Senate debates
Thursday, 30 October 2025
Bills
Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025; Second Reading
9:01 am
Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I rise to speak to the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025. The purpose of this bill is to enact a system where there is going to be democratic accountability over the Housing Australia legislation, because, as it stands, the minister is able to make material changes to Housing Australia programs, including the Home Guarantee Scheme, without any reference to this parliament.
We have a major problem in this country with the delegation of authority to ministers. In too many cases, ministers make the law without there being any reference to the elected assembly otherwise known as the Parliament of Australia. In this particular case, the Home Guarantee Scheme has been materially changed—I would say completely debased—and those material changes to this scheme were made by a minister after a secret consultation, without any ability for the parliament to consider them and without any ability for the parliament to disallow them.
In this particular case, we see a targeted scheme for government mortgage insurance going from a product which was available to lower income earners now being made available to any prospective first home owner—no income cap, no cap on places. The result we've seen since 1 October, when these changes were made operative, is a big upshot in entry-level house prices.
Let's assume that we have a government that is trying its best for the people. Let's assume that they are well intentioned. They are trying to help prospective first home owners because they share the dream of homeownership. Let's assume that. The problem is that, by uncapping the places and removing all means testing, people who do not need government assistance are participating in the scheme, and that is flooding entry-level housing at a point in time which is driving an uptick in prices, and what we're seeing is the biggest growth, the sharpest uptick, in entry-level first-home dwellings in Australia in living memory. What does that mean for people? It means it's harder to buy their first house—even harder with a 95 per cent mortgage.
I make these points for context because I believe that, if these changes had been subject to some form of parliamentary oversight or committee or were subject to the potential for disallowance, then the government would have moderated them. The government would not have proceeded with a reckless scheme like this—no means testing, no place caps. In fact, it's quite clear to me that those changes made by an instrument of the Minister for Housing would have been disallowed—they would have been—by this chamber by virtue of reference to the statements made by the coalition, statements made by the Independent crossbench and statements made by the Australian Greens. Those changes that were made by the minister would have been disallowed. But they won't be disallowed, because the government has made the changes in accordance with legislation, and they are not to be disallowed. They cannot be disallowed.
This is a real example, here in Australia in October 2025, of the risk of overdelegation and destruction of democratic oversight from the legislative process. It was a very bad idea to have created this bill as it was then, as a former coalition government did. It was a big mistake, and the former coalition government should not have put through legislation which gave the minister unlimited, godlike powers. That was a big mistake. I make the point as a coalition member that legislation should not give a minister unfettered and unchecked power.
This government has a record of its own. Only a few weeks ago, they wanted to give the Reserve Bank unlimited, unchecked, unfettered power over payments. Now, payments policy might not sound particularly sexy, but I would say to you that it's going to be one of the biggest levers of public policy in the future. A payments idea or a payments concept could disrupt your supermarkets. It could disrupt your retail environment overnight. It could come from any other jurisdiction, and this government wanted to vest that power in the central bank, without any capacity for democratic oversight or review. Who voted for the RBA? No-one. What happens if the RBA makes a bad instrument? Do you walk down to Martin Place, burst through their renovation that's taken a hundred years and cost billions of dollars and say, 'I want to see the governor'? I don't think so.
This is not the way that we would have done payments reform. We would have vested those powers in the Treasurer because, no matter how bad the minister of the day is, they've got to take representations in some form. They've got to at least engage with their department. This government was happy to give the RBA unfettered power. In this case, the coalition worked with the Australian Greens and the crossbench to ensure that, when the RBA does make payments rules, they will be subject to disallowance. That is a very good thing, and do you know what that is going to do? It's going to make the RBA think very carefully, and it might do some more consultation. It might think very carefully about how it might deploy the surcharging proposal that is so heavily favoured by the Prime Minister.
That would have been the case with the Home Guarantee Scheme changes. If there had been disallowance capacity, the government would have moderated the proposal. They would have retained some form of means testing, and they may have maintained some sort of place cap. Instead, we have this free for all, which is pushing up prices. I make the point that it's not just the coalition, the Greens and the Independents in this place that are making a point about the loss of parliamentary oversight and how damaging that can be for the legislative process. It's also the Australian Law Reform Commission, the parliamentary committee on delegated legislation and the Centre for Public Integrity. It was also the position of the Prime Minister, who said in 2019:
We don't need a culture of secrecy. We need a culture of disclosure … Reform freedom of information laws so that they can't be flouted as they have been by this government.
That is germane to these points.
