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

Senator Bragg has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today. It is shown at item 13 of today's Order of Business:

The Albanese Government's $60 billion housing plan is making Australia's housing crisis worse, through the failing Housing Australia Future Fund, irresponsible Home Guarantee Scheme, and enormous governance issues at their key housing bureaucracy, Housing Australia.

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 main point in this matter of public importance is that the taxpayer is underwriting a $60 billion housing scheme across the board, across the Commonwealth, in which the government is building fewer houses than were built under the previous government. Who could believe that you could conjure up a way to waste $60 billion of taxpayer funds to get fewer houses than we had before? Now, we have the largest population that we've ever had, and we have, per capita, the largest drop in completions. What we also have is a lot of bureaucracy, a lot of government programs and a lot of dodgy accounting. In fact, one of the most extraordinary elements of all of this is the way that the government has set up these housing schemes. A lot of them are off budget. So, even though we've already seen 10 years of red ink, that doesn't take into account the fact that some of the kooky schemes, like Help to Buy, are all off budget.

What you've seen under this government is the breaking down of the integrity of Australia's public finances. If you look for the overall picture in the final budget outcome, it doesn't tell you the overall picture. All it tells you is what they've got on budget. It is extraordinary to me that this quantity of funds has been allocated to housing to produce fewer houses.

I think it is important to note that, no matter how well intentioned the programs are, the central agency of the Housing Australia fame has been a bureaucratic quagmire. The Housing Australia Future Fund, for example, which has been in business for two years, has $10 billion and has so far built no houses, but what it is doing is overpaying for proposed new dwellings. Now, the average cost to build a new house in Australia is about $500,000. But how much is the future fund paying? It's paying $1.2 million and $1.3 million in some cases. That is not good value for money. That is why we welcome the Auditor-General's independent investigation into the spending of this agency.

I think there are significant probity issues. Because of this government's addiction to secrecy, we haven't been able to get to the bottom of the meetings that were conducted by the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing with the major investors, who have become the biggest beneficiaries of this scheme—the major super funds, the Labor Party's best friends. They've received 2.8 billion bucks from the Housing Australia Future Fund. The same people that I suspect helped the Treasurer design the payment scheme got the cream at the end. This is a matter that the Auditor-General will have to investigate—because why should the taxpayer be paying $1.2 million to $1.3 million per house? It would be easier to pay that half a million dollars and set them up as public housing. Why do we have to pay these investors this premium?

That is why we will seriously consider making a referral to the Anti-Corruption Commission—because this is a matter of great integrity. We want public finances to be well managed. We want conflicts of interests to be disclosed and properly managed. Because the government redacts all of the FOIs and does not provide the documents that were ordered by this Senate, we can't get to the bottom of things. So maybe it is the case that the government has totally emasculated the Senate. Maybe it is the case that we'll never see the Briggs review. Maybe it is the case that we'll never see the documents ordered in relation to the Home Guarantee Scheme. Maybe that is the case. Maybe we have seen the emasculation of this chamber. Maybe there's no point coming here anymore.

The Australian people would say, 'Surely we send you people to Canberra to get good value for us.' Surely, if the majority of this chamber has ordered the production of a document, the Australian people should be able to view that document. It's a pretty basic standard. The government have failed it. They've wasted $60 billion on housing, to build fewer houses. It's been a disaster, and I regret that very much.

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

Here we are again—another day, another housing motion from Senator Bragg. To Senator Bragg and to those opposite: only Labor has a plan to build more homes, only Labor has a plan to get renters a better deal and only Labor has a plan to get more Australians into homeownership. Time and time again, day after day, we come into this place and we hear Senator Bragg and those opposite talk about housing. What they don't say—but what we know to be true—is that they don't want more Australians getting into their first home. They don't want us to build more houses. They have stood in the way. They have blocked every single effort that this government has made to get more Australians into their own home. They have blocked and stood in the way of every attempt that we have made to build more homes. They have blocked and stood in the way of every attempt that we have made to get more young people into their very first home. So, while the coalition are here to play politics and continue their long record of doing absolutely nothing on housing, Labor is getting on with the job.

We know that housing is a life-defining challenge for so many Australians, and, when we came to government, what was clear was that people were working hard, doing everything right, but were still not able to get into their own home. Too many people across this country couldn't afford a place of their own. We hear it out and about. I certainly hear it in my home state of Western Australia—families who can't get into a house big enough for their kids; young people who fear they will never be able to buy their own home. We know it is tough.

