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

Senator Bragg has submitted a proposal under standing order 75, which is shown at item 14 on today's Order of Business:

The Albanese Labor Government's failure to contain the CFMEU's infiltration into residential housing construction is deepening Australia's housing affordability crisis and costing Australians the dream of homeownership

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

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

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

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

The reason this matter of public importance is before the chamber today is that, on the weekend, we discovered that the CFMEU in New South Wales is back in business and wanting to get back in the game in terms of involvement in apartment builds. We are living through the greatest housing crisis in Australia's modern history, and we now see the Labor Party allowing the CFMEU to come back to make it even worse. These are the people that brought you the housing crisis. If you're a younger person, you are exposed by the Labor-CFMEU alliance, which has added a 30 per cent premium, in some cases, to new apartment builds. For many younger Australians, their first house will not be a standalone brick or weatherboard; it will be a small apartment in Melbourne, Sydney or Brisbane. The CFMEU's 30 per cent tax is a punitive tax on younger people.

How do we find ourselves in this situation? I can tell you that this has always been a government for vested interests. One of the first acts of this government was to abolish the Building and Construction Commission, which was holding the CFMEU in check. In fact, the Prime Minister said at the time, back in 2022: 'The ABCC has been a disgraceful organisation. It targets unions, particularly the CFMEU.' That is a very good quote because we subsequently found out from the Sydney Morning Herald and the Age investigation 'Building bad' that the CFMEU is actually Australia's Mafia. They're into all sorts of dreadful business—bikies, loan sharking, bribery, violence and all kinds of threats and intimidation. This was exposed by the newspapers, but apparently this was a new story to Labor. They didn't know anything about this. They feigned shock and said that they would rush legislation into this parliament to put the CFMEU into administration.

The whistleblowers were very brave to come out and speak against the CFMEU, because they are, of course, running the risk that they may end up at the bottom of the harbour wearing concrete boots. One Mr Robbie Cecala said: 'It wasn't about workers anymore. It was about power and fear. You couldn't say no.' That's what he says about the CFMEU's intimidation. Massive cash bribes, death threats—you name it. The position of the Australian government is that they thought it was more important to protect a militant union that had broken the law to the point where it was adding a 30 per cent premium onto young people. Now we see Mr Crosby declare that the CFMEU wants to do in Sydney what it has already done in Victoria and parts of Brisbane.

The other thing I want to say before I hand over to someone else is that the Cbus Property organisation, which is part of the CFMEU, is very interesting. Mr Darren Greenfield, who's currently before various tribunals looking at his own alleged corruption, said of the subcontractor's selection process on Cbus property that they'd three names, they would ask him which one's good and he would just tick the box for them, and that's how it would go. So, at the end of the day, it is a disgrace that the first order of business for this government was to remove an organisation which was focused on getting better law enforcement in that sector. The newspapers have done their job and shown what a disgraceful judgement that was for this government, and they have exposed the systemic corruption that we see in this sector. Now, we have a government which has failed on housing, saying, 'Well, we don't care if these guys are back in business in New South Wales; in fact, we're not going to do anything.' After spending over three years and having spent billions of dollars to build fewer houses than the last government, the Labor Party now want to inflict the CFMEU on Australia's biggest city in relation to new apartment builds. This is a price that young people will pay, and the only question the Australian people should be asking themselves is: what have they done to deserve this? Kamahl used to say, 'Why are people so unkind?' And I say to the Labor Party: why are you so unkind to young Australians?

Ellie Whiteaker (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against this motion, put forward by Senator Bragg, because, seriously, this is nothing but an attempt by the opposition to distract from the real reason why we're in this housing crisis. Let's take a trip down memory lane. The coalition had nearly a decade in government—nearly a decade. What did they do? They cut housing investment and, since then, have opposed every single housing initiative that the Albanese Labor government have put forward since we came to office. They left housing supply to the market, and their only idea now is to cut the wages of the people who build the homes that we need. Frankly, I think it's un-Australian. Every Australian deserves a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. And, yes, every Australian deserves a place to call home. That is why the Albanese Labor government is doing everything we can to get more people, more young people, into homes. It's why we're taking real action to build more homes, to build them faster and to make them easier not just to buy but also to rent.

