels of government, all sources of capital and all sectors working together, this bill would drive capital away. It would make it harder to get housing projects off the ground—blocking, not building. To address housing affordability, it is necessary to tackle issues around supply. As the Australian population increases, we need to build more dwellings and more infrastructure. This bill would in fact do the opposite of what we are all seeking to do.

I turn now to Cbus's governance. There were some concerns raised about that. Let us also be clear about why this bill has come about. It is because of questions about how Cbus is governed, given its association with the CFMEU. In some senses, for those watching in the general public, it is fair to probe this question, given that this government, in the last term, did act on serious governance concerns with that union. Let's clarify those concerns. Cbus is not run by the CFMEU. The CFMEU does not own Cbus. The fund is overseen by a 14-person trustee board made up of two independent directors, six employer nominated directors and six union nominated directors. This is an equal representation model that is a longstanding, bipartisan feature of Australia's superannuation system, which we should all be proud of, because it has delivered long-term, secure returns for the retirement of Australian workers. It ensures both employers and workers have a seat at the table. All directors of funds must meet the same high standards of governance, integrity and accountability. Under law, superannuation fund directors are subject to a strict fit and proper person test. They are required to act in the best financial interests of members—not unions, not employers, not government.

The prudential regulator, APRA, monitors this rigorously. In fact, APRA has recently imposed additional licence conditions on both Cbus and BUSSQ, requiring them to engage an independent expert to assess whether their governance arrangements meet legal and regulatory standards. This is how oversight should work: through an independent regulator, not through ad hoc legislation in this chamber driven by political vendettas.

And let's not forget about this important additional fact: in the current rounds of HAFF funding, Cbus has not participated in any transactions. That's right—despite all the noise, the bill is targeting a fund that has not even participated in HAFF funded projects to date.

Cbus, like any other responsible investor, will assess on a case-by-case basis whether a project aligns with its members' financial interests, and that is how it should be. So what then is this bill all about? Well, we don't have to guess; Senator Bragg and his colleagues have made it very clear. This bill is about undermining union influence. It is about reviving tired culture war battles that the Australian public have well and truly had enough of and moved past.

But let's not conflate that process with the operation of our superannuation system or with the Housing Australia Future Fund. They are separate issues and they must be treated as such. To use concerns about union conduct as a pretext for gutting investment in affordable housing is not only unjustified; it is reckless and dangerous because the stakes here are too high. We are facing a national housing shortage. Australians are struggling to buy their first home. Renters are being squeezed harder than ever. Essential workers—teachers, nurses and early childhood educators—are being priced out of the communities that they serve. That is why the Albanese government is doing the hard work to build more homes.

We've legislated the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund—the single biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade. We've committed to delivering 30,000 new social and affordable homes in the fund's first five years. We're delivering 10,000 affordable rental homes through the National Housing Accord and incentivising the states and territories to match it. We've created the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator to deliver more homes more quickly. And we've made the single largest investment ever in remote housing for First Nations communities.

We're supporting renters through the first back-to-back increase to Commonwealth rent assistance in 30 years. We're backing renters and first home buyers. We've expanded the Home Guarantee Scheme, helping more than 150,000 Australians get into the housing market sooner. And we've brought together National Cabinet to drive reforms, like a better deal for renters, so that the more than seven million Australians who rent can have a fairer, more secure experience. That is our focus, not playing political games, not attacking super funds and not dragging the public debate into the weeds of culture wars. We're getting on with the job of reaching our ambitious target of 1.2 million homes by 2029.

The Housing Australia Future Fund is not a political process. It is an independent investment vehicle administered by the board of Housing Australia in accordance with a strict investment mandate. More than 670 applications were received in the first round of the HAFF, representing more than 50,000 dwellings. Those applications are being assessed on merit. Funding will go to the most competitive, well-governed and impactful projects. And that's what this bill fundamentally and wilfully misunderstands or seeks to undermine. It wants to pick and choose who can participate in building Australia's housing future based on ideology rather than merit, and that is just not how good policy is made.