The government that is obsessed with creating legislation where there is no parliamentary oversight or review is the same government that wants to gut the FOI laws. After having presided over the worst compliance record of freedom of information rules since the Keating government and after having flouted the Senate orders for production of documents, they now want to gut FOI rules. How low can you go? You want to be less transparent than a government where the Prime Minister had secret ministries. How low can you go? It is unbelievable to me the depths that this government can sink to.
I say to the government, as it cries a river of tears about the extension of question time because it wants to have more dorothy dixers from its backbench to ask stupid questions that they already know the answer to, that the government doesn't control the Senate. They can go away and threaten the coalition members of the House of Representatives with committee positions—
Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I take the interjection. The government can go away and use its bullyboy union tactics and threaten members of the House with committee positions and their own salaries, but you know what? We are not in the business of standing up or placing vested interests or our own individual interests above that of the communities that we serve. That is not the way we roll here, and the reality is that this government has governed the country for 3½ years to the advantage of vested interests only. That is the problem the Australian people have now. The government isn't interested in fashioning economic policies to solve the economic problems of the day. They are only interested in feathering the nests of vested interests and the people who run their campaigns and give them donations. That is why I've said for a long time that this is the government for vested interests. It is not the government for Australians.
We look forward, frankly, to the government issuing and executing its threats against members of the coalition who dared to vote with the crossbench to ensure that they were production of documents.
Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Who dared—I take the interjection. Here we go; we're back to the union tactics again. It's always about the threats. I say that it is one of the greatest outrages that the same government which won't comply with freedom of information rules, which won't produce orders of the Senate, which will not provide democratic accountability on legislation, is now crying a river of tears about the extension of question time. I'd say to the government: get used to it because you don't control this Senate and you never will.
There will be a further extension of these arrangements until such time as the government complies with the orders of the Senate, because, otherwise, what's the point of coming here? The government assumes that the Australian people are stupid—that they're going to pay for us to fly down here, waste all of this money to sit in this parliament and then not get any answers. The job of the non-government members, in particular, is to hold the executive to account, to make sure that taxpayers are getting value for money and to make sure that programs aren't maladministered. Frankly, when I was a member of the government in the Senate, I did the same thing. You can't just go along with the executive and be a rubber stamp. That's my advice through you, Deputy President, to the members of the government, particularly the backbenchers. Don't be used by the executive. You should actually represent the people who sent you here, rather than just be a plaything of the executive government and the unions.
I commend this bill to the Senate because we need more accountability in this country. We shouldn't have massive delegation of authority and parliamentary power to a minister without any checks and balances. We do not live in medieval England. We live in 2025 Australia. These godlike powers the government wants to issue itself across the board are an absolute disgrace. The Australian people would expect that we would be reviewing major decisions of government. The Australian people would expect that the parliament would have a say on how laws are made. The Australian people would expect that the people they pay to come to Canberra get to vote and have input on laws which affect them, and, right now, housing would be amongst the biggest issues in Australia. If you're an entry-level first home buyer and you want to know why house prices are going up, then you can ask this government. The answer is: because of the Home Guarantee Scheme, which was debased by this government.
9:17 am
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Wow. Thank you, Senator Bragg, for that performance. I think, when Senator Bragg started his speech today on the second reading of this bill, he talked about assumption. The Labor government are not here to run on assumption. We are here to provide certainty, and our housing policy does exactly that. We're going to give the Australian people the certainty that the coalition did not give while they had nine years of government. I think it's pretty rich to be lectured by the opposition. Shockingly, Senator Bragg, during his contribution this morning, had time to make niggling nips at his former colleagues from when they were in the previous government. He talked about how they thought there's integrity in giving the minister all this unfettered power. Wow. It's amazing that Senator Bragg can sit here and say that about his colleagues—because that is exactly what they're continuing to do. They're continuing to focus on themselves. They're continuing to focus on each other, instead of worrying about the Australian people. That little display of, 'We're worried about the people,' wasn't actually real because he spent more time talking about his colleagues, when they were in government. They should never have made those changes to those bills.
The Australian people don't have a short memory. They do not have a short memory about who was blocking housing in this chamber. It was the teals and the 'no-alition' who ganged up together.
Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
You voted that way!
Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
You voted against it!
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Yes, I had one vote—exactly! I'll take your interjection. I came over to this party to deliver because of that. You're on the money, both of you. Thank you, Senator Henderson and Senator Cadell. I'm over here to deliver now. You belled the cat.
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! Interjections are always disorderly. Responding to interjections tends to create more interjections, so let's continue with the second reading speech, Senator Cox.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Sometimes the truth hurts, Deputy President, and it cuts very deep in this chamber, does it not, especially when it's true. It's like trying to sneak your new romance in the back door, because your base is going to find out you all stood together in '28. Well, we can't wait for that to happen, because your sneaky little new squeeze in the 'noalition' is continuing. Senator Bragg's contribution also went to all the other things this chamber is working on. FOI—you know why? Because they didn't even have a housing minister in nine years of government.
