As I indicated the last time I appeared on a Tuesday afternoon in relation to order for production of documents No. 27, the government has complied with that order. I've advised the Senate that the minister made a valid claim of public interest immunity over documents in the scope of the order. That claim was made because they directly related to the deliberations of cabinet. I am in the sober position of reporting to the Senate that that position has not altered in any way. It cannot alter because it would be inconsistent with the approach that this government, previous governments and governments in other Westminster jurisdictions around the world have taken.

Releasing documents that relate to the deliberations of cabinet is prohibited for all of the reasons that have been set out over the centuries in the approach of democratic Westminster governments. Senator Bragg knows that. The senators who voted for this regular appearance know that. Yet it persists because it's just about partisan politics. It's widely accepted that the deliberations of cabinet should be conducted in private to preserve the freedom of deliberation of those bodies.

I understand that the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation are opposed to the five per cent deposit scheme. I understand that position. You may be opposed to the fact that 270,000 Australians, mostly young Australians, have gotten into homeownership with the support of the Albanese government. I understand that position. I don't think it's a credible position. I don't think it's a position that mainstream Australians would support, but it's one of the many positions that the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation hold that are out of step with mainstream Australia.

I understand that the Liberals, the Nationals and One Nation are opposed to the government building social and affordable homes. Senator Bragg and his colleagues are opposed to the mechanism that the government is using to finance those positions.

We just want the modelling. We want the modelling. It's not a secret document.

Senator Bragg sings out that he wants the modelling. I just indicated the modelling, as you well know, drove the cabinet deliberations, and it will not be released, because it should not be released, no matter how many times I have to turn up here to endure these 30 minutes of dishonest propositions about housing.

You can argue the pros and cons of the five per cent deposit scheme with the 270,000 Australian families that now have a home. You can argue it with 50,000 key workers—teachers, nurses, childcare workers, carers, defence personnel, firefighters and police officers—who are now proud homeowners. You can pursue it in estimates hearings, in the media, in the chamber or however you like. We are going to continue with the job of supporting those Australians to find their way into homeownership. We're going to continue with the job of building houses in Australia.

Every renter in the country now has stronger renters' rights, 270,000 Australians now have five per cent deposits, home building is turning around despite pressures on the home-building sector, and our commitment to 55,000 social and affordable homes is gaining pace. There are over 7,000 completed, with over 22,000 in planning and construction. Our approach keeps building and building. Perhaps you ought to pick up a toolbox yourself and have a crack.

Are you finished, Minister?

I'm prevented from continuing.

I move:

That the Senate take note of the Minister's explanation.

And what an explanation it was! It doesn't matter what this minister says. He can huff and puff all he likes. He can say, 'Transparency is now apparently partisan politics.' That's right, Australia. The opposition came here on your behalf, asking for modelling in relation to changes that this government has made, and, apparently, our asking for transparency is 'partisan politics'. This is coming from a government that went to the 2022 election saying that, if they were elected, Australians—guess what?—would see transparency like no other.

Guess what? Sadly, Australians are seeing transparency like no other. In other words, they are not seeing any transparency coming out of this government. Produce the documents. How hard is it for this minister to produce documents? I have to say, for those of you who are only tuning in to this debate for the first time, you would think, based on that performance by the minister, that this was the first time that the Senate had actually voted to compel the minister to produce the documents that the Senate had asked for. Well, you'd be wrong, because—guess what?—the Senate actually made this order asking the minister to produce documents over 12 months ago, on 24 July 2025.

All we are asking for on behalf of the Australian people is the Treasury advice relating to Labor's $10 billion housing commitment and its decision to allow first home buyers to purchase with a five per cent deposit. Those first home buyers—the ones purchasing with a five per cent deposit—are also, sadly, the poor people in this country who, on a daily basis, we read, are going into negative equity.

But it doesn't stop there. The minister and this government failed to comply, so what did the Senate do—as we are entitled to? It's not about playing partisan politics. It is about the Senate doing what the Senate is required to do. We voted to compel the minister to come before the Senate and provide an explanation. Guess what? That was in November 2025. Do you know what the minister did? He did produce some documents, and there was almost no part of one document that was not redacted. For those of you who don't know what 'redacted' means, it means you produce a document and then you just cross it all out in black and say: 'There you go. We have complied with the resolution of the Senate.' Again, that is not compliant. What it is is a lack of transparency.

The Senate has since come together and passed further motions to compel this minister to produce the documents: November 2025, March 2026, April 2026, June 2026. Now, because of this government's failure to be transparent and to comply with the will of the Australian Senate, we are in this extraordinary situation where, every Tuesday, this minister has to front the Senate and explain why the Albanese government continues to defy the order of the Senate.

Apparently, though—according to Senator Ayres—it's the opposition who are the problem. This is what he said last week. He called this process—the process of the opposition, on behalf of the Australian people, requiring transparency from the government—'yet another abuse of the Senate's time and the Senate's processes'. Previously, in another explanation, he called it 'a wilful and puerile use of Senate processes'. That's right, Australia. The Albanese government's ministers seem to think that the opposition asking questions on your behalf, and asking them to produce modelling that is actually affecting you, is a 'wilful and puerile' use of Senate processes.