If Senator Bragg is serious about addressing Australia's housing crisis, then I urge those opposite to stop playing political games and start supporting policies that will actually make a difference. Pass the legislation. Support the programs. Back the investment. Australians are tired of division; they want cooperation, they want delivery and they want outcomes. We've seen that in the resounding result in the May federal election, which was a historic election outcome. Australians want governments that build homes; they don't want governments that argue about it.

Superannuation is one of Australia's greatest policy successes. It delivers dignity in retirement; it pools our national savings; and it provides long-term capital for infrastructure, housing and job-creating projects. Superannuation funds, including industry funds, operate under strict laws, rigorous regulatory oversight and a clear duty to act in the best financial interests of members. The equal representation model has delivered strong performance and stable governance for decades. We should not be debating whether or not to tear it down based on political expediency and ideology. Let's not waste this Senate's time targeting individual funds for doing their job, investing in Australia, creating homes and supporting workers. Let's call this bill out for what it is: a bad-faith attack on a system that works wrapped in the language of accountability but fuelled by ideology. Let's return our focus to what matters: governing and delivering for Australians; building homes for Australians; and helping Australians find a home, live in dignity and retire with security. Thank you.

Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the opposition's Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024. The coalition has a long history of attacking unions and workers' access to and influence over capital. This bill is a thinly veiled extension of this conservative campaign. The bill would prevent the Housing Australia Future Fund from investing in assets with Cbus Super, the industry fund for construction workers. We are in a housing crisis, and now is not the time to be preventing super funds from investing in housing projects. Both major parties are not taking the scale of this issue seriously enough. They have both entered this parliament with a handful of meek offerings that will do little to challenge the massive problems in our housing market.

In a wealthy country like ours, housing should not be something Australians struggle to get access to. It's shameful, and we need immediate, big and structural reforms. Tinkering at the edges will not cut it. Ask any young person in your life who you hang out with or who you know. They are struggling with facing a housing market that overwhelms them. Ask anyone who has just divorced and is starting out again in housing. They are also overwhelmed. And ask the women—the many women, too many—who are reluctantly staying in dangerous housing for want of decent, affordable options.

If we needed any more evidence on this, then just this morning we have today's Domain House Price Report, which shows increases in prices of houses and apartments in every capital city in the last three months. It's the first time in four years—and, of course, that's the entire regime of a Labor government—that we've seen such increases in all capital cities, all on Labor's watch. It is the first time for two years that we've seen this for units across our country and our cities. In Sydney and Melbourne, we're looking at the fastest quarterly growth in years. In Sydney a 2.6 per cent increase to a $1.7 million median house price is really frightening for people trying to get into the market. In Melbourne a 2.3 per cent increase to just over a million dollars is a three-year high.

Yesterday we had news of increases in homelessness of 10 per cent in our country since Labor came to power and a 14 per cent increase in homelessness for women. Right now the housing system in Australia is stacked in favour of property investors, banks and property developers. Just look at the tax concessions set to cost the public purse $176 billion over the next decade—these concessions turbocharge housing demand and take housing out of the realm of possibility for so many Australians who work diligently to save money every week—and watch the possibility for them to own their own home drift away into the future.

In Australia the crisis for renters and those trying to purchase their first home continues to get worse, and there are 37,800 people experiencing chronic homelessness across our country, living precarious lives without safe housing. Meanwhile, through our tax system, our major parties allow housing investors to access huge financial advantages to outbid first home buyers at auctions around our country and to drive rental prices through the roof. Alarmingly, less than one per cent of rental properties are affordable at minimum wage at present. Lack of housing is a runaway engine driving inequality in our country, and it's a major force of intergenerational inequality across the nation.