Let's get to the bill, because that's actually what I'm on my feet for. I don't want to spend too much time giving rise to Senator Bragg. This bill is cynical. It's dangerous. It's utterly self-serving. The bill would absolutely make it harder for first home buyers to get into the market, harder for working families to find secure housing and harder for our nation to build the homes that we desperately need. I want to be really clear that what Senator Bragg and those opposite are really up to is not about accountability. It's not about transparency, and it's certainly not about oversight. This is about grubby politics—pure, opportunistic, obstructive politics.
As I've said, Senator Henderson—
Thank you for those interjections. I'm sure the Deputy President will—
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! Senator Cox, can I ask you to sit down? Senator Henderson, interjections are always disorderly. Senator Cox, please do not respond to those opposite. All remarks go through the chair. Senator Cox, you have the call.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Thank you, Deputy President. Now—
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
If she's going to keep continuing, I might as well give her the call.
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Henderson! Senator Cox, you have the call.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Thank you, Deputy President. As I said earlier in my contribution, the coalition that wrecked the housing policy for nearly a decade in this place now want to wreck it again. They want to take a massive sledgehammer to it. Once again, they're showing Australians that they've learned nothing from the 2025 election. They lost an election because people were tired. They are tired, sick and tired, of delay and destruction. And here they are again, blocking and bulldozing a housing policy that's going to help everyday Australians across Australia, particularly in my home state of Western Australia. I know, Deputy President, you're also a proud Western Australian.
People are doing it tough. They're working hard. They're doing everything right, and they still can't find a place to call home. Young people are lining up around the block for rental inspections. Families with kids, families who would have owned a home a generation ago, can't get a foothold in the market. Parents are watching their adult children move back home because moving just absolutely seems out of reach for them. These aren't statistics. These are real people. These are teachers and nurses and tradies and retail workers who keep our community going. They are the backbone of our suburbs. They are the people in our towns and our regions, and they deserve better than what the coalition is trying to dish up for them today. In almost 10 years, they tapped out of the housing national challenge—absolutely tapped out.
Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
But you voted against it, Senator Cox, when you were a Green.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Thank you, Deputy President. There was no national leadership—and I know that they don't want to hear this; that's why they keep interrupting—no plan and no investment to improve supply for almost nine years in office. They, again, didn't have a housing minister, and that tells you everything that you need to know about their politics—the politics that the coalition are willing to gamble and play with, with people's lives. It's almost a decade, and what do they have to show for it?
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Very little—373 social and affordable housing. Let me say that again just for Senator Henderson—373 in a nation of 26 million people. Oh my God—that you could come in this place with 373 homes that you built during your time! That's a contrast with what Labor are doing and Labor's commitment to deliver 55,000 social and affordable homes, the boldest housing program since the post-war reconstruction. And, yet, despite this dismal record, the coalition now pretends to care about accountability. That's exactly what Senator Bragg came in here and talked about.
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order, Senator Henderson!
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
You might as well be in a debate with her, Deputy President.
Corinne Mulholland (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
You're holding an event with Drew Hutton, come on!
Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
He's a very sensible man.
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
No. Order, Senator Henderson and Senator Mulholland! Having conversations across the chamber is not good Senate practice.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
You need to pull her up.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Deputy President, ask her to leave if she can't be quiet.
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Henderson! Senator Cox, you have the call.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Yet, despite that dismal record, the coalition now pretend to care about accountability. The same mob of sports rorts and secret ministers suddenly developed a passion for transparency. Give me a break! Give us all a break.
Now let's talk about Senator Bragg's so-called accountability bill and what it actually does. Under the Housing Australia Act 2018, the government issued investment mandate directions. These directions guided how programs like the Home Guarantee Scheme and the Housing Australia Future Fund facility operated. They provide flexibility and certainty, the kind of certainty that investors, builders and homebuyers rely on. The bill that Senator Bragg brought to the Senate would make those directions disallowable—he talked in great length to us about those—and allow either chamber of the parliament to rip them up at any time. That would expose the five per cent home guarantee scheme, which has already helped more than 185,000 Australians to get their first home. What a great figure, 185,000. That would endanger the upcoming Help to Buy program, which will help another 40,000 families. It would threaten the HAFF, the Housing Australia Future Fund, a cornerstone of our $43 billion housing agenda.