Our $43 billion Homes for Australia Plan is the most ambitious housing strategy in generations. It is well beyond anything those opposite even considered doing when they were in government. The system has been broken for too long. Labor knows that the answer is pretty simple—build more homes. Help young people get into their own home without having to access their superannuation, which they'll need in their retirement. It is only the Albanese Labor government that has a plan to tackle this challenge, the only government that has a plan to build more homes, investing $10 billion to build up to 100,000 homes right across the country, specifically for first home buyers, without any competition from property investors. That is funding that supports infrastructure, land purchases and construction. It is the only government committed to building homes faster, speeding up the pace of building, with investment in advanced manufacturing of prefab and modular homes that will cut build times by up to 50 per cent. And, of course, we're the only government that will continue building homes for the future, investing in the workforce to get it done, fast-tracking the qualification of 6,000 construction tradies and experienced workers, getting them on the tools and offering $10,000 in incentive payments to apprentices in construction. That incentive kicked off on 1 July, with payments made every six months and then again at completion of the training, recognising the value of hands-on hard work.

Of course, it's not just about supply. It's also about making it easier for average Australians to get into the housing market. Already this financial year, 50,000 new places are available under the Home Guarantee Scheme, including 35,000 under the First Home Guarantee, 10,000 under the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee and 5,000 under the Family Home Guarantee for single parents. This scheme helps eligible buyers purchase a home with a deposit of as little as two or five per cent without paying lenders mortgage insurance, saving people tens of thousands of dollars and getting them into their own home.

With Labor's Help to Buy shared-equity scheme launching later this year, the Commonwealth will contribute up to 40 per cent of the cost of a home, which means smaller deposits, smaller mortgages and a real shot at homeownership for young Australians. A home is not just where someone sleeps. It's where you build a life. It's where people feel secure. It's why we are committed, as a government, to getting more young people and more Australian families into a home. We are the only party who are committed to doing that.

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

This MPI is a predictable line of attack from the opposition. They will do anything but take responsibility for their role in this extreme housing crisis. How dare the Liberals talk about housing affordability when they didn't even have a housing minister for six whole years under Abbott and then Turnbull. Attacking unions isn't going to make housing more affordable, and ripping up regulations won't fix it either.

We know that the Liberals' recent housing election policies would have increased house prices, making housing affordability even worse. This is the same party who introduced the capital gains tax discount in 1999, sending house prices soaring far faster than wages were increasing. They do not have the best interests of first home buyers at heart. I will tell you what's really costing Australians the dream of homeownership: successive decades of Labor and Liberal policies that have turned housing into a speculative asset rather than a human right and just a roof over everyone's head. Now, Labor and the Liberals are not taking the scale of this issue seriously enough.

Treasury tells us that Labor is not going to meet its 1.2 million homes target. Homelessness is the worst in living memory under this government, with increases of 10 per cent since Labor came to power. We still don't have a national plan to end homelessness. This is the human crisis and the human cost of what has gone wrong in our housing system. Labor and the Liberals are only interested in protecting the profits of very big developers, rich investors and banks. The Greens are the party that are fighting to make renting and housing more affordable and to end our shameful homelessness crisis.

So we need three things. Firstly, we need tax reform. We know Treasurer Chalmers is looking at tax reform. Property investor tax breaks cost us billions every year, making housing more expensive and hindering productivity. If the government genuinely wants to fix the housing crisis, scrapping the capital gains discount and negative gearing should be the first step.

Secondly, we need rent caps. Research from Everybody's Home shows that rents have increased by an average of 57 per cent across capital cities over the past decade. This is a national crisis in rent. In my electorate of Adelaide, we have seen the biggest increase—a staggering 81 per cent increase in rents. Without rent caps, the government is letting unlimited rent increases drive renters to the brink of financial instability.

Thirdly, we need direct investment in public and community housing. Right now, there are 640,000 households that need social housing. The average wait time is over a decade. We can't sit on our hands; we need a real plan. I hope that, this term, Labor makes use of its majority and works with the Greens to fix the housing crisis. (Time expired)

Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very happy to make a contribution to today's MPI, as moved by Senator Bragg. This actually manifests yet another one of the Labor Party's broken promises from the 2022 election, when we were promised cheaper housing. And, of course, what have we seen since then? Anything but cheaper housing. Only the Labor Party could spend billions of taxpayers' dollars—and billions of borrowed dollars—and build fewer houses, which is the effect of what's going to occur over the next five years. Treasury belled the cat in relation to that in their incoming brief to the government, when they said they wouldn't get anywhere near 1.2 million homes.

And, in fact, despite all the rhetoric from the other side and from the bottom corner of the chamber down there, this government will build fewer houses in the next five years than our government built in its last five years. So they can throw all the rhetoric they like across the chamber, but the reality is that the actions of this government—particularly with their new industrial relations legislation in the last parliament—have actually facilitated and enabled the CFMEU. Their legislation enabled the CFMEU to do the things they are now doing in moving into the housing market. And we know, because the statistics tell us, that, once the CFMEU is involved in a construction project, it can cost up to 30 per cent more.