The two major parties have let the housing crisis get this bad, and it is a disgrace. Make no mistake, both major parties have knowingly created a housing policy environment that is driving runaway prices. The scale of this problem cannot be reduced to a lack of ambition or optimism amongst those governing our country. The housing crisis in Australia is a choice made by our governments, and both major parties continue to choose it through choosing policy failures.

My hope for every Australian is that Labor uses their majority in this parliament to change this. But they need to do more than just build 1.2 million homes by 2029—a program that we know from Treasury is already very unlikely. In fact, from their assessment, it won't be met. Supply is part of the answer, but ignoring the question of demand is a red flag, and if you think we can fix our massive housing crisis with tweaks to building regulation and rolling back housing regulation and deliver housing abundance—as said in the book that the Treasurer wants us all to read; and I have read it—then you've got rocks in your head.

Reducing regulation will not deal with our housing crisis in any significant way. As long as we're giving massive tax breaks to investors, they are significantly advantaged in our housing market, and we are just building homes for them to buy, not for the first home buyers and the renters in this country who really need a roof over their heads. Labor must reform negative gearing and the capital gains discount to ensure that the 1.2 million homes don't just get hoovered up by investors who will treat them as assets. Instead, we need hardworking Australians to have access to those homes, and they need to have access to affordable housing. The housing crisis can't be fixed by reforms that will just push up house prices while the key historic drivers of house price growth are overlooked.

While the major parties play politics with housing up here in Canberra, people all over Australia are experiencing the devastating reality of soaring rents, crippling mortgage stress, acute homelessness, increasing homelessness and a lack of truly affordable homes. So what do we need? Well, not this bill. What the major parties offer are tweaks and handouts, and the Greens are clear: only bold, structural reform will return housing to being a right to a roof over your head and not an investment.

Three things are critical. Firstly, we want to make housing more affordable for renters. The proportion of the population who are renting has been increasing significantly over recent decades across all age brackets, with growing numbers of Australians now expecting to rent for their entire lives. They face unlimited rent increases and rents that are unaffordable to people on the minimum wage in every one of our capital cities, and we need to cap rents. Tenancy laws in Australia give renters little security or ability to plan for the long term and to feel a sense of control over their home and little protection from those unlimited rent increases. It's essential that Australia strengthens tenancy protections for renters to ensure the growing proportion of people renting long-term are not treated as second-class citizens but are instead able to enjoy stable, affordable housing, which we know is so critical especially to kids living in those homes. It is essential that we end the prospect of unlimited rent increases.

Secondly, we need to make sure that housing becomes a roof-over-the-head proposition, not just an investment prospect. We particularly need to focus on the question of public housing. The declining role of the state in building housing stock in our country, both for sale to owner-occupiers and for affordable rent through the public housing system, has significantly contributed to the decline in housing affordability both for renters and for first home buyers in our housing market. If you look around the world, countries with affordable housing all have one thing in common: they have a large role for the public sector in housing. In a housing crisis, the supply of homes cannot be left to private developers, whose profits increase the more that house prices and rents go up. Thirdly, we need to phase out tax concessions for wealthy housing investors.

Australia Institute research tells us that the supply of new housing in recent times has outstripped population growth in the last decade. In the last 10 years, the population has increased by 15 per cent. Over that same period, the number of dwellings has increased by 19 per cent. Despite the supply of new dwellings growing faster than the population, house prices increased 75 per cent over that period. Building more homes alone won't fix the affordability housing problem in this country.

A major driver of house price increases is the increasing demand fuelled by the tax treatment of residential property in Australia, in particular negative gearing and the 50 per cent capital gains tax discount. Since the capital gains tax discount was introduced in Australia, house price growth has rapidly outstripped wage growth. We know that 82 per cent of the benefit of the capital gains discount goes to the top 10 per cent of earners. It is an obscenely unequal tax benefit that delivers to the top end of town—the very top 10 per cent of our income scale. What hope does a hardworking wage earner have to save a deposit and break into that market when they're competing with people with massive tax advantages in their back pockets at that Saturday morning auction? Phasing out these tax concessions would make housing more affordable and equitably distributed in Australia. If we truly want to solve our housing crisis, we have to reform capital gains tax and negative gearing.

