Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bragg has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today, which is shown at item 15 of today's Order of Business:

The Albanese Government's Productivity Roundtable was a taxpayer-funded talkfest with the only output being an adoption of Coalition policy on the National Construction Code, with no business confidence measures, no strategy to reduce red tape or power prices, and no relief for small businesses and households struggling under Labor's economic mismanagement, while continuing to back superannuation funds as corporate landlords instead of helping Australians own their own home.

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 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 coalition has proposed this matter of public importance because it is of great public interest that taxpayers have funded the talkfest held here in Canberra in the last week, which has resulted in a canful of housing policies and maybe the prospect of improvements to the economy in the future, but all of that is very unclear. What is clear is that the government have continued on their merry way of being the government for vested interests, where they spend more time thinking about what is going to line the coffers of their mates rather than what is going to support Australians to get out of the terrible housing crisis the nation is in, help small business and help families get ahead.

So far, from this taxpayer funded summit, we have seen three ideas. Firstly, there is pausing the National Construction Code for a handful of years, the same policy that Labor, at the election just a few months ago, said was terrible. In fact the then industry minister, Mr Husic, said that it would result in there being 'shoddy hotboxes'. Similarly, the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, said last week that they were very proud of the 2022 changes to the construction code. This is the very same iteration of the code which has made home building a nightmare in Australia, because builders are encircled with Labor's red tape. This is a government that has delivered 5,000 new regulations, 400 bills, which are costing Australians $5 billion in compliance. Now the government say they want to freeze the NCC, which was the policy they pooh-poohed at the last election because it was our idea. So that's one idea—and guess what? They didn't have to have a summit to learn this policy. All they needed to do was to read the coalition's policy document from the last election.

Secondly, there is the expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme, maybe one of the most bizarre ideas I've heard in my time in this Senate. The Labor Party want to subsidise the children of billionaires so they can buy their first home with no income cap and no means testing. The wealthiest Australians are now going to be subsidised by the taxpayer to purchase a first home. I don't understand why this is a priority. We're already running 10 years of deficits. We cannot afford the programs that are already in the budget. And now the government is saying, 'Oh, we're going to fund the first houses of middle- and higher-income earners.' That's the role of government, they believe. The contingent liability here is likely to be tens of billions of dollars. Why are we subsidising the first houses of the children of billionaires? Again, you didn't need to have a summit to have that idea.

Then there's the Treasurer's favourite idea: how he can help his mates at the big super funds become the corporate landlords of Australians. Instead of fighting crime, which ASIC is hopeless at doing, the Treasurer has forced ASIC to commence a consultation so that the super funds can cover up the stamp duty fees that they pay to their members so it can make their investments into Australian property look more attractive. This is the government for vested interests. I've always said that. And this summit has shown that their priorities are totally warped. They're trying to support the wealthiest Australians to buy their first home—bizarre priority. They're adopting the coalition policy from the last election, which they said was terrible. Again, I'm very confused.

Finally, they're supporting the idea that big corporations own houses, not Australians. On this side of the House, of course we have disagreements from time to time, which is normally healthy. But one thing we all agree on is that individual Australians should own houses, not big corporations. And it's not just trying to bodgie up the numbers in member disclosures; it's also the government's whole agenda on build-to-rent, trying to give foreign investors a tax cut so that they can buy up and build Australian houses—houses that Australians will never own.

So I say to you, Acting Deputy President: the government is confused. It says it wants to cut red tape, but then it says it wants to be the nation's biggest mortgage insurer. It says it wants to cut red tape, but then it says it wants to be a massive housing developer with massive bureaucracy. This government is confused at best, and it really needs a lot of help.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Economic Reform Round table that we recently had was, at its heart, about addressing the vexed issue of intergenerational inequity. That compact we have between generations has completely broken down. We are aware of that. We hear it every day. We see it every day on the streets of Australia. People are sleeping on our streets—on our footpaths, outside supermarkets—as parents, single mothers with their children, are sleeping in cars, on beaches or in council car parks.

That intergenerational compact has broken down. We see it on the faces of young Australians who have grown up in middle-class homes and done all the right things. They've acquired a skill or trade or gone to university. They've gotten a job. They've worked hard their whole lives. And they feel that they will never own a home. That is what was at the heart of this three-day summit. It was about addressing intergenerational inequity. At the heart of that is housing.

