Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Senate will now consider the proposal, under standing order 75, from Senator Roberts, which has been circulated and is shown on the Dynamic Red:

Dear President

Pursuant to standing order 75, I give notice that today I propose to move "That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with mass-migration adding to the 4.7 million non-citizens in the country, tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords like Blackrock under 'Build to Rent', foreigners continuing to buy Australian homes and red tape stopping tradies from building more."

Yours Sincerely

Senator Malcolm Roberts Senator for the State of Queensland

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

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

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

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with mass-migration adding to the 4.7 million non-citizens in the country, tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords like Blackrock under 'Build to Rent', foreigners continuing to buy Australian homes and red tape stopping tradies from building more.

The government has offered young Australians starting out in life two equally terrible options: either become a debt slave to the banks forever or rent from a foreign corporate landlord like BlackRock and never actually own a home. Successive Liberal-National and Labor-Greens governments—uniparty governments, that is—have failed to address the root cause of the housing crisis: mass immigration. Why would they do that? The answer is simple: necessity. After years of selling Australia out to their foreign masters, such as BlackRock Inc, Australia's domestic economy was performing so badly that immigration became the government's lifeline.

Australia has had negative per capita income for five successive quarters. What that means is that everyday Australians are going backwards. Their small pay rises do not compensate for inflation.

The reason the Australian economy as a whole is not in recession is the spending from new arrivals, as they furnish their homes and buy clothes, appliances and so on. This feeds on the GDP. But, per capita, we're in recession. It's economic sherbet. Once the sugar hit wears off, these new arrivals wind up in the same cost-of-living recession as Australians.

Instead of developing infrastructure, reducing red tape, reducing green tape, reducing blue UN tape and getting private employment going again, the government takes the easy way out: more migrants, and more, and more. Decades of mass immigration have led us to this place we are in today, where we have 4.7 million visa holders in the country who are not citizens of Australia. We now have absolute confirmation that neither Labor nor the Greens, the Liberals or the Nationals are capable of solving, nor can they be trusted to solve, the real cause of the housing crisis: mass immigration.

And it's a crisis. The latest CPI data shows that housing has now risen 5.9 per cent in the last year—an accelerating rate of increase. And electricity, by the way, went up 37 per cent, as those election bribes Labor gave you—sorry, electricity 'subsidies'—started to expire. According to CoreLogic, it now takes someone on the average wage 12 years to save for a home deposit on the outskirts of Sydney and 30 years to save for the deposit on a home close to the city—30 years, for a deposit! Servicing a home loan now costs 42 per cent of income. The point at which a mortgage is considered to be impaired used to be 30 per cent. That's insane! It's a tragedy for young Australians.

The blame for this rests squarely with the Liberal-National and Labor-Greens parties. You have taken the option of homeownership away from young people with your insane mass immigration and your net zero agendas. You, and you, have allowed foreign multinational corporations and superannuation funds to bid up the price of Australian homes, and you've stood idly by while young people have walked away from auctions in tears. Instead, you make cringeworthy TikTok videos. You make promises that are not and cannot be kept, because you run and hide from the real reasons for the crisis: the Ponzi scheme that mass immigration has become. You run and hide.

Here's what One Nation wanted this parliament to vote on today:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with mass-migration adding to the 4.7 million non-citizens in the country, tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords like Blackrock under 'Build to Rent', foreigners continuing to buy Australian homes and red tape stopping tradies from building more.

Yet the other parties want to remove the facts, the data, from One Nation's motion. No-one wants to talk about the fact that there are 4.7 million visa holders—people who are not Australian citizens—in the country right now, all needing homes. No-one wants to talk about the tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords BlackRock Inc. No-one wants to talk about foreign ownership of Australian homes—no-one, except One Nation.

There is a reason why One Nation is the most trusted party in the country on the issue of migration—that's what the polls are saying quite clearly. The reason is simple: we care; they don't. One Nation will govern for everyday Australians. It's time for a One Nation government now.

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The coalition is the party of homeownership. We want to see every single Australian—especially younger Australians—realise their dream of owning their own home. Labor has created the worst housing affordability crisis in decades, driven by an historic collapse in homebuilding and by record migration for which the government has completely failed to plan. It is Labor's failure to manage and plan for migration, and Labor's failure to deliver meaningful housing reforms—and that is what is impacting on housing availability today. When we're talking about a housing crisis in this country, we must focus on why we are here in this situation, and the real reason is clear: it is the mismanagement of the Albanese Labor government, it is Labor's uncontrolled migration policies that are reducing the availability of homes in this country, and it's the Prime Minister's red and green tape policies that are strangling new construction, driving the great Australian dream out of reach. This is urgent because it means many young Australians have lost hope of owning a home of their own.