Productivity and tax reform are on the agenda for this Labor government. Pressure is building for capital gains tax reform to be taken seriously. New South Wales Premier Chris Minns backs taking a fresh look at tax breaks that disadvantage first home buyers. A recent Essential poll found that half of Australians back action to reduce these tax concessions. Support out there is growing, and we know that many members of Labor's own party are supportive of tackling tax concessions too. They know in their hearts that these are unfair and must be changed. In 2017, even Jim Chalmers said, 'If you're not doing anything meaningful about negative gearing and the capital gains tax, then you're not doing anything meaningful about housing affordability,' and he was right. We know he was right, and many people in the Labor Party know that he was right.

Housing and homelessness will remain a key campaign and focus of the Greens this parliament. We care about people who are looking for housing to live in rather than hold as an investment. We care about people for whom rents in so many of our cities—where they can find a rental property—are so high that the cost of living means they are excluded and made incredibly insecure in their housing. Many of them get tipped over into homelessness. The crisis gets exponentially worse every day that the government fails to act appropriately. We are determined to end Australia's shameful housing and homelessness crisis. We know it can be fixed. There are clear policy proposals there. We need to make the right choices to make a difference for Australians who need a roof over their heads and need it now.

Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are indeed in a housing affordability crisis. We've seen the ratio of house prices to incomes more than double over the past decade. Increasingly, homeownership is no longer a dream or an aspiration; it's something that's entirely out of reach for many ordinary Australians. This is important for a number of reasons. Firstly, it's homeownership that provides the best basis for security in retirement. Secondly, Australians who own their own homes tend to have the most financially secure environments, because homeownership is an important enabler for family formation and gives people the confidence and courage to have children, bring up a family and contribute to Australia in that way. Thirdly, it also leads to stronger communities because people who own a house in a neighbourhood are more likely to get involved in community groups and sporting clubs, to look out for their neighbours and to protect the asset.

For all these reasons—security in retirement, family formation and social stability—homeownership is not only an important aspirational goal for individual Australians but a collective goal for us as a nation. The fact that we are currently failing so many younger Australians by pushing this dream out of reach is really a breach of our social and intergenerational compact with the next generation of Australians. We are making their lives harder than previous generations have had it. It is also, at the margins, fuelling homelessness by pushing housing affordability out of reach for so many.

The unaffordability of housing is overwhelmingly a supply issue. We have not been building enough new homes in Australia to accommodate the increase in our population both from natural increase—births, family formation—and through immigration. Until we grapple with and address the supply-side elements of this crisis we are not going to be able to solve it or bring down housing prices.

Labor's big plan for housing affordability is to, firstly, build 1.2 million new homes by 2030. That's their housing target. That would require some 250,000 homes to be built each year. But, currently, only 170,000 new homes are being built each year. That compares to about 190,000 new homes that were built each year under the coalition. So the Labor government is currently 80,000 homes per year short of its target, which means it will fall about 400,000 homes short of its 1.2 million target.

This isn't just a political point. The incoming government brief prepared by Treasury and released at least partially under FOI makes quite clear in its advice to government that this housing target is not going to be met. Treasurer Jim Chalmers says he is relaxed about that advice. Well, I don't think it's a cause for relaxation. I think it's a cause for a high degree of concern.

