Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present the explanatory memorandum and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speech read as follows—

I am pleased to be given the opportunity to introduce the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025.

This bill stands to serve the Australian people, and ensure their tax dollars are spent responsibly, with the oversight of the entire Parliament, not simply at the whims of one Minister or political party.

At its core, the aim of this Bill is to provide parliamentary oversight on material changes to directions made under subsection 12(1) of the Housing Australia Act 2018, which together constitute the Housing Australia Investment Mandate.

The Housing Australia Investment Mandate includes the Home Guarantee Scheme, which Labor have expanded under the guise of solving Australia's housing crisis, all while experts and industry say it will only make the problem worse.

They have done this via a simple instrument that is not disallowable.

This is not in the spirit of delegated legislation, and Australians deserve better.

This Bill will give them better.

When the Coalition first introduced the Home Guarantee Scheme, it was a sensible and targeted policy that aimed to help low-income Australians who had low or no funding for a deposit.

The Labor Government have degraded this original idea for political purposes.

Under Labor, the Home Guarantee Scheme will now have no income caps on participants, no caps on placements available, and the prices of eligible properties will rise significantly.

These are material changes that deserve scrutiny.

Fundamentally, changes of this scope and scale should be subject to the oversight of elected officials.

We are not sent to this place to wave through the government's latest brain wave.

Yet under this government, despite the protests of many, the Home Guarantee Scheme will be significantly expanded, and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

The Scrutiny of Delegated Legislation Committee has previously declared that non-disallowable amendments to the Housing Australia Investment Mandate Direction do not satisfy the committee's expectations regarding the circumstances of their exemption from disallowance.

On 16 June 2021, the Senate resolved that:

" … delegated legislation should be subject to disallowance to permit appropriate parliamentary scrutiny and oversight unless there are exceptional circumstances and any claim that circumstances justify exemption from disallowance will be subjected to rigorous scrutiny with the expectation that the claim will only be justified in rare cases."

Moreover, in 2016, the Australian Law Reform Commission criticised the ever-expanding reach of delegated legislation, declaring:

"Important questions of policy, particularly when they affect individual rights, are often considered inappropriate subject matter for delegated legislation … The Law Council said that significant matters … should instead be set out in primary legislation, not in regulations"

The Albanese Government's use of delegated legislation dovetails with the growing body of evidence that they are one of the least transparent governments in Australian history

Recent work by the Centre for Public Integrity revealed the Albanese Government is less transparent than the Morrison Government, despite campaigning on a platform of integrity.

Under Labor, Freedom of Information transparency has significantly declined, with only 25 per cent of requests fully granted under Labor, down from nearly half in 2021-22.

Rejection of freedom of information requests spiked to 24 per cent in the government's first term.

The proportion of documents granted in full dropped from almost 60 per cent in 2012 to 25 per cent in the year to July 2024.

Official reviews of these decisions to block information found that only 45 per cent of the refusals were made on legitimate grounds, meaning more than half the justifications for secrecy were flawed.

Anthony Albanese said in 2019 when he was the Opposition Leader:

"We don't need a culture of secrecy. We need a culture of disclosure … Reform freedom of information laws so they can't be flouted as they have been by this government."

How times change.

I have been on the receiving end of these Labor redactions many times. Reams of documents blacked-out, the truth kept behind a vale of Labor secrecy.

Withholding the truth and exploiting delegated legislation are all a symptom of a much bigger disease that has affected this place.

And that is the disease of taking Australians for granted.

I remind all my colleagues: We in the Senate have a responsibility to represent Australians' best interests and uncover the truth.

Why is the government trying to stop this?

It is unacceptable.

Dr Catherine Williams, research director at the Centre for Public Integrity, said Labor's actions suggested a:

"deliberate effort to avoid scrutiny … The Senate is being blocked from fulfilling its constitutional role of holding the government to account. This trend is dangerous for democracy"

Our Parliament and democracy are not a plaything for those with power.

On 14 June 1951, Sir Robert Menzies said:

"Parliament is … an instrument of reasoned progress, largely because there are both Government and Opposition; the hammer and the 6 anvil, forging ideas and making laws."

This is what Australians believe. This is why they hold our Parliament and democracy in such high regard. They want us to do our jobs and ensure every dollar they give us is spent responsibly and appropriately.

That is why they vote us in.

This Bill will ensure that every government, no matter their political stripes, will be able to be held accountable for the directions they give under the Housing Australia Act 2018.

It is a Bill that will make our democracy better.

I commend the Bill to the Senate.

I seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted; debate adjourned.