Migration has always been central to our story. We are a migrant nation built on generations who chose this country and made it their home. But migration must be managed responsibly, with stable settings and long-term planning to ensure housing, jobs, services and infrastructure keep pace. While migration has ballooned, this government has overseen a historic housing construction collapse. Communities are feeling the strain, and the cost of poor planning is being carried by every single Australian, leaving many disappointed at the Prime Minister's lack of leadership. Locking in uncontrolled migration without addressing housing and infrastructure pressures is reckless, and, quite frankly, Australians deserve better.

However, we will seek to amend this motion so that the blame for Australia's housing affordability crisis is entirely sheeted home to the government. The failures of housing policy are not the fault of our migrant communities; they are the fault of the Albanese Labor government. That is why I am seeking leave to move an amendment circulated in my name that changes this motion to read:

"The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese Government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with Labor's uncontrolled migration policies reducing the availability of homes and Albanese's red and green tape policies strangling new construction and driving the great Australian dream out of reach."

This amendment reflects the urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese government's immigration and housing policies. I seek leave to move the amendment.

Leave granted.

I move the amendment standing in my name:

Omit all words after "the following is a matter of urgency", substitute:

"The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese Government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with Labor's uncontrolled migration policies reducing the availability of homes and Albanese's red and green tape policies strangling new construction and driving the great Australian dream out of reach."

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

Here we go again. We have the same right-wing politicians reaching for the same old political stunts. Once again, they're trying to use migrants as a political punching bag, the oldest and saddest trick in the book. It's not new, it's not original and history has shown over and over again that it is wrong. It is dead wrong. When those opposite in the coalition join forces with One Nation on their policy offerings, we know that they have nothing new to offer the Australian people. They are all out of ideas and desperately searching for relevancy. They're looking for someone to blame for their current situation, and, all too often, that someone to blame is a hardworking migrant family in this country. It is a tale as old as time, and we all know the truth.

The simple fact is that a dog whistle is just lazy politics. It's nothing more than a policy shortcut for One Nation and the coalition, who are not interested in doing the real work of governing in this country. If you cannot solve Australia's big challenges off the back of a bumper sticker, they're not interested. If you can't fix an issue by playing dress-up, they don't want it. If it takes showing up in this place day after day and doing the real policy work, they ain't interested.

We know that it takes real policy work, record investment and having all levels of government working together to solve the great challenges of our time. That is how we build the homes that Australians need after a decade of inaction under the coalition. That is how we are going to deliver ongoing cost-of-living relief. That is how we're going to build the infrastructure our communities need now and into the future. You're not going to get that on a bumper sticker. It takes hard work.

Senator Roberts knows this. He himself is a proud migrant to this country. He knows that migrants aren't the problem, and he knows the facts support this. Net overseas migration has declined by more than 40 per cent from 2022-23. Those opposite left migration teeming with rorts. We all remember the Liberal Party fundraisers during the last election. Peter Dutton was beside conversations, offering up golden tickets to wealthy investors. That's their record in migration—a record of rorts. Our government has restored integrity to the system while ensuring that there is a sustainable level that delivers the skills that we need.

New housing approvals are up by 15 per cent from this time last year. More new homes are being built right around Australia. Senator Roberts knows this, but he chooses to come into this place and move motions like this, aided and abetted by the coalition, in a race to the bottom. We have seen the coalition try and climb their way out of some pretty disastrous polling lately. We have seen them try and tear down the new Australians. That's not leadership; that is weakness.

I will come to an Essential poll that was released in the last couple of days. It asks who the best person to lead the Liberal Party in this country would be, and 14 per cent of people said opposition leader Sussan Ley.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bragg, do you have a point of order?

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

I do. I fail to see how polling has anything to do with the motion at hand.

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think Senator Mulholland is definitely within the bounds of this motion, but I will remind Senator Mulholland to stick to the content.

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

Thank you, Acting Deputy President. I was interested that, in that poll, a whopping 45 per cent of people said they were unsure who should lead the Liberal Party, and a further 10 per cent said they just didn't know. It's not a real ringing endorsement, is it? But, rather than turning inward and doing the work in this place, they are seeking to move motions with One Nation. We've got the Acting Leader of the Opposition in the Senate speaking on this One Nation motion, we've got the shadow minister for housing speaking on this motion—

Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Don't mislead the parliament!

Karen Grogan (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And don't interject. It is unparliamentary.

Thank you, Senator Bragg. We will allow Senator Mulholland to complete her contribution in silence.

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

If Australians want an idea of what the modern Liberal Party in this country is looking like, look no further. They're coming in here, aiding and abetting One Nation on migration policies. But this motion, whether it be the amended motion or the original motion from One Nation, is not going to build a single home. While One Nation moves motions like this with the coalition, it's not going to help build a single home.

This government is getting on with the job. On the weekend, we announced the third round of HAFF funding to deliver more than 21,000 new social and affordable homes around Australia. Labor are building more homes, we are making it easier to rent and we are making it easier to get into your own home.