Let's go back to the beginning of the contribution that I'm making: the Labor Party promised the Australian people cheaper housing, yet involving and engaging the CFMEU in the housing market can increase the cost of a housing project by 30 per cent. How does that line up with the promise for cheaper housing? It doesn't. It's like the promise from the Labor Party to reduce energy prices by $275—disappearing into the wind.

So it's the actions of this government, who enabled the CFMEU and who did nothing while the CFMEU started infiltrating the housing market, that are actually now driving up costs. All of those billions of dollars that the Labor Party—this government—is injecting into housing are going to get us less bang for our buck because they're going into the union system. And, on top of that, we're going to build fewer houses. As I said, only the Labor Party could spend billions and billions of taxpayers' dollars and end up building fewer houses. You'd wonder how they might be so successful in doing that, but that's exactly what's going to happen.

The unions, particularly the CFMEU, are quite brazen about what they say. Michael Crosby, the New South Wales CFMEU boss, says, 'We are looking at large multiple complex residential construction' and that 'may push up costs'. They're not concerned about that. They're not concerned about the promise that this government made to the Australian people to provide them with cheaper housing. They're quite content that their activities will provide more expensive housing. That's not what any of us want. I don't know why the government members would even tolerate that sort of activity. But that's what's going to happen.

We know that the Greens voted against every move to bring the CFMEU to heel in the chamber when the government legislated to put them into administration, and you wonder what that was about. I suspect there's a strong flow of donations that have diverted from the Labor Party to the green movement off the back of that. But it just shows how murky all of this is. You just can't trust the Labor Party when they make a promise to you. They promised cheaper housing and, through their inactivity, are going to provide— (Time expired)

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

I rise to speak on Senator Bragg's matter of public importance—yet another failure of Prime Minister Anthony Albanese's Labor government. The CFMEU is a union long associated with corruption, intimidation and thuggery. Now, if the CFMEU were genuinely focused on the safety and welfare of its members, I'd stand with it. If it were fighting for fair pay and decent conditions for workers, I'd back it every step of the way. But that's not what it is about, not from what I've seen reported. It uses fear and force to get its way. Just look at the footage from Melbourne—its own members turning on it after the union sold them out for cash at the start of COVID. That betrayal shattered lives, and for what? A payday.

This union doesn't stand for workers. It stands for power and profit. If it gets its claws into the domestic housing market, you can kiss the dream of affordable homeownership goodbye. Costs will skyrocket. On a normal building site, it's not unusual to see a tradesman or tradeswoman sitting on a sack of bricks, eating a pie, but once the CFMEU gets involved you'll need a fully decked out lunchroom, air-conditioning, amenities—the works—even on residential blocks. And who is going to pay for that? Well, you know the answer: the homeowner. We can debate comfort and convenience all day, but at the end of it someone foots the bill, and under Labor and the CFMEU it's everyday Australians aspiring to own their own home who will lose.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, this is quite the smoke and mirrors from the opposition to really just be going after working people and unions through the guise of talking about housing affordability. I'm absolutely happy to talk about all the work that we are doing to get people into their first home, to realise that dream, and to also make it more affordable for them to do that. But to go after unions, who have consistently improved the lives of working Australians, as a means of doing that is an absolute disgrace.

Getting more Australians into their first home is absolutely one of the highest priorities for our government. The coalition and Senator Bragg have no credibility on housing—none, precisely zero—having cut housing investment while in government and opposing every single housing investment made by Labor. Let's not forget that their only proposal on housing is for people to raid their super to pay for housing, something that they will need in retirement. It's a disgrace that the coalition's only answer to housing shortages is to cut building workers' wages. It's an absolute disgrace.

The only party looking to drive up housing prices in this country is the coalition. Economists have said the super for housing policy—that wonderful thing—could drive up housing prices by more than $90,000 in our capital cities. The facts are that wages have not been driving up the cost of housing prices. In fact, wages costs have grown more slowly than other costs in construction, a fact that those opposite don't want to know about. For 10 years, the LNP complained about the CFMEU but did nothing to clean it up—all words, no action. On this side, we've taken strong action to put the union's construction division into administration and to clean up the corruption, criminality and violence that had infiltrated the union.

As I said earlier, unions have improved the lives of working people. There are fewer injuries on worksites thanks to unions. Workers have better pay and conditions because they can do things called collective-bargaining, which locks in pay and entitlements for everybody. There are more supports for workers through unions. They protect workers against unfair dismissal or wage theft. It's incredible to me that the coalition have a campaign against unions who protect workers from these things. They really don't want workers to get fair pay or protect them from unfair discrimination or wage theft. That's what's really clear about this. Unions also educate workers about what their rights are, which is a really great thing.