We have a coalition here who has the temerity to shed crocodile tears in this chamber over an issue as significant as housing. We understand the challenge. That's why we have $43 billion on the table for homes for Australia—homes for Australians. Multiple pillars are included in that. There's the Home Guarantee Scheme, which we expanded and tuned up in our first term and which we are now opening up for young Australians so that they can enter the housing market with as little as a five per cent deposit. So acute is this problem that we are accelerating the go-live date. It was going to be 1 January next year; it will now be 1 October.

Already, over 100,000 households have taken up the Home Guarantee Scheme, entering the housing market with as little as a five per cent deposit. In Victoria, that number sits at around 47,000 people—individuals who didn't own a home before we expanded this scheme. And those opposite are criticising us for that. Well, given the level and scale and magnitude of this problem, of course we have to be ambitious. Of course we have to pull every lever, and that is not the only lever that we are pulling.

We brought in the Housing Australia Future Fund, with $10 billion devoted to social and affordable housing. That went live in September of 2024. It could have gone live earlier—maybe a whole year earlier—had the coalition actually passed it in this chamber, in the Senate, but they delayed it. The other scheme that they delayed was the Help to Buy scheme, which enables people on very modest incomes to buy a home with as little as a two per cent deposit, with the government coming in with 30 to 40 per cent equity of that home. It enables them to enter the housing market with a very small deposit and very, very low mortgage repayments. Cleaners would have gotten into the housing market as a result of Help to Buy. Again, that scheme was delayed by the coalition in this chamber. Now they are trying to move another disallowance, this time against build to rent. It's shameful, given the scale of the problem.

Senator Bragg actually said we should have looked up the policies in their LNP policy document. Well, I did. I did look it up in the first term and in the second term, and at the heart of their policy approach to housing is to actually raid your super. Let's drill into that. The median house price in Melbourne is around $900,000. If you need a 20 per cent deposit, it comes out to be about $170,000 to buy a home in Melbourne. In regional Victoria, that number is $572,000, and the 20 per cent deposit is $114,000. The average 30- to 34-year-old man has about $53,000 in his super, and an average woman has about $44,000. It doesn't even touch the sides. It is a fast track to poverty in retirement and homelessness if you raid your super. That was evident not only on the faces of voters in the 2022 election in Higgins, a Liberal blue ribbon seat which I won off the Liberals, but also on the faces of young people at the 2025 election.

So no, we're not going to be taking lectures from the coalition. With respect to the building code, we are not only pausing it but also simplifying it, thereby cutting red tape to enable homes to be built. (Time expired)

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

The Treasurer's economic roundtable has been held as the climate is breaking down around us, as ecosystems are collapsing and in the middle of rampant economic inequality. Out of that roundtable has come a shopping list of ideas, many of which are of significant concern to the Australian Greens. One in particular is winding back regulations, which we have seen time after time from the Liberal political parties. It means weakening environmental standards and weakening environmental protections. Freezing the building code, as we have just heard—the risk there is it will increase power bills because homes will be built in a less energy efficient way, so people who live in lower-quality housing will end up paying more on their power bills, and it will increase emissions from coal and gas use. Road user charges may, if designed well, actually be very good policy, but the risk there, of course, is that it will just devolve into a tax that disincentivises the uptake of electric vehicles.

To implement the ideas out of this roundtable, the Treasurer has got a choice. Labor has a big majority in the House, and Labor plus the Greens equals the numbers in the Senate. We are up for genuinely progressive reform and will approach that in a collaborative and instructive way. What we need is for Labor to work with the Greens to end things like the obscene tax breaks that property speculators get in this country and the fossil fuel subsidies which are so unproductive to our economy, and to implement a fossil fuel export levy so we can raise revenue to help people struggling under cost-of-living pressures. (Time expired)

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

A good idea or a popular idea has many parents. A bad idea or an unpopular idea is an orphan. Well, look at this! One Nation came up with the idea of holding the National Construction Code changes—stopping them, suspending them—to save $50,000 per house in construction costs. That was One Nation, before the election! Now we see Senator Bragg taking ownership of it for the Liberal Party. Then we see the Labor Party coming up with the idea at the roundtable. Where did it come from? One Nation. We have a homelessness crisis in this country. Every major provincial city in Queensland has homeless people sleeping in cars. Working mums and dads are sleeping in their cars. They come home to see if their kids are still there. Why? Because the Liberal Party started mass catastrophic immigration under John Howard, and the Labor Party has turbocharged it now with over 500,000 new immigrants per year.