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

I will take the opportunity to clarify what was said before by Senator Ruston, and that is that we will not be supporting One Nation's motion in relation to this matter; we will be moving amendments, so I encourage senators to listen carefully, if they can. The main point I want to make, for the record, is that, for those who wish to link the housing issue with migration, it is a very one-dimensional approach, and it is not the main driver of the housing problem. It is not a reasonable argument to be blaming migrants for what is a homegrown problem here in Australia. Not only is it wrong based on the numbers but, I think, it's also morally wrong, and it is not providing the sort of leadership that Australians are looking for. Australians are very decent people, and most of us are migrants of some form in recent decades. We all, in the main, know that migrants have not created this housing crisis. They know that. It is the case that if you have high levels of migration and a collapse in housing supply, that that can be a factor. It is also the case that very high migration settings, as we've seen in the past few years, have been a contributing factor to the housing issue. But the housing issue is one of supply.

The only way out of the housing issue is to build more houses. There is no other formulation that we can conjure that is going to solve our massive problem. Unfortunately, for Australia, this government is in the process of spending $60 billion to give the country fewer houses than we had under the prior government.

The government inherited a housing system which was supplying 200,000 houses a year on average. Now we're back to 170,000 houses a year on average. Despite all the bureaucracy and bluster, we are sadly receiving fewer homes. That is the scoreboard. That is how many houses are being built. It looks like it will be about 175,000 houses again this year. They're not very good numbers.

More broadly, the government's main flagship housing fund has had $10 billion and two years. It has built a handful of houses and purchased some. So the supply record, unfortunately, is not too flash. What I would say, as another linkage point, is that if you are running a large migration program, you'll be looking to bring in people who can help you build houses. The government has not done that. I think the government brought in 4,000 tradies on visas last year. There is an 80,000 shortfall in tradies needed to build houses. So what we should be looking to do is to bring in people who can help us build out of this mess that we're in, rather than demonise the people who want to make Australia their home. I think that is a more constructive approach.

There are a lot of different ways we can couch these issues, a lot of different ways to talk about them. My advice is that we should try and be constructive and be honest about the position we find ourselves in. If we were to cut migration to nothing tomorrow, we would still have a massive housing crisis. That is the reality that we face in Australia. Whatever our political desires may be, I think every Australian wants the government to get better at building houses and get better at helping the private sector get the supply moving—whether it's a private sector housing system, a public housing system or a social and affordable housing system. That's the key to understand.

I think there was a very good point made in the motion in relation to the perverse idea that we're going to get BlackRock and other foreign fund managers to build houses. I don't understand that at all. I don't understand why the government has thought it necessary to give foreign fund managers a tax cut to become corporate landlords. We don't want to be like Atlanta or other parts of the US; we don't want that. I think they will be better off doing their budget and finding something more constructive there, because that is not the way we want to be in Australia. We want to be a property-owning democracy. I think that's going to be the best way to go forward.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's not usual that I find something in the speech from Senator Bragg on housing that I like and agree with, but I absolutely endorse his comment that it is completely wrong to blame migrants for anything that we're seeing in this sector. This motion before us is just a continuation of the themes we have seen in this chamber this week. The shameful behaviour on display in this chamber earlier this week was prejudiced, offensive, deeply disrespectful and un-Australian. I believe it was a shameful abuse of the power and responsibility we have in this place to all of the Australians that we represent. I am very proud that our nation has been, and will continue to be, built by migrants from every race and every faith from across the globe. And I feel absolutely devastated that—because of the actions of one senator, supported by others—vulnerable members of my community have now been made to feel less valued and less safe. This institution that we all serve in has so much power to do good. How shameful that one senator would use that power to punch down, to hurt and to deliberately target Australians of faith.

While I am loath to buy into the absolute nonsense peddled by One Nation senators on migration, which are again reflected in the motion before us, it is important to put some facts on the table. Migrants are not to blame for any of the elements of the housing crisis we have before us. Another fact—it's not convenient to One Nation senators, but it is a fact—net overseas migration has declined more than 40 per cent from the post-COVID peak in 2022 and 2023. It is a fact that, under Labor, immigration is falling. It doesn't suit you politically to accept that, but it is a fact. Another fact is that housing approvals are increasing for new houses. That is a fact. They are up 15 per cent on this time last year. Facts matter in every debate in this place, and One Nation senators continually abuse the facts and use the facts to punch down on the very people who built Australia into the nation and into the country that it is.

It's also important in this debate to talk about the realities of what is happening in our housing policy space and the enormous amount of investment and work our government is doing, because, when it comes to housing, I know there are few issues of more importance to people in my community, but especially to young people, young Australians, in my community who are looking at this generational deal and feeling left out of it. They are looking at what their parents were able to do when it came to housing, they are looking at what their grandparents were able to do, they are looking at what they thought housing meant to their Australian dream—the way they want to raise a family, what they can achieve in life—and feeling cut out of this deal. They are feeling like, intergenerationally, they have been completely ripped off.