The Labor government's signature policy to deal with this crisis is the Housing Australia Future Fund. That's a $10 billion fund, but to date its efforts to address the housing crisis to improve housing supply have fallen well short of the mark. Details released in Senate estimates and in response to questions and FOIs revealed that, out of that fund, only 17 new houses in Canberra have been built and some 340 homes have been acquired and converted. So, for a $10 billion fund, the government's signature policy to address the housing crisis, we have had 17 new homes built and 340 acquired from the existing market, the existing stock, not adding at all to our housing supply. That is a woeful failure, and I do hope that the Housing Australia Future Fund can improve its performance. What this bill is designed to do is to make sure that, at the very least, the Housing Australia Future Fund does not contribute to some of the problems and causes that have got us into this crisis.

There is clear evidence that the militant action, rampant corruption and criminality of the CFMEU, the main construction union, has inflated construction costs across the sector by about 30 per cent on major projects, which has fed right through the sector. You hear from anyone who is involved in the construction of housing how much costs have gone up and how much the involvement of the CFMEU has pushed up costs on key worksites. Just today, in fact, on the front page of the Australian Financial Review, there is another story about CFMEU corruption and criminality and its administrator Mark Irving demanding that the government shift their focus to crime and corruption across the industry. This is the administrator that was appointed reluctantly by the Labor government to take over the CFMEU when public allegations of corruption and criminality became too big to withstand. He is saying that the government needs to shift its focus to crime and corruption across the industry.

Remember that one of the very first acts of this government when it was elected three years ago was to abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. That was to abolish the independent cop on the beat that, as it was meant to, was doing a good job of clamping down on and targeting unlawful, corrupt and criminal behaviour by the CFMEU. The result of the abolition of the ABCC and a government that has provided tacit support to the CFMEU and has accepted sizeable political donations from the CFMEU has been that corruption, criminality and intimidation are being allowed to flourish in the construction sector. We are all paying for it, whether as taxpayers in contributing to state government infrastructure projects or as consumers of housing, as we all are, by the fact that construction costs have gone up right across the sector.

This bill would prohibit the Housing Australia Future Fund from investing into housing assets or entities that are financed by Cbus Super, and that's to ensure that taxpayer funds are left out of the criminal hands of the CFMEU. This is because Cbus Super and the CFMEU are effectively joined at the hip. They are two sides of the same coin. The CFMEU currently has three members sitting on the Cbus board. In the 2022-23 financial year, Cbus paid the CFMEU $1.25 million, including $233,000 paid to the CFMEU's Victorian branch—this is the most discredited branch of the CFMEU—for a sponsorship agreement. What we should be seeing from a government serious about the housing crisis, bringing down construction costs and improving housing supply is the Labor government pushing Cbus to cut ties with the CFMEU. This would mean kicking the three CFMEU directors off the board and stopping the endless flow of workers' money—because it is their money within Cbus—to the CFMEU. Given, though, that those close links continue and Labor has not taken those actions, allowing Cbus to participate in the Housing Australia Future Fund risks the integrity of that fund, and it risks rewarding the CFMEU for its criminality, its corruption and its contribution to inflating construction costs across our sector.

To date, Cbus is the only super fund to have publicly committed to funding the Housing Australia Future Fund. In fact, it was in November 2022, before the scheme was even legislated, that Wayne Swan, the Cbus chair, committed $500 million of Cbus members' money to the Housing Australia Future Fund. This commitment was made despite Cbus officials having voiced concerns to the Treasurer's office, later revealed under Freedom of Information requests, that the design of the scheme would mean no investor would provide capital upfront. It has always been clear, right from the very beginning, that Cbus has a vested interest in the Housing Australia Future Fund. As I said earlier, numerous sources, including the Real Estate Institute of Queensland have highlighted that the conditions of the CFMEU enterprise bargaining agreements are leading to a 30 per cent increase in construction costs across the sector, and the consequence is that the construction costs of homes that we need to fix the supply of housing are higher and that means construction happens more slowly.