That's what's driving the homelessness crisis. And only One Nation has a comprehensive policy for housing—working on the demand side, working on the supply side, working on the cost side and working on the finance side to reduce demand. To stop immigration, we would deport immediately 75,000 people who were here illegally and deport students who were not in compliance with their visas. On the supply side, we would stop foreign ownership of houses in this country—just stop them! We'd give them two or three years to sell and get out. Free them up. Many of those homes are locked. On the cost side, we would reduce regulations, stop the National Construction Code changes, and end net zero to reduce the price of energy. On the finance side, we would roll HECS debts into home loans and allow access to super accounts to get a deposit. Why can't your super account invest in your own home when it can invest in other people's homes? This is bloody ridiculous!

Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week, the Albanese government held its much-anticipated economic roundtable, which was hyped up to be this enormously grand event that would deliver huge ideas about how to fix Australia's productivity crisis. But after weeks of kites being flown by the unions and the Prime Minister hosing down the Treasurer's ideas, we finally know the outcomes. Or do we? Here's the problem: what did Australians get for their taxpayer dollars? Just like the Jobs and Skills Summit three years prior to that, the roundtable was another Labor letdown. Only this time it was held behind closed doors, so we don't actually know what was discussed in the room. What we do know is that there were no tangible measures that came out of the roundtable. There was no plan for business confidence. There was no plan to reduce red tape. There was no strategy to get power prices down. There was not a single measure to give relief to small businesses or to households that have been struggling with the last three years under Labor's economic mismanagement.

While Labor and the Treasurer were locked up inside this roundtable, Australian families and small businesses continued to do it tough. Let me give you some facts. Fact 1: under Labor, productivity has gone backwards. It's gone backwards by about five per cent in the last three years of the Albanese government. Fact 2: standards of living have gone backwards. They've collapsed by more than six per cent under Labor. That's why if you're feeling poorer, you in fact are poorer. Your standard of living has collapsed. Fact 3: the Reserve Bank has said that living standards will continue to fall under this government unless something is done to address sluggish productivity.

The roundtable, therefore, had a really important job. Australians were promised a productivity turbocharge. What did we get? We got a flat battery. In fact, the only tangible outcome from this summit was the adoption of—surprise!—a coalition policy to freeze the National Construction Code. That's right—after three days of talking and weeks of floating ideas and spin being spun to the media, Labor's big idea was to copy a coalition policy that we took to the last election—a policy that they previously opposed, I might add. Now, don't get me wrong, that freeze is welcome after their first term saw them deliver 400 additional new laws that cost $5 billion. It added $5 billion to the cost of construction. There were 1,500 new regulations in the Treasury and infrastructure portfolios alone, and changes to the National Construction Code in 2022 made it harder and more expensive to build new homes. That deepened the housing affordability crisis in Australia.

So it's nice to see that Labor has had a change of heart, but, unfortunately, a one-year delay is not a comprehensive freeze. More needs to be done, particularly in housing. This government has overseen the biggest growth in population in Australia since the 1950s, but it's also presided over a housing construction collapse. Over nine years under the coalition government, we averaged 200,000 new homes built every single year. Under Labor, there have been 170,000. But instead of supporting Australians into homes, Labor continues to instead support superannuation funds acting as corporate landlords. On this side of politics, we fundamentally believe that individual Australians and Australian families should own their own homes. We don't think big corporates should own your homes for you. We certainly don't think big super funds should do so.

That leads me to one of the other outcomes of the productivity round table; that is, that Labor will now review the superannuation fund performance test to—wait for it—remove obstacles or impediments to super investing in housing and other areas where there is clearly a national need. Let's be very, very clear about this: there is nothing stopping superannuation funds investing in any asset but it has to financially stack up, otherwise it robs you, the superannuation fund member, of the best financial outcome you can get. We certainly don't want the performance test to become a superannuation fund vehicle for Labor's political agenda. But you can trust Labor to emerge from a round table with changes to unlock the performance test as the key to unlocking economic growth; heaven help us! Could you not come up with something better than that to really move the dial on productivity, lower energy prices, genuine tax reform, more flexible industrial relations and a step change in our educational standards? That's all Labor came up with—a change to the superannuation performance test. It looks like the Treasurer got so carried away sitting in the Prime Minister's chair at the cabinet table that he forgot about the real purpose of this meeting.