It's because, when we came to government, there had been a decade of neglect when those opposite were at the table. I was astonished to learn that they didn't even have a housing minister for most of their time in government. Well, no wonder we are in the position we are in. Labor have an ambitious $43 billion housing agenda, and we will not be distracted by Senator Bragg. We will not be distracted by those opposite who try to turn this into politics and try to turn it into a headline grab. We are getting on with the job of delivering the boldest and most ambitious housing agenda that this country has seen in the postwar period. We will not apologise for it, because we are tackling the housing challenge from every angle. Our Housing Australia Future Fund is a $10 billion investment to build 55,000 social and affordable homes in the next five years. It is the largest national investment in housing in a generation, and Senator Bragg and his colleagues on the other side of this chamber continue to tear it down and to try and stand in our way.

We have a long-term commitment to rebuild Australia's social housing system. We are proud of that work. We are proud of that record. While we are focused on building more social and affordable homes for Australians, while we are focused on helping more young people get into their first home with our the five per cent deposit scheme, the coalition are actively trying to make it more difficult for you to buy your own home. They are actively making it more difficult for us to build the homes that we need to increase housing supply. Without a housing policy of their own, all they know how to do is stand in the way and block and bulldoze. For almost a decade they were tapped out on this issue. They were tapped out on our national housing challenge—no leadership, no plan and certainly no investment. For most of their nine years in government, we saw essentially nothing.

So, Senator Bragg, I say to you: when your side were in government, you got us into this mess, but what I know is that Labor will get us out of this. We will make the biggest investment in housing in a generation, and we will not let you stand in our way.

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

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance on Australia's housing crisis. A total of 89 per cent of Australians agree that we're in a housing crisis, and it's clear why. The deliberate political choices of successive Labor and coalition governments have brought us here. Labor's policies are turbocharging house prices, with national housing prices increasing by more than one per cent in a single month in October—up by six per cent in the last year. Labor need to take accountability for house prices exploding on their watch. The solutions are clear.

I've just come from the launch of an incredibly important book by Hal Pawson, Dr Viv Milligan and Judith Yates, Housing Policy in Australia, where the minister said, 'The housing system in Australia is broken.' She went on to say, 'It's incredibly complex, finding solutions.' Yes, it takes courage. Yes, it takes political capital. Yes, it takes vision, but we will not fix the housing crisis by making it more complex through things like the HAFF, which make it more costly, more slow and sluggish and much more expensive to fix. So we need real action by the minister, which includes a National Housing and Homelessness Plan, and we need to double federal funding to states and territories for housing support for the homeless and for public and community housing. The two major parties also don't have a single policy to assist renters—not one to deal with rising rents and uncapped rent increases throughout our country towns and our cities. We need to stop unlimited rent increases and establish a national renters protection authority to enforce renters' rights.

These are all things the government could do. They are not that complex, but they require resolve. But they want you to think everything is too hard or too complex and that better is not possible. Well, it is possible. We've done it before. We did it in the postwar period. We built a lot of houses and we looked after renters. We need accountability from our government and its departments for their role in this mess. What we are seeing out of Housing Australia and the HAFF is of deep concern. Last estimates this government put Treasury in the midnight slot, and we had only 48 minutes to ask crucial questions that go to the heart of our country's housing crisis. For one of the most critical issues of our time, that shapes life chances for our kids and our families, we had less than an hour with the relevant department. Luckily we get another go this Thursday night at a spillover with Treasury and Housing Australia. I am looking forward to hopefully getting some real answers to deal with a very real crisis.

Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (NT, Country Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let me break it down for those opposite who, having mentioned my colleague Senator Bragg's name several times, clearly appear to be threatened by the fact that he continues to hold his government to account and to call them out on their failed policies. Labor promised to fix Australia's housing crisis. They promised 1.2 million new homes. They promised help for first home buyers. They promised transparency, accountability and results.

But what have Australians got instead? Well, Labor's National Housing Accord is dead, buried and cremated. Their $60 billion housing plan is nothing more than a bureaucratic mirage, a tangle of failed programs, false promises and fiscal waste. The Housing Australia Future Fund, the so-called HAFF, has become pink batts 2.0, a putrid waste of public funds and maladministration. It's a monster that eats money and doesn't build houses. The numbers tell the story, of course. Under the former coalition government, Australia was building around 190,000 new homes a year. Under Labor, that number has slumped to barely 177,000, and it's falling. That's tens of thousands of families missing out on the Australian dream. Builders are short more than 83,000 tradies, according to the HIA. Costs are rising, confidence is collapsing and still Labor can't explain whether money is going. The Auditor-General found that only $13 million was spent by the HAFF in 2024-25, yet somehow $137 million vanished—puff!—in just one quarter this year.