That's not oversight. That's sabotage. That's taking a sledgehammer to all of that. What would that mean for real people? It would mean tens of thousands of Australians who have been saving for their first home would have their dreams snatched away from them. I know that that would also mean that first home buyers would need bigger deposits and would be waiting longer and paying more, each of them forced to fork out an extra $23,000 on average on lenders and mortgage insurance. This would also mean that social and affordable housing projects that are under construction right now would also be delayed. Without Commonwealth support, community housing providers would have to stop work on their new builds altogether. This is a real-world impact of this bill—fewer homes, less certainty and absolutely higher costs.
We've seen this behaviour before. We feel like we're having deja vu. For months, as I said, they blocked the build to rent program, and they tried to scrap it. For months they blocked the HAFF, and then they promised to abolish it. That was your election promise. Even then, they were opposed to the Help to Buy program before it even began. If the opposition gets a final say on our five per cent deposit scheme, we all know what they'll do. They've told us time and time again. They'll just tear it up.
Australians know they can't trust the coalition when it comes to housing. While the coalition play politics, Labor is delivering a plan—a serious, fully funded, long-term plan. We have an ambitious $43 billion housing agenda that is already making a difference across the country. We've already taken the Commonwealth from being a negligent bystander under the coalition to being the boldest and most ambitious government on housing since the postwar period. Under our prime minister, Anthony Albanese, we are tackling the housing crisis from every angle. We are backing homebuyers. We are making it easier to buy a home of your own. We took a bold plan to the election, five per cent deposits for all first home buyers, and we delivered on that plan months ahead of schedule, launching it on 1 October.
Thanks to Labor's five per cent deposits, first home buyers are cutting years off the time it takes to save for their home deposit. Instead of spending 10 or 11 years trying to save enough to buy a first home, it now only takes a few years. This is life changing. Soon the Help to Buy program will help low- and middle-income earners into homes with smaller deposits and smaller mortgages. We are partnering with states and territories to build 100,000 new homes reserved for first home buyers—homes that can't be snapped up by investors before families get a chance.
We also know there's no single silver bullet for the housing crisis, but building more homes will ease the pressure for everyone, for renters and for buyers alike. That's why we're supporting the construction of 1.2 million homes nation-wide. We're training more tradies, cutting red tape and investing in the infrastructure that's needed to unlock supply. Through our housing future fund, we are delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes for people who do vital work—as I said, our nurses, teachers and aged-care workers. People should be able to live near where they work. As I said, under the coalition, the magic number was 373. Under Labor, it will be 55,000. That's the difference between neglect and nation building.
The opposition say, 'Why not let the parliament have oversight?' Well, that's exactly how this opposition works. Give them a lever, and they will pull it to block progress. They've got form. For years, they were blocking, delaying, bulldozing every housing initiative that was put before them. This is not about oversight; this is about control. This is about giving themselves power to tear down the government's agenda. They are trying to do it now by stealth.
Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Henderson, I've called you to order.
Dorinda Cox (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
It's not about oversight; it's about control. It is about the lever they are trying to pull to pull down our housing agenda by stealth. The truth is that these investment mandates are administrative tools, not political playthings. Housing Australia needs stability to keep investors and builders on board. Constant political interference would spook the market and absolutely slow construction. Even the Senate's own scrutiny committees have recognised that these instruments must remain non-disallowable when financial certainty and investor confidence are at stake. If Senator Bragg's bill passes, that stability absolutely goes out the window.
To those who claim that Labor's five per cent deposits are driving up prices, Treasury has been very clear that the impact is very modest, at about half of one per cent over six years. The biggest driver of housing costs has always been supply, and that is exactly why the majority of the $43 billion in our plan is focused on building more homes, not just helping people to buy them. We are restoring the Commonwealth's role as an active partner in housing, not a passive observer. We are delivering more homes, better rental security and a fairer shot at ownership, That's what our government is doing by putting the shoulder to the wheel while those opposite are standing in the way and shouting slogans.
9:33 am
Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I rise to speak on the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025. I have to say that that was a pretty incredible speech to listen to. Senator Cox is part of a government that is making the appalling historic housing crisis worse—worse for young people, worse for renters, worse for women suffering domestic violence who can't find anywhere to sleep—
Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Hear, hear!
Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Pocock, resume your seat. I can't hear your contribution. I keep calling senators to order. Could you please let Senator Pocock speak in silence.
Barbara Pocock (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
It's worse for young people, worse for renters, worse for women in my city who are trying to escape domestic violence and find themselves in a tent with a baby or in a car, worse for First Nations communities, worse for the women and children who can't find housing across Australia and worse for those communities who face increasing homelessness.