Australians deserve a government that understands that productivity isn't just an opportunistic slogan. Productivity might not sound like a sexy topic but it is the secret weapon to better living standards in Australia. To improve our living standards, we need to see real action from this government, not just talk.

Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak against the motion moved by Senator Bragg. Senator Bragg has moved his motion as a matter of public importance. It is a motion that, of course, attacks the productivity round table. It attacks all the people who attended the round table—businesspeople, unions and, by extension, even his own parliamentary colleagues like the member for Fairfax. He goes on to attack industry superannuation funds—I guess that was pretty predictable; the great old nemesis of Senator Bragg, those pesky superannuation funds, is helping to secure the future of millions of Australian workers. But, really, this motion feels a little bit like a cry for help.

I'm prompted to ask Senator Bragg, 'Are you okay?' His motion looks a little bit like someone who didn't get an invite to the big dance. There it was, the big productivity round table in Canberra. Who was there? Well, the member for Fairfax was there—but no invite for Senator Bragg, or 'Braggy' to his friends on that side of the chamber. I get it; that stings a little bit when you're the thinking person on that side of the show, and you've waited by the mailbox to get your invite that just never came. But it's okay; those opposite were ably represented by the man who brought us such big reform ideas like the LNP nuclear plan that was roundly panned by the Australian people at the last federal election. It is intriguing to see the LNP seeking to attack the round table. It was a positive, constructive discussion of stakeholders. Perhaps if those opposite had spent more time speaking to people, they might not have taken some of those disastrous policies to the last federal election.

What those opposite missed is the incredible work this government has done to turn the economy around after years of neglect under the coalition. When we came to government, we inherited massive deficits, a trillion dollars worth of debt and years of low-wage growth for Australian workers. By contrast, our government has put the runs on the board. Headline underlying inflation is around four-year lows, annual real wages have been growing for seven consecutive quarters, the economy is still expanding, interest rates have been cut three times in the last six months, more than 1.1 million jobs have now been created since we came to government—a record for any government in a single term—and the average unemployment rate is the lowest of any government in 50 years. At the election, Australian people voted for higher living standards, higher wages and secure, well-paid jobs. But the job is not finished, and that is why the Treasurer convened the round table—to continue to drive growth.

So, while the Albanese government has been working to improve the living standards and productivity of Australians, it's been pretty disappointing to see those opposite refuse to come to the table and work towards solving the issues that matter most to Australians. In fact, over the weekend the Liberal National Party of Queensland held their annual convention, which is a staple of the Queensland political calendar—not one to be missed. It's always nestled up against the shadow of the Ekka; that's when the LNP circus always comes to town. Of course Senator McGrath was there handing out his showbags. There was plenty of merchandise on offer, even LNP branded Crocs and yellow and blue Converse shoes.

But, rather than focusing on how they can gain back the trust of Queenslanders, the LNP spent their time discussing some pretty wild and woolly ideas—things like cancelling medical checks for drivers over 75, creating a new 'office of space' for the Queensland government and abolishing the eSafety Commissioner, to name but a few. They doubled down on their efforts to divide Australia. We even saw the LNP membership and a number of people opposite vote with an overwhelming majority to abandon their own commitment to Australia's net zero 2050 target. The opposition leader spoke about the coalition's need to modernise and broaden their appeal. However, this clearly is a task that they find impossible. Instead, they are actively becoming more extreme in their policies and further seeking to disenfranchise themselves from the Australian people.

I am proud that on this side of the chamber we have been working with stakeholders to collectively solve the nation's productivity challenges and lift living standards. The roundtable showed that there is far more in common than conflict and that tackling big ideas and challenges is best when we do it together.