Despite purporting and promising to take a hard line against criminality in the CFMEU, Labor has refused to consider deregistering the union. Labor has also refused to consider restarting or recommencing the Australian Building and Construction Commission. In fact, Labor and Cbus have refused to recognise any probity, integrity or ethical issue whatsoever with CFMEU representatives continuing to sit on the board of a $94 billion fund of workers' money. Cbus has refused to cut its ties with the CFMEU. Until such time as Cbus cuts its ties with the CFMEU—no longer channels it money and no longer allows CFMEU members to sit on its board—it's an inappropriate party through which to undertake government business, and it's an inappropriate entity for the Housing Australia Future Fund to be funding. That's why, if Labor is indeed serious about stamping out corruption in the construction sector and addressing the very grave allegations of criminality and corruption by the CFMEU, it should support this bill. Labor should agree with us that Cbus should not be receiving any funding through the Housing Australia Future Fund to ensure, at least, that further money does not fall into the corrupt and criminal hands of the CFMEU.

Until Labor takes these steps to deal with the serious issues in the construction sector, to put the CFMEU into administration, to compel to Cbus Super to remove CFMEU members from its board and to stop the continued funding of the CFMEU by Cbus then we cannot take its commitment to housing seriously. It is hard to, to begin with, because the Housing Australia Future Fund, a $10 billion fund, is well behind schedule. They are not disbursing the money that has been allocated to them. The latest update we had was that only 17 new homes had been built, for a $10 billion fund. The government is refusing to address the Treasury's publicly stated concerns that the housing targets will not be met.

The government does not have a plan to increase the housing supply in Australia. And if the government does not have a plan to increase the housing supply in Australia and is not prepared to grapple with some of the causes of the housing crisis in Australia, including the rampant and criminal activities of the CFMEU, then it's not fair dinkum about addressing the housing crisis. Just having a fund, saying you've got a $10 billion fund, having a piece of legislation and putting out press releases is not going to fix the housing crisis. Building 17 new homes in Canberra is not going to fix the housing crisis. Acquiring 340 existing homes and rebadging them, saying that these are now Housing Australia Future Fund homes, is not going to fix the housing affordability crisis.

So that is why I commend this bill to the Senate. I doubt very much that those opposite will support it, because they have been reluctant condemners of the CFMEU's activities. But, if they are fair dinkum about wanting to improve housing affordability, if they are fair dinkum about wanting to bring construction costs down and if they are fair dinkum about wanting to improve housing supply, then they will recognise that there are serious governance, integrity, probity and effectiveness issues in allowing the Housing Australia Future Fund to work with Cbus, because of its close links to the CFMEU. So I urge those opposite to put the interests of Australians first in this instance, to put first the interests of the great number of Australians who wish to own a home but cannot afford to own a home, rather than the interests of the CFMEU and Cbus Super.

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

Senator Sharma, I listened intently to your comments there. I really respected you in your previous life; you were a magnificent ambassador for Australia, but, by crikey, you've been dealt a dud on this one, mate. I still hold you in high respect, Senator Sharma, but I have to challenge some of your comments.

On saying that, the bill before us today, the Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024, is yet another classic example of the crisis facing those opposite. Every time the government comes forward with a proposal that facilitates the construction of more homes for Australians that desperately need somewhere to live, somewhere to sleep at night, those opposite can't help themselves. For the last three years, they couldn't help themselves, and here we are in the first week, and they still can't help themselves. Their first response is to resort to their deeply held ideology that is opposed to both social housing and industry super funds. And, boy oh boy, haven't we seen that in this chamber? We witnessed it every time one of them stood up, every single time any one of them was tapped on the shoulder to make a contribution and was told, 'Here are your speaking lines'—the ideological hate of social housing and the ideological hate towards unions.

I do want to say this: I am proudly a member of a super fund that is an industry fund. I have been a member of that industry fund—it used to be called TWUSUPER—since 1986. When I came into the Senate, in 2005, I was offered the government one, to which I kindly and respectfully said: 'No, thank you. I want to stay with my industry super fund.' Do you know why? It was because I knew all the directors of the super fund, because it was made up of half union and half industry, so there was this full trust in working together to implement the best outcomes for young transport workers when they would, finally, have the need for, and would seek, a decent and respectful retirement. So, Senator Sharma, I challenge you on some of the statements you make.