There are a couple of things people in this chamber might be aware of where unions have helped in shaping what our national policy is. One is the eight-hour-work day; some people in this place might be familiar with that, maybe. Another is paid leave, just a little something that allows us to take some time off work, recharge our batteries and spend some time with family. You can thank unions for that. Another is superannuation, something that helps us to be comfortable in retirement. Thank you, unions, for that. Another is antidiscrimination laws to make sure that people like me and you are protected in our workplaces. That's just a small list of the things that unions have contributed to our nation, and the attack from those opposite on our unions is a disgrace.

Now I might turn to some of the things that we're doing in housing. The housing crisis has been a generation in the making. For too many Australians, homeownership feels too far away and being a renter feels too insecure. It's why we have put forward a $43 billion plan to make it easier to buy and better to rent and to build more homes. We're expanding the five per cent deposit scheme to all first home buyers so they can pay off their own mortgage and not someone else's. Labor is launching the Help to Buy shared-equity scheme later this year to help first home buyers get into their first home with a mortgage up to 40 percentage points smaller. That is a great thing. We are doing our very best to get people into their first homes and to make it more affordable for them to realise the dream of owning their first home.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to have the opportunity to rise to speak on this matter of public importance being put forward by Senator Bragg. The prospect of the CFMEU inserting itself into construction of apartment buildings is horrifying—absolutely horrifying—because, as Senator Bragg has rightly said, there is a CFMEU tax, a tax of an additional 30 per cent on the cost of construction of any piece of infrastructure, including any piece of residential infrastructure.

We've seen that in my home state of Queensland. I have gotten up previously in this place and referred to how, on every single major infrastructure project that has been built in my time in the Senate where the CFMEU has been involved, there has been an absolute blowout in construction costs. I have referred to the Cowboys stadium up in Townsville—a blowout in construction costs. I have referred to the Centenary Bridge duplication—a blowout in construction costs. Even on Ronald McDonald House, which was constructed to assist families whose children were seeking medical treatment in Brisbane, there was a cost blowout as a result of the CFMEU's unlawful action. It was found by the courts of this country to be unlawful, but the CFMEU consistently paid the fines as simply a cost of doing business.

I want to respond to some of the comments which have been made by some of the senators who have contributed to this debate. I note Senator Whiteaker's comments. As a Labor senator, she made no mention of the CFMEU in her contribution to this discussion. Why? Because they're embarrassed about the CFMEU, and rightly so. There was no mention of the CFMEU. Senator Whittaker talked about prefabrication, modular homes et cetera. Can I say to you, Madam Acting Deputy President, that I visited a business in Brisbane in my home state of Queensland that made prefabricated components of bridges, and they were raided by the CFMEU. They weren't in the construction business but in the manufacturing business. They were raided by the CFMEU, and members of the CFMEU even went onto their worksite and took photographs of the licence plates of management's personal vehicles. That's the CFMEU for you—fear, intimidation, harassment and corruption. That's the CFMEU. They are the last people we want involved in the construction of apartment buildings, be it in Queensland or anywhere else in this country.

Then we had Senator Pocock's contribution—Senator Barbara Pocock's contribution, I should make clear. Of course, the Greens always defend the CFMEU. They defended the CFMEU after it entered into administration. The Greens even attended and spoke at CFMEU rallies, for goodness sake!

The only thing I liked about Senator Pocock's speech was that it gave me the opportunity once again to quote from Basic Economics by the great Thomas Sowell. Again, the Greens are talking about rent control as if rent control is going to fix all the world's problems. I want to quote from my book Basic Economics, and thank you, Senator Barbara Pocock, for giving me the opportunity. Let's see what's happened under rent control. It's been tried everywhere in the world, and I'll remind the chamber: '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'—that's Australia. Let's go to Egypt: 'The end result of rent controls in Egypt was that people stopped investment in apartment buildings, and a huge shortage of rentals and housing forced many Egyptians to live in horrible conditions'—that's Egypt. Let's go to California: 'After rent control was instituted in Santa Monica, California, in 1979, building permits declined to less than one-tenth of what they were just five years earlier.' Let's go to page 45, England and Wales: 'Privately built rental housing fell from being 61 per cent of all housing in 1947 to just 14 per cent by 1977 under rent control.' You can always trust the Greens to give me an opportunity to drag out my book on basic economics. Perhaps they should take some time to read it and actually understand some basic principles of supply and demand.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for this debate has finished.