Steph Hodgins-May (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

After months of spin about lifting productivity, Labor's roundtable delivered little for renters, workers or the environment and ignored a major barrier to productivity—lack of access to quality child care. High quality, affordable early childhood education enables women to participate in the workforce, supports children's development and delivers substantial long-term returns. A universal, low-cost system could grow our economy by over $100 billion, yet nearly one in four Australians live in areas with almost no access to child care. Reports of neglect and abuse highlight that the system is not consistently safe or high quality. As Labor continues to tinker at the edges, it gives fossil fuel corporations like Woodside a seat at the table, rather than families and parents.

That's why we've established a Senate inquiry into the safety and quality of early childhood education. The inquiry will examine the role of for-profit providers and the failures of the market driven model. It will also give families and educators a well-deserved voice at the table to share stories and demand change.

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

Labor's much vaunted productivity summit concluded last week, and, I must say, I'm none the wiser about what it actually achieved. I listened very closely when Senator Mulholland asked Senator Gallagher, the Minister for Finance, who was a participant in all three days of the roundtable, what was achieved, in what's known as a dorothy dixer. Here was her opportunity to tell us all how much consensus had been reached, how the gravity of the moment had been seized and how opportunities had been grasped.

But, instead, we got a series of bromides. These are just some of the things Senator Gallagher had to say. She said:

The roundtable was a good and positive thing …

She said people wanted to lean in and be part of the discussion. She said there was a high level of buy-in. Now, that all sounds very worthy, but a high level of buy-in to what? What was achieved? What was discussed? We had 29 hours of discussions. Apparently we had 327 different contributions from participants. We had three days of talks with many of the government's most senior ministers. We have a 14-page transcript of a concluding press conference that the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, held, but we are none the wiser as to what has been achieved. In fact, what has been achieved and what the government has paraded as an achievement is underwhelming, to say the very least.

Let me hone in on one particular element of this summit—fiscal sustainability. This was meant to be the entire focus of day 3 of this summit. The warning signs on this issue had been flashing brightly for some time. We had the incoming government brief from the Treasury department, the Treasurer's own government department, warning that there would need to be either significant spending reductions or large increases in taxes to restore the budget to a sustainable position. We had the former governor of the Reserve Bank, Philip Lowe, urge the government last week to restore the fiscal guardrails, saying that the government had no budget discipline. We had, apparently, former secretary of the Treasury Ken Henry in the room last week, speaking about the importance of the Charter of Budget Honesty from 1996, a Howard and Costello innovation, and lauding the fiscal rules that were adopted by the Treasurer's own former boss, Wayne Swan.

But, apparently, the Treasurer and the government were having none of that. According to the Financial Review:

There was widespread agreement—

Amongst participants—

at the roundtable that expenditure growth was on—

or is on—

an unsustainable trajectory.

But a spokesperson for the Treasurer, Jim Chalmers, said that claims that fiscal rules should be re-instituted are not worth the paper they are written on. What have we got in their place? We've got no fiscal rules. We've got no fiscal guardrails. We've got no budget discipline. We've got no expenditure discipline. When you've got a treasurer that makes Wayne Swan look like a fiscal hawk, you know that this government has absolutely no discipline whatsoever. Wayne Swan introduces fiscal guardrails; Jim Chalmers's spokesperson says they're not worth the paper they're written on. Wayne Swan, a fiscal hawk—I never thought I'd see the day, but so it has come to pass.

So what have we seen achieved—some discipline imposed here on government spending? No—a big doughnut. Have we seen any significant cutbacks on regulation? No—a big doughnut. Instead we've seen a tax on electric vehicles floated; adoption of a coalition policy, a freezing of the building and construction code; and mooted changes to the super performance test so that superannuation funds now need to invest their members' money in government policy projects, not where it would deliver the best returns for their members or look after the interests of their members.

Australia's economy is stagnant, our living standards are deteriorating, our business conditions are terrible, and our productivity is going backwards—this was the burning-platform scenario that we were presented with as the foreground to this so-called productivity and economic reform roundtable. We had some of the best minds in the country there. We had business leaders, economists, think tankers and others, who were willing to share their ideas and willing to make some suggestions, but the government was unwilling to take any of them. So instead, after three days, after 29 hours of discussions, after 327 different contributions and after about a dozen press conferences by Jim Chalmers, we're left with a tax on electric vehicles, a coalition policy and changes to the super performance test. This does not rise to the gravity of the challenge that the Australian economy faces right now.

Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has expired.