Another challenge—I know a couple of the directors of the CFMEU super fund, and I'll tell you now that I'd back in Dave Noonan any day before any one of that lot on that side, if he were looking after my super fund. I can tell you that.

Those opposite really are in a mess when it comes to superannuation and housing. On the one hand, they want young Australians to be able to empty out their retirement income account to cover the deposit on a house. But, on the other hand, they actively seek to prevent industry super funds from investing in badly needed social housing. I grew up in social housing, and I have a soft spot for social housing. Well—I hate to tell them, but someone has to—you just can't have it both ways. It hasn't even been three months since the last election, an election which I can proudly say endorsed the government's measures that will increase the amount of social and other housing available to Australians that can't find somewhere to live. It is almost like the election on 3 May didn't happen. I say to those opposite respectfully: have you seriously learned nothing? Australians want their housing challenges addressed, and they want action now. They didn't vote for those opposite to stand in the way of building more houses. Yet here we are, less than three months later, and it's the same tired old Liberal Party and the other half, the tail that wags the dog, the Nats, with their same old ideological objection to taking action.

Those opposite seriously have bad form. During the last parliament, they spent months opposing each and every measure the government introduced to tackle the housing crisis. Who can forget how they stood in the way of the Albanese government's Help to Buy program—remember that?—during the last parliament? Imagine how ideologically obsessed you have to be to stand in the way of helping 40,000 Australians into homeownership. It's hard to believe, isn't it? But, unfortunately, this is what we've had. They also stood on the way of Labor's build-to-rent laws—remember that one?—which were aimed at getting more than 80,000 rental properties into the construction pipeline. If that wasn't enough, they also fought to block the Albanese government's $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. That $10 billion program supports the delivery of tens of thousands of affordable homes. Now imagine being determined to prevent those homes being built. I can't comprehend someone waking up in the morning and striving to achieve that outcome in their day. To me, that is one real sick puppy.

Which brings us to the bill before us today. Not being content with opposing the creation of the Housing Australia Future Fund, the opposition now want to control how the money is spent, or, more precisely, control which organisations are allowed to partner with the HAFF to deliver social housing to those Australians that desperately need it. The bill combines two of the Liberal Party's great ideological obsessions, as I said earlier: the hatred of social housing and the hysterical opposition to industry super funds. Unlike those opposite, Labor knows that safe and affordable housing is essential to the security and dignity of all Australians. We have a suite of policies and legislation that addresses the challenges in each and every aspect of the complex housing portfolio.

For a generation of Australians, homeownership feels too far away and being a renter feels too insecure. May I say it was the Howard government that started creating this mess 20 years ago. The Howard government, their hero. We've been feeling this for a generation, not just the last couple of months. It is such a disappointment, not just for those of us on this side but also for the hardworking Australians chasing the dream of homeownership, that after three years it's still, 'No, no, no,' from those opposite. Senator Bragg and the opposition have gone straight back to form. It's disappointing that, after an election in which Australians resoundingly rejected the politics of delay and destruction, the kind of politics peddled by those opposite relentlessly, Senator Bragg is once again trying to stand in the way of real progress on housing. I should say, I suppose, old habits die hard.