The tearing up of that deal and that social contract hasn't happened over the past four years of the Albanese Labor government; it has been generations in the making. There are many actors and stakeholders at fault for that, but migrants are not one of them. But you choose to instead come in here, to continue the themes of this week, which this chamber utterly rejected and condemned, themes which do not reflect this institution, the people who serve in it and everything we seek to uphold as an institution that can do an extraordinary amount of good.

This motion is rubbish! It's not worth the paper it's written on because it seeks to continue ideas which are also rubbish. Ideas which are offensive, ideas which are dangerous, ideas which are harmful and ideas which actually shouldn't be on display in an institution that is meant to represent all Australians and all Australian values. So obviously I reject this motion. I would remind One Nation senators of the value, relevance and significance of fact in any policy debate, but certainly in debates in this place, where our words carry a lot of meaning. I would also remind you of the importance of civility and that it is absolutely not okay to punch down, to endanger and to make the migrants of every faith and every nation who have built our country feel less safe and feel more vulnerable. We reject that. I reject that, just as I reject this absolutely rubbish motion.

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

I rise to support Senator Roberts' matter of urgency, because the Albanese Labor government has utterly betrayed the next generation of Australians. For the record, we don't blame migrants. We don't blame migrants. I think there is a comprehension problem in here. We blame the people in here. This is the problem, not the migrants. We are not blaming migrants.

The Albanese Labor government has betrayed the young families who dream of stability, the students who hope one day to put down roots, and the hardworking Australians, and migrants, who want nothing more radical than a chance to buy a modest home in the country they love. Young people now stare down the barrel of million-dollar house prices, mortgage repayments that swallow half their wage and a future where home ownership has become a distant and almost abstract dream—something spoken about, but rarely achieved. What used to be the great Australian dream has become a luxury available only to the wealthy, the lucky or a foreign investor.

In Perth the situation has become downright desperate. Rents are up more than 50 per cent in just five years. House prices have risen by 8.8 per cent, year to date. Vacancy rates scrape along at 0.7 per cent. At a single rental inspection, 92 desperate locals turned up—families, pensioners, students, young workers, migrants. People who once would have had reasonable options are now competing like it's the hunger games.

This is not normal or health, and it's clearly not inevitable, yet Labor pours petrol on the fire, with record mass immigration. We now have 4.7 million noncitizens competing for the same limited pool of homes, the same rental listings and the same public services. While Australians struggle, Labor hands out massive tax breaks to foreign corporate giants like BlackRock through the so-called build-to-rent scheme, an arrangement that sounds helpful but in practice delivers a stable stream of profits to offshore landlords while leaving ordinary Australians further behind.

Worse still, Labor's reckless five per cent deposit scheme encourages young buyers to borrow 95 per cent of an already inflated price. Does that sound familiar? This saddles them with monstrous mortgages, six to eight times their income—double or more what their parents ever faced. It is not help; it is a debt sentence. It locks young workers into decades of financial servitude simply for wanting a roof over their head. Meanwhile, foreign buyers continue snapping up our homes with near impunity. Red tape strangles our tradies and builders, and supply cannot possibly keep up. This is market sabotage, and Australians are paying the price. In Western Australia, where I come from, families scramble for shelter in a market with just 0.7 per cent vacancy. Rents have exploded, more than 50 per cent in five years, adding thousands to the bills that working families can barely afford.

Today, right on cue, the Australian Bureau of Statistics released the complete monthly CPI for October 2025. Annual inflation has climbed to 3.8 per cent, up from 3.6 per cent in September and higher than the market expected. Any lingering hope of early interest rate relief has just been crushed. The single biggest driver is housing, up a staggering 5.9 per cent this year. This is a direct and predictable result of Labor's demand-side madness. This is year 6 maths—supply and demand.

How can this government claim to care about cost-of-living pressures when its own policies are the biggest contributor to the inflation spike now hitting every Australian household? They create the problem and then feign sympathy for those suffering under it. Labor's arrogance knows no bounds. They prioritise global agendas and corporate mates over the aspirations of ordinary Australians. A two-year ban on some foreign home purchases is a bandaid on a gaping wound. Red tape burdens our tradies under mountains of compliance, halting construction and worsening the very shortages Labor pretends don't exist. We need homes built, not more paperwork.

Mass immigration at this pace is not sustainable. It outpaces our ability to house, educate and employ people. The people coming here—the immigrants—also need somewhere to live. I'm not sure how people in this place don't understand that. It's supply and demand.

Question negatived.

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

The question is that the motion moved by Senator Roberts be agreed to.