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

My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, Senator Ayres. We are in a historic housing crisis, and Labor's housing policies are a spectacular failure in the face of the scale of this historic crisis. The five per cent deposit scheme is just one example of that failure. This scheme was sold to the Australian public as a policy to help first home buyers on low incomes, and instead this policy turbocharged prices of houses at the affordable end of the housing market and encouraged more first home buyer debt. We've now learned that nearly 1,500 homes under this scheme have been flipped into investments. Minister, in the midst of a housing crisis on a historical scale we have not seen before in this country, how can you let property investors milk your faulty five per cent deposit scheme?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it is hard to hear that question and really think that there is a measured approach on these housing questions coming from the Greens political party. Under this government, the number of Australians, mostly young Australians, who have taken advantage of that scheme is at 270,000. That is more than a quarter of a million Australians who now have a home because of that scheme, and the kind of hyperbolic rhetoric president that the senator asking the question engaged in just doesn't accept that fact that over a quarter of a million Australians, through just that component of our approach to housing—

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock?

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

Minister Ayres has not addressed the issue of investment properties being purchased through this faulty scheme.

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, I'm not quite sure why you stood or if it's a point of order, which is what you need to inform me when you stand. I am listening carefully. If the minister strays from the question, I will draw him back, but he is being relevant.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

The senator says that, out of the more than a quarter of a million Australians who have access to homes through this scheme, 1,500 or so have sold them. Well, people do sell homes sometimes as well as buy them. It's hard to buy homes if people aren't selling homes. Honestly:

Two years ago, Nicole Pengilly's hope of buying a home in Brisbane receded with every inspection she attended.

"You could see the house prices going up as I was looking," she said. "The amount I could borrow hadn't changed, so it just felt like it was slipping away."

She said, because of this scheme:

I'm just so excited to get into a place that I own, and I can just settle and stay and not have that fear looming over me …

Look her in the eyes and use that same hyperbolic political nonsense— (Time expired)

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, first supplementary?

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

Minister, Productivity Commission Chair Danielle Wood recently said that the net social housing stock across our country grew by just 56 houses last year—just 56. Unbelievable! In the third year of the HAFF, people are suffering, and your response is a string of photo opportunities. Can you explain the maths to me on this? How do you solve a housing crisis if social housing grew by only 56 houses last year?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

Since this government was elected, more than 660,000 homes have been constructed in Australia. More than 7,000 homes have been completed with Commonwealth investment, and around 23,000—

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

No matter how much Senator McKim bellows—and not a single house was built by Senator Bragg down at the National Press Club a little while ago. There has been not a single house, not a single brick laid, not a single pipe put into a slab and not a single slab laid out of all of this political nonsense. This government has a $47 billion program over the years to come, and every day more homes are built, more social and affordable homes are built, and more people get the opportunity to get in a home. We're unapologetic about delivering for young Australians in particular who want to get a home for the first time in their lives.

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, second supplementary?

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

There are 640,000 Australians living in extreme housing stress. So far, halfway through, the HAFF has built 1,432 homes. It's failed to deliver the number of homes Australians desperately need right now. Even if Labor were able to deliver on the 40,000 promised, it would house just six per cent of those 640,000. Minister, how can you pat yourself on the back when those thousands of people, hundreds of thousands of people, are in desperate need of housing security?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

You won't see any patting ourselves on the back coming from us. You won't see a 'we did it' post coming from us. Let me let me just point to one example reported in the Australian Financial Review, and it's a pity Senator McKenzie's not here because it's in the suburb of Elwood in the electorate of Macnamara—oh, there you are!

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Ayres, I remind you it is not appropriate to refer to whether senators are in the chamber.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

It was only that this is in her suburb. Melbourne's Jessye Young, a 32-year-old operations manager bought a two-bedroom unit in Elwood in inner city Melbourne. She said:

I went through a break-up, I was living by myself in a rental and I was at a point where I got a promotion at work and I thought, 'OK, it's time to be serious about my future—

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

A point of order, President. An anecdote does not address the structural crisis that my question asks the minister to respond to.

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Pocock, I'll remind you again that it's not appropriate to make statements. You called the point of order. The minister is being relevant. I will continue to listen closely, and, if not, I will draw him to your question.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) | Link to this | Hansard source

She said:

OK, it's time to be serious about my future, and I'm not going to let being single stop me from doing that.

…   …   …

Young credits the federal government's expanded first home buyer scheme … as allowing her to buy, as she could use a 6 per cent deposit without having to pay lenders mortgage insurance.

They are real people, real Australians. There are more than a quarter of a million of them, and you should look them in the face while you're running that— (Time expired)