If only the Housing Investment Probity Bill did what it says on the lid. Senator Bragg's bill does nothing for housing, it does nothing for investment and, oddly enough, it does nothing for probity either—I shouldn't be surprised. His one-page housing agenda—yes, one page—will do only one thing, and that is stand the way. This is just another cynical attempt by those opposite to play politics while doing nothing to help address our nation's housing crisis. While we're focused on building more homes and tackling the housing crisis, the opposition would rather waste time on a madcap anti-superannuation campaign that lets Senator Bragg hit all his favourite words on his housing bingo card—phrases like 'contingent liability', 'availability payments' and 'boondoggle'. 'Boondoggle' is a particular favourite. While Senator Bragg is showing us all of the nifty jargon he picked up working in the finance sector, flicking through his thesaurus, hoping he might hit on a new housing policy, do you know what we're doing on this side of the chamber? We're building homes. We're building homes everywhere from Blacktown to Bassendean, no matter what Senator Bragg makes up over there.

In Senator Bragg's own state of New South Wales, we, the Albanese government, are delivering more than 3,000 social and affordable homes thanks to the first round of the Housing Australia Future Fund he so despises. And, thanks to the latest round, we are delivering another 1,500 social and affordable homes in New South Wales. Here's the best bit, Senator Bragg, and you mob over there: we're going to keep doing it. We're going to keep delivering new homes through programs like the HAFF because we know that every Australian deserves a roof over their head. Every Australian deserves a safe place to call home. It's no wonder Senator Bragg and the rest of his ragtag team over there are so keen on trying to cut down our record on housing, given what they did—or didn't do—when they were in government.

Let's be clear: Labor is investing $43 billion in housing—not million, billion. You don't need to be an Ernst & Young accountant to know that that's eight times what the coalition invested in housing over almost a decade in office. Labor has helped more than 175,000 Australians into homeownership with five per cent deposits. The coalition helped 60,000. Us, 175,000; that mob, 60,000. That's almost—for those who can't count—three times as many in the same period. Labor is delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes, 28,000 of which are in construction and planning right now. The coalition, on the other hand, built only 370 under their policies—not 37,000, not 3,700, but 370. And it's no wonder they didn't deliver more new housing, because for most of the decade they were in government, they didn't even have a housing minister. So instead of introducing a bill today that will actually deliver more homes, or a bill that has some resemblance to a housing policy, Senator Bragg is seeking to pull apart Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund and have a crack at superannuation funds for daring to invest in social and affordable housing that Australians desperately need.

I know that this is an ideological obsession of those opposite, sadly. I know it's terrifying to them that Australian workers might be able to build themselves up for retirement thanks to Aussie superannuation funds. What's even more terrifying to them is that working people might have a voice in how their superannuation funds are invested and managed. But we've made it very clear all along: superannuation funds are required to comply with strict governance standards. They are made to act in the best financial interests of members. The Australian Prudential Regulation Authority engages with superannuation funds on their governance arrangements and ensures that their boards meet the necessary and appropriate standards.

But the model that Senator Bragg is trying to target here—the equal representation model that superannuation boards have equal numbers of employer representatives and member representatives—is not new; I just talked about it. This is a longstanding feature of the superannuation system, and it means that the perspectives of both employers and working people are represented—shock, horror! As I'm sure Senator Bragg is aware, all superannuation fund trustee boards have to assure themselves that their directors meet the necessary standards required of them, including the fitness and propriety test.

Now, APRA has already imposed additional licence conditions on the trustees for Cbus, requiring them to engage an independent expert to assess whether governance requirements are being met. This is the proper work of the independent prudential regulator. This is APRA's role; it's not Senator Bragg's role, as much as he might wish it was.

Those opposite are trying to paint a very mangled picture with this bill. It relies on a conspiracy theory entirely of Senator Bragg's making. But, disappointingly for the senator opposite, the funding of social and affordable housing under the Housing Australia Future Fund is not a political process. The Housing Australia Future Fund is managed not by the government of the day but by Housing Australia. Housing Australia is an independent statutory authority with an independent and expert board. Funding decisions are taken independently by the Housing Australia board, consistent with their legislated investment mandate. So, while Senator Bragg is off on his campaign against superannuation and off on his campaign against social and affordable housing, we, the Albanese government, are getting on with the job.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Senator Sterle. The time for the debate has expired.