This bill comes to us at a time when Australia is in a deep housing crisis. It's a crisis of affordability across our country, including in Western Australia. It's a crisis of affordability, accessibility and accountability. Across this country, people are being priced out of their own communities. It doesn't matter whether you are in Perth, Broome, Adelaide, Whyalla or Mount Gambier; or whether you're a renter, a homebuyer, a first home buyer or someone trying find emergency accommodation. The story is the same. Rents are rocketing. The Australian dream of homeownership is on life support.
For most Australians, this is a personal issue. We all know people who are trying to find a rental or trying to accumulate a deposit for their first home. It is personal, and it shapes lifetime conditions for children and those people in housing crisis. Over 120,000 Australians are experiencing homelessness, and we are a rich country. Shame on us! Tens of thousands of Australians, including women, children, pensioners and disabled people, are sleeping in cars, on couches or in tents. Shame on us! Homelessness services are being pushed to the brink. For the first time in 70 years, Hutt St, which provides services to homeless people in my city, is at the point where it can no longer take more people in its doors; it is facing a capacity problem. Homelessness services are right on the edge, and 89 per cent of Australians agree that this is a crisis. They know it. They experience it in their homes, in their families. I'll say that again: 89 per cent. Only two per cent of people think this isn't a crisis.
And what is the Labor government doing about it? At best, tinkering—at worst, making things worse. Since the National Housing Accord was signed in October 2022, the national median house price has increased by $127,000. That's $42,000 a year for the past three years. Young people I know now struggle to open a newspaper or listen to the radio, because every day, including today, there are stories of the crisis becoming worse. House prices have continued to explode under Labor's watch, and they must take accountability.
Then there are the significant shortfalls in public and affordable housing in Australia. Social housing waitlists in every capital city are longer than 10 years. There are 640,000 households right now that need social housing. These massive waitlists are the direct result of underfunding our social housing stock—and that's on both the major parties. This is fuelling financial stress and housing insecurity for many vulnerable Australians. And housing is not just an economic issue; it's a social issue, it's a fairness issue and it's an intergenerational issue. It affects everything from children's education to health outcomes and community stability. It affects who ends up in prison. It becomes a generational lottery, a lottery where the winners are those who bought decades ago and the losers are locked into a lifetime of renting, insecurity and huge debt.
Australia has a huge problem with intergenerational housing inequality, and it's growing wider every day. And what has this government done? They've only introduced one housing bill into this new parliament. Did it help aspiring homeowners to build their first home? Did it wind back the unfair tax handouts to wealthy property investors or fix the structural inequalities in the housing market? Did it directly invest in public housing that Australians desperately need? No. The bill builds public housing—but only for foreign troops and contractors under the AUKUS pact. That's right. This government has deemed US troops and US contractors more worthy of public housing than people in Australia who desperately need a roof over their heads. There was no financial impact statement either on that housing build for AUKUS, despite the efforts of the Greens to secure one. It's incredible. It defies belief. We have no idea how much public money Australia will allocate to building homes for the US military in Australia. The government knows it can build houses directly—it's doing it for the US military—but it chooses instead to do it only for US troops and contractors.
So, with all these pressing issues, you would hope the government would be responding quickly to fix the crisis—well, wrong. Instead, we have the disarray of Housing Australia and the slow, clumsy, costly Housing Australia Future Fund. The government loves to blame the Senate for not passing the HAFF reforms sooner, but, according to the ABC, Housing Australia wasn't even ready to hit the ground running. It took four months for them to start getting applications and more than six months to process them. And many of the homes approved by Housing Australia in October did not reach the contract-signing phase until June. It's no wonder the ANAO is reviewing the design and delivery functions of the HAFF, given these extraordinary timeframes. The HAFF was structured in a way to leave it to the private sector to navigate the market to build homes. It creates opportunities for profit developers who will make profit from building social and affordable housing. You really have to ask yourself who Labor is working for. That is not even mentioning the very high profits of banks in relation to the five per cent deposit scheme. That increase and widening of the five per cent deposit scheme is especially remunerative and profitable for the big banks.
Labor's policies are working for those banks and developers who benefit when prices rise. It's unfair, and there are real solutions that Labor could be adopting. All could have been avoided if the government had just directly funded public and community housing. We need Housing Australia to be guided by clear goals—ending homelessness, increasing public housing stock and ensuring that everyone in this country has a safe, secure and affordable place to live. What of transparency and accountability? Our Senate must play a crucial role in reviewing and scrutinising government policy. That's the role of this chamber. It's not to be a rubber stamp and not to just blindly wave things through. It's to do what the Australian people put us here to do—be a powerful check on the government of the day.