Where is the accountability? Where are the results? Labor's housing boondoggles are costing taxpayers billions, yet they are delivering fewer homes than ever before. They're building bureaucracy, not communities, and the human cost is real. Young Australians are locked out of the property market. Couples are delaying having children or giving up on the dream of a family home altogether. The family unit itself is being weakened. The coalition is and always has been the party of homeownership. We believe every Australian, especially younger Australians, deserve the chance to realise the great dream of owning a home, not to be shut out by bad policy and rising costs.

In the Northern Territory, my constituency, it is even worse. Labor's so-called help for first home buyers is locking Territorians out, not lifting them up. Labor's distortion of the home guarantee scheme won't make housing more affordable; it will do the opposite. Their reckless design will dump a $60 billion liability onto taxpayers and push house prices up by as much as 10 per cent, pricing even more Australians out of the market. Under Labor's First Home Guarantee scheme, Darwin is lumped in with regional Tasmania and Norfolk Island, with a $600,000 price cap. Yet the median house price in Darwin is now over $660,000, with the highest growth rate of any capital city. The NT treasurer, the Property Council and the building industry have all called for that cap to be lifted to at least $850,000, but Prime Minister Albanese isn't listening.

This is what happens when a one-size-fits-all policy comes from a government that doesn't understand the Territory. Territorians who've worked hard, saved up and done the right thing are being told they don't qualify for the help they were promised. That's not fairness; that's failure. It is failure on a national scale. We need homes Australians can actually afford. We need policies that empower families, not bureaucracies. We need to build townhouses, not tower blocks. We need Australians to own a little piece of this country and not rent forever. Labor promised solutions; they've delivered a shambles. It's time to end the housing chaos. It's time this government lived up to its own standards. It's time to put Australians first and the Australian dream of home ownership first.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bragg has come in here today, supported by the Liberal opposition, and has brought this MPI about housing. It's about time we put some facts into this MPI, and, in my contribution and in the contribution by Senator Whiteaker, we've had some facts. From the other side, we've had nothing but spin and, unfortunately, not much support for those people out in the community that are looking to buy homes.

When the coalition were in government—when they had a chance to act—they had no plan, no ambition and no housing minister. Don't worry about this MPI; their plan was MIA—missing in action. After almost a decade in government, the coalition left behind a housing system in crisis. Home ownership fell. Rents skyrocketed. Social housing virtually stopped being built. When they left office, Australia was building fewer homes than at almost any time in the previous decade. They went years without even having a housing minister, and their one big housing idea at the 2022 election was letting young people raid their superannuation to buy a home—a policy that would have pushed prices up and left people worse off at retirement. That is not a plan; that is desperation dressed up as policy.

By contrast, the Albanese Labor government has a long-term plan to make it easier to buy and better to rent and to build more homes. Our Homes for Australia plan is the most ambitious housing agenda in generations, and it is working. ABS data shows building approvals rising—a sign that Labor's reforms are taking effect. We have a shared national target to build 1.2 million new homes over five years, the most ever built in any five-year period in our history. We have established the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, delivering tens of thousands of new social and affordable homes. Those opposite fought it every step of the way. They teamed up with the Greens to delay it for 14 months, denying real help to people who need it most. What are they doing now? They're still voting against housing supply, still opposing build-to-rent projects that will deliver 80,000 new rentals and still blocking tax incentives that would get shovels in the ground. The same people who did nothing in government are now standing in the way of progress in opposition.

This government has increased Commonwealth rent assistance by almost 50 per cent for more than a million households. We have increased rent assistance, cut red tape, supported builders to get on site sooner and helped first home buyers with the Home Guarantee Scheme. That is practical, real support, the kind of support that changes lives.

Those opposite like to say—and we've heard it here in this debate this afternoon—that it will not work. They said that about the Housing Australia Future Fund, about our target, about rent assistance and about every single thing we have done, but the data tells a different story. Around half a million homes have been completed nationwide since Labor came to government. For the first time in decades, the Commonwealth is back at the centre of housing policy, building homes, not excuses. That is what happens when you have a government that treats housing as a national priority, not as an afterthought.

I want to remind the chamber that the Liberals voted against every single one of these measures—against one million homes, against the Housing Australia Future Fund, against build-to-rent and against help for first home buyers. Every time they've had a chance to help solve the housing crisis, they have chosen politics over people, and they continue to do so.