The Greens are a party of transparency and accountability, and Labor's current approach fails us on that front. Much like the rest of their approach to government, it is undemocratic. I've spoken to this issue many times in this chamber. Australians are being left in the dark about the detail of government's housing policies and their funding. We deserve to know what is being built, how much is being spent and who is spending it. When public money is being used—billions of it in this case—Australians deserve transparency and accountability. They need to know and they deserve to know that every dollar spent is helping to deliver homes for people who need them most, not just underwriting private profit.
The Senate agreed to my motion ordering the production of documents regarding the spending of the $3 billion that the Greens won in housing negotiations in the previous parliament. As a direct result of Greens pressure in the last parliament, we got the government to close the no-minimum spend HAFF loophole, and we forced government to guarantee a $500 million annual spend starting in 2024-25. Previously the government could spend anything from zero annually to the $500 million cap. We also got the government to spend a further $1 billion in immediate and direct spending on public and community housing. I simply asked for details, including how much has been spent and where, how much funding each state and territory has received, the number of new and pre-existing dwellings, and so on. But this information should already be publicly accessible. It isn't. The documents were due to be tabled by the minister over a month ago now. There have been no interim response, no letter and no documents—no transparency as yet. Orders for the production of documents are not requests. Compliance is not optional. They are orders. I urge Minister O'Neil to provide these documents to the chamber as soon as practicable or, the bare minimum, provide an update as to why it's taking so long to tell the Australian community about what, how and on whom it is being spent.
Access to government information is crucial to democratic practice, and one of the most powerful tools for accessing this information is this chamber's ability to order the production of documents. But I'm far from the only senator who has not had their motion complied with. Last parliament the Senate only complied with these orders 33 per cent of the time—that's one in three. The Albanese government is worse than the Morrison government when it comes to refusing Senate orders, and that is really saying something. Just this week the Centre for Public Integrity published a report titled The Albanese government's integrity report card, and it showed the government is failing on five out of six integrity measures. They've found this government is leaning into a culture of secrecy. It refused to release the Briggs report of public sector board appointments and has given jobs to mates despite promising to end the practice. It's failed to rein in the power of lobbyists. It's failed to support parliament and its accountability function. For a government who promised to increase transparency, we're getting the reverse.
In closing the Greens support stronger accountability, but let's not pretend that this bill alone will fix the broken problem. We need to continue to push for transparency, not just in Housing Australia but across the whole housing system.
This trend to legislating solely through non-disallowable instruments needs to end. This chamber needs to see real, substantial housing legislation from this government. Australia's housing crisis won't be solved by continuing to outsource public responsibility to the private sector. Housing is essential for Australians, just like health care, education and child care, and we shouldn't be leaving it to the private market. Decades of profit driven policies have left too many people with skyrocketing rents, substandard housing and long-term homelessness. 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.
Legislation like the Defence Housing Australia Act makes it clear that the only public housing Labor really wants to spend money on is for the military and contractors living on Australian soil. We can build public housing. We can build it directly, but, at the moment, this government is doing it only for US military and contractors—all while hundreds of thousands of Australians wait for decades on waiting lists.
We will continue our fight for a public developer—one that delivers homes not profits—a publicly owned, democratically accountable body that will build 610,000 homes over the next decade. We can do this. We must do this. This is the kind of ambition needed to fix the housing crisis, not just tinkering and especially not tinkering in ways that drive demand, like the expansion of the five per cent deposit scheme—uncapped for income and pushing up prices. The Australian people deserve more than spin and secrecy; they deserve homes they can afford in communities where they belong.
Australia needs hundreds of thousands of new and genuinely affordable homes. Instead, we are seeing the consequences of this housing crisis every single day. We experience it personally in our families, in our streets and in our communities—record homelessness, record house and rental price rises, and record profits for banks and big developers. We have fixed a housing crisis before. We did it in the immediate post-war period. We are spending billions of dollars out of this parliament on many things. The key thing for many people to a decent life chance is affordable and secure housing—the opportunity to make sure your family has a place with a roof over their head, making sure that the vulnerable in our community are not living in tents.
In my city, we see tents multiplying in our parklands, our streets and behind buildings. It is totally unacceptable that homelessness in our country has risen by 10 per cent in the years of this Labor government. We must do better. We've got an obligation to do better. We've got the resources to do better, and this parliament needs to make sure we have transparency about every decision to deal with, respond to and end this crisis of homelessness and housing.
9:47 am
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I rise to speak in support of the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025. This bill is fundamentally about three very basic things. It's about transparency, it's about oversight, and it's about protecting the Australian economy from reckless government policy. More importantly, it's about reducing that risk of excessive executive overreach.
The objective of the bill is straightforward. It provides an important parliamentary oversight on all the directions made under section 12(1) of the Housing Australia Act, but, specifically, it relates to those directions that constitute the Housing Australia Investment Mandate—
(Quorum formed) which includes the Home Guarantee Scheme and the Housing Australia future facility. But the real impetus of this bill lies in the fundamental alteration in the expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme, which came into effect earlier this month. That expansion has now meant that there are no income caps on the Home Guarantee Scheme participants, there are no caps on the Home Guarantee Scheme places, and the scheme can now be used to purchase more expensive property.
Labor's expanded policy has fundamentally altered the original design and intent of the Home Guarantee Scheme, which the coalition established as a highly targeted scheme for low-income earners who struggled specifically with low or no deposits. These individuals still had great credit ratings, and they were approved by banks, but they just couldn't get that deposit together. So this was the first rung on the ladder. It limited the number of participants and it limited the number of houses that were available to be purchased by capping the cost of those houses. Essentially, this program now is a free-for-all. Under the existing law, these material changes to the directions that are governing the mandate can now be enacted not by a policy that needs to go through the chamber but instead by a simple instrument that's issued by the minister.
Crucially, this instrument is not disallowable by the parliament, a fundamental tenet of good governance and good government. The process is not in the spirit of transparent and democratic government. Regulation is there to fill in detail. It's not there to implement substantive changes that impact the functioning of the Australian economy. But that's what this bill will prevent. It will prevent that massive executive overreach. It seeks to protect Australians from the whims of a government that are making significant decisions without meaningful consultation and without parliamentary oversight, which is exactly what this chamber is here to do. The government's hesitance to properly consult and their broad use of delegated legislation align with evidence suggesting that this is one of the least transparent governments in Australian history, and it seems to be increasingly so.
(Quorum formed) Well, isn't it extraordinary that the moment I start talking about transparency and a lack of it from this government games start being played that do exactly that. What has just happened, twice, is that Labor have shut down private senators' time. We're not talking about what they want to talk about, so they have shut it down, twice, for no reason. Can I point out that one senator was actually in the chamber when quorum was called and ran outside! I know you're new, but you can't do that. You can't duck outside the chamber after quorum has been called.
Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator, you can address your comments through the chair, thank you.
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Chair, I will tell you that senators cannot duck outside after quorum has been called, and perhaps that was something you should have pulled up—Acting Deputy President.
Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Excuse me, Senator?
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Perhaps, Acting Deputy President, you should have pulled up the senator that ran outside when quorum was called.
Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Order! Senator, are you raising—
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
This is a lack of transparency that is becoming the hallmark—
Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Hume, resume your seat. You do not have the call. Senator Hume, if you are seeking to make a point of order on me calling quorum, you may do so. Senator Hume, is this a point of order, or is this part of your debate?
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I would like to continue with my contribution on our private senators' time. I know that this is not Labor's favourite time of the day, but we are going to make sure that Labor has a lot of not-very-favourite times of the day because, as long as you behave this way, as long as you are hiding in the shadows, as long as you play games—well, unfortunately, you might think that you can crunch the opposition whenever you choose to do so, but you don't own the chamber. There are in fact more of us around the ends than there are over there. You can hide. You can refuse to produce documents. You can try and create legislation that has no oversight and no ability for scrutiny, but it will not stand. You who stood so gallantly prior to an election and said, 'We will be the most transparent government that this country has ever seen'—that didn't last long, did it? It didn't last long.
Senator Pocock pointed out that only 33 per cent, one in three, of your orders for the production of documents have come through—one in three. Aren't you ashamed? Aren't you embarrassed? You should be embarrassed. This bill that we're talking about today is to improve transparency. It's to improve accountability. It's to improve governance. These are issues that you said are important to you. Yet somehow, when it's convenient for Labor, those principles are simply set aside. They're set aside, and the behaviour we've seen in the chamber today has demonstrated that. For the sake of the Hansard transcript, I think it's probably worth noting that, just today, we have seen Labor respond to, in the most petulant and sulky way, a requirement of this chamber that they provide documents, and we have said around this chamber that we have the numbers to make sure that they do. If they don't, we will extend question time.
Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Grogan.
Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I thought this debate was about housing.
Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
What’s the point of order?
Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Relevance is the point of order.
Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
What's your point of order? Please make it succinctly.
Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The point of order is on relevance. The senator is talking about a whole range of other things, but I'm not hearing much about housing.
Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I've only just stepped into the chair. For the benefit of the chamber, I'll just continue listening. If I concur with what you're saying, I will call the senator to get back to it.