Fatima Payman (WA, Australia's Voice) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Bragg for bringing this motion before the Senate, which deals with a policy area in urgent need of reform. The Minister for Housing has said:

We're not trying to bring down house prices.

And she's doing a great job in that regard.

In the last 50 years, the price of housing relative to the average income has nearly quadrupled. Both sides of politics have failed to address the systemic issues driving our housing crisis. Instead of addressing the rorts that have turned housing from a place to live into an investment—for example, capital gains tax discounts and negative gearing—the government is adding fuel to the fire. As this motion mentions, the Home Guarantee Scheme encourages Australians to take out as large a mortgage as possible. This demand-side measure only pushes prices higher by increasing competition for a limited number of homes without boosting supply. It doesn't take a genius to figure that out.

Yesterday the Senate agreed to my motion ordering the government to table modelling on how this scheme will impact house prices. That data will show just how much this policy inflates house prices. While people are fighting over the few houses that are up for sale, supply continues to falter. This morning it was reported that, in my home state of Western Australia, housing approvals dropped 2.5 per cent in the three months to September. Senator Carol Brown just said that approvals have increased; nationally they've risen by 7.9 per cent, but the drop in WA shows that the government's policies are just not working for Western Australians.

The only path to housing affordability is bold structural reform, and if the government are serious they'll do that.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm going to repeat something that Senator Whiteaker said, 'Young Australians fear they will never be able to own their own home.' I didn't just memorise those words now; they're my words. I've been saying them over and over again in this chamber for two years, and I'm very happy to see the government have now adopted my lines, but we would like them to actually do something about this housing crisis.

Where are the houses? I'm going to say it again: where are the houses? Thank you very much for the five per cent deposit guarantee. Where are the houses that these young Australians are going to buy? Not only do they have to battle out there in this cost-of-living crisis with skyrocketing rents, skyrocketing groceries, skyrocketing electricity prices and everything else going through the roof. They now have to compete with the federal government, who are also buying those houses, because it's been very, very clear that they're not building them. No-one actually really knows.

At the recent Senate estimates, Housing Australia confirmed the HAFF had completed just 567 homes. This flagship $10 billion fund of taxpayers' money—not government money—has so far completed 567 homes. We don't know if that's renovated or whether that's modified. We're not quite sure because last year in Senate estimates, finance minister Katy Gallagher revealed that the HAFF had built no homes—zero homes, zip, zero, none whatsoever—and that they had acquired 340. That's 340 homes that Australian first home buyers couldn't buy because the Australian government bought them instead. This is shameful. I sat on a Senate inquiry on the rental and housing crisis. It is abundantly clear from that, and from everything that we have seen since, that supply is a problem, and that this government has been an impediment to that supply.

All we ever hear from the government is why the opposition, the Greens or the crossbench are a problem for them. I have a news flash: you are the government. It's not your first day. You're in your fourth year and you are still blaming those opposite for your inability to do your job. It is unbelievable. And you say that we are the ones that are constantly undermining what you are trying to do. I tell you that it's not just us. Things are so bad with the HAFF that the Auditor-General has confirmed that a performance audit into its design and delivery has commenced. Is that our fault too? Did we have something to do with that? Are we responsible for that as well, or will the Albanese Labor government put their hand up and actually take ownership of that problem?

I can't not mention the other issue here in our construction industry that is hampering the supply of housing in our country, which is the endemic problem of the corrupt and criminal conduct of the CFMEU. I want to be clear. I'm not talking about rank-and-file members who work hard and expect their leadership to deliver on the dues that they pay them. I'm talking about the people at the top of this organisation who are protected by the Albanese Labor government. We are seeking a Senate inquiry into the CFMEU and the impacts of the administration on stopping that corruption and criminal conduct, which has an impact on housing supply in this country, and yet they refuse. They're pretending that there's nothing to see here. If there is nothing to see here, then why won't you allow the Senate inquiry? It's because there is plenty to see here.

We know that there is a 30 per cent CFMEU tax on the construction of apartments in our country. That's 30 per cent more that young Australians will have to pay to purchase that new apartment, on top of the additional cost of the demand driven by this five per cent guarantee scheme, because this government is protecting the CFMEU. That is absolutely egregious. And they're blaming Senator Bragg for that. Well, he will keep bringing this up, and we will keep standing up to support him until we hold this government to proper account for the fact that they've been unable to build the houses that we— (Time expired)

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

The time for the discussion has expired.