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I was talking about housing. I was talking about the lack of scrutiny that this government wants for their housing policy. This housing policy is so bad that the ANAO, the Auditor-General, has now decided that it requires additional scrutiny. We've seen the Chair of Housing Australia resign under suspicious circumstances. There were allegations of bullying; now that's gone. We tried to have additional time with Housing Australia at Senate estimates. They were pushed out to the middle of the night—last thing in the middle of the night. Thank heavens the Senate has the power to compel Housing Australia to come back, and we will see Housing Australia at Senate estimates at a spillover next week. But, my goodness, it has been like pulling teeth to get this government to talk about its housing policy, because it is so ashamed.
It's so ashamed of the fact that it hasn't actually built any bloody houses—excuse my language, Acting Deputy President. It is so ashamed because it hasn't actually built any houses. It's spent $60 billion, yet it hasn't built any houses. That's taxpayer money. That's money that has been borrowed through the Housing Australia Future Fund and delivered nothing. The Housing Australia Future Fund has been operating for two years. Do you know how many houses it's built? Doughnuts. Nothing. Zip. Squat. Zero. Nothing. It hasn't built a house yet. That's your money they're using. Today, they are hiding from you. They are not only hiding from you but playing games in the chamber so that they don't have to respond to questions about it.
It is private senators' time, not government time. This bill will at least go some way to helping provide transparency, to helping prevent this executive overreach, to ensuring that we have accountability for decisions that are made and the ability for this chamber to do its job and not have games played—the ability for this chamber to scrutinise legislation and not have a minister have a free rein. I know that power has gone to your heads. You might have the numbers in the chamber over there, but you do not have them here. (Quorum formed) I want to talk about this housing guarantee scheme and I want to talk about the private senator's bill that has been brought in to introduce more scrutiny, more transparency and more accountability, but, unfortunately, I keep getting disrupted. And the reason I keep getting disrupted—can I be very clear—is that Labor are refusing to produce a document that we requested to see for two years. They're refusing to produce a document which, ironically, is a review into jobs for mates.
Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Hume, please direct your comments through the chair.
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Ironically, it is a review into jobs for mates. Now, they were given this review, and they have said it's under consideration in cabinet. This is a nonsense. It's been around now for more than two years. It was commissioned by the government themselves as part of their commitment to transparency and accountability.
Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
It's a bit ironic.
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
It is; it's totally ironic, Senator Scarr. Let's face it: this is not a government that wants scrutiny. It is not a government that takes accountability seriously. It is not a government that wants questions asked; it simply wants to use its numbers wherever it can and use games to get away with whatever it can.
What they've got away with in housing is outrageous: $60 billion. That's your money they're spending. And did you know that this government has built fewer houses each year than the coalition did in nine years? We didn't spend $60 billion to do it either. The home guarantee scheme is an initiative of a coalition government, but it was small, it was targeted and it was done intentionally to help young people that might have great credit risk and be unable to get a deposit together to get to that first rung on the ladder. But it was so limited that it had no effect on housing prices. Labor have taken the lid off and said, 'This is a free for all,' and now we've got Reserve Bank governors, economists and even Treasury warning that this is a policy that will push housing prices up. But they do not care.
At the same time, we've got the Housing Australia Future Fund, the greatest and most expensive white elephant that this country has ever seen, that has not built a single house—not one. But it borrowed $10 billion of your money to do that. Not only did it not build a house; it actually bought—
Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Senator Hume, it will assist me to maintain order in the chamber if you could direct your comments through the chair, please.
Jane Hume (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
Thank you. I actually will. The Albanese government's decision to expand the housing guarantee scheme without any corresponding plan to increase supply is reckless. More buyers, fewer homes—that means that house prices will skyrocket, and experts are predicting exactly that. In fact, they're saying potentially up to $90,000 increases in Sydney because of Labor's policy—directly because of Labor's policy.
Even Treasury admit that this policy will push up housing prices, but they do it anyway. Changes of this scope and this scale which threaten massive taxpayer liability and demonstrably inflate the price of houses for the very people that this scheme is purported to help must be subject to the oversight of elected officials. That's what we are here to do. We are here to do that. But, instead, they have circumvented that oversight. You have circumvented that scrutiny. You have hidden from transparency. You have set aside accountability.
The bill that is before us today, a bill that has been put forward by the coalition, by Senator Bragg, will ensure that Australians are protected from that arbitrary government decision-making, that they are protected from executive overreach and that they are protected from the desire for this government—and I'm using their words not mine—to 'crunch' the opposition and 'crunch' the crossbench. You said you would use your numbers, and you have done so effectively, but you do not own this chamber. We will make sure that this government is held to account for its lack of transparency, its lack of accountability and its scandalous behaviour today.
Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The time for this debate has expired.