Senator Ayres has also accused senators of having 'no respect for the institution'. Senator Ayres, you probably want to look in the mirror. He told Senator Bragg last time, 'Sit down, son', and he dismissed those scrutinising the policy—I kid you not—as 'spivs'. That's the Albanese government minister responding to the right of opposition senators to demand transparency. Guess what, Australia? The next time we sit on a Tuesday, we'll be back here again and we'll hold this government to account.

I also rise to take note of Minister Ayres's response on behalf of the Minister for Housing. The minister has an order for the production of documents and comes here yet again this morning hiding behind public interest immunity, failing to come clean with the workings which underpin a significant part of Labor's policy—an inadequate policy, an inadequate response to our housing crisis. Last week, last time we were here, we were told it was 'wilful and puerile'. This morning, today, he says he's forced to listen to 'dishonest propositions about housing'.

This is the biggest crisis facing our country. Many thousands of Australians are living in cars or under bridges. They can't get into housing. A third of them rent properties which are unaffordable. They're in deep crisis and unable to pay for the groceries they need, and yet the minister comes here this morning and talks about 'dishonest propositions around housing'. Labor's five per cent deposit scheme deserves to have its full workings put before us so we can understand why and how it came about. We also need to better understand its implications into the future, because we are in a housing crisis like we've never seen before in living memory—no-one can deny it—and we know we need action.

We need action that goes beyond a five per cent deposit scheme that has driven prices up and increased the risk of high levels of debt for people very early in their working lives. We've seen renters across Australia, without the action that we need, hit with a 23 per cent rent increase over the past five years, while real wages under Labor have fallen by five per cent. Renters are being absolutely smashed by unlimited rent increases, and the weekly shop just keeps going up and up. The minister referred to the increased protections for renters that his government has delivered. He has not supported renters. His government has failed renters across our country.

I've talked to renters from Perth to Melbourne—across the nation. They are battling. They are battling levels of rent that place them in really significant crises in their households and in those families. Of those receiving working-age income support payments, 97 per cent renting privately are in housing stress by any definition. This is completely unacceptable. And the minister boasts about his government's achievements for renters. What a bizarre set of statements! More than half of those renters are paying over 50 per cent of their income in rent, significantly above the 30 per cent threshold for housing stress. In a wealthy country like ours, women and kids should not be sleeping in cars because of a failure of government to deliver a decent housing policy and to come clean to this Senate with the workings behind their housing policies.

Our so-called affordable housing system is anything but. 'Affordable housing' is a scam. It has definitions that benefit developers, and they are diverse definitions across our country. When so-called affordable housing is set at the market rate in a housing crisis where housing prices have increased by 400 per cent in the past three decades—that is not affordable by anyone's definition. Tying household affordability to market rates when they're out of control is ridiculous. It is wrong and it's disadvantaging millions of Australians. And, after the 25-year subsidy period ends for those so-called affordable housings, these so-called homes of affordability will transition back to market housing. Fake affordable housing built by private property developers is not going to solve the housing crisis. We need public housing.

Where are the propositions coming forward from Labor? They are not there. Instead, today we celebrate the five-year anniversary of the most massively poorly structured spend in AUKUS, which is going to cost billions of dollars, and we cannot fix a housing crisis for the millions of Australians seeking a roof over their heads. The government's primary funding vehicle for social and affordable housing, the HAFF, is failing. It's too slow. It's too small. It's too complicated. We need real solutions from Labor, and we need our state governments—Labor in Melbourne and in Sydney—to stop knocking down public housing and come forward to this Senate, to this parliament, with solutions that will actually deliver for those many families who are living in serious stress that is shaping the lives of so many kids into the future.

If you haven't got a roof over your head, it's really hard to hold down a job. It's really hard to get access to the health and education that you know you and your family need. We need to see a minister who comes to this chamber and tells us about their policies, shows us the workings and delivers on a policy that really assists those Australians in severe crisis. (Time expired)

I rise to take note of the minister's explanation. Let me start off by saying that we're no longer dealing with one housing crisis in this country. We're dealing with four, because Australians are struggling to buy; renters are now being smashed by higher rent; recent buyers are now carrying huge mortgages, and, in growing numbers, they're watching their equity disappear; and now the pipeline of new homes we desperately need is collapsing. Housing Industry Association data released just this morning shows new-home sales in Victoria have fallen 27 per cent. Across Australia, they fell 10 per cent in August and almost 20 per cent over winter, and the HIA says that means fewer homes will be started next year.

So, when the Senate asks for more information in regard to the Labor government's five per cent deposit scheme and continues to get back documents that are heavily redacted and insufficient, then we have every right—in fact, we have an obligation on behalf of the Australian people—to continue to insist that they comply. We need to understand what it is that is at the heart of these terrible failures from this government that is so dramatically hurting the Australian people in the housing market—hurting renters and driving up prices—because that is where the Labor government's housing policy has got us. We're at the point where Labor has managed to fail Australians at every point in the housing market. This is why the documents the Senate has ordered are so important.

Labor's answer to unaffordable housing has been to let first home buyers enter the market with a deposit as small as five per cent. It seems that that is not making houses cheaper. It's not leading to more houses being built. It's simply allowed a buyer to take on a larger mortgage with a much thinner equity buffer. That matters a lot more now than it did when Labor was selling the scheme, because interest rates are going up and they're going to continue to go up. I think we are staring down the barrel of a couple more interest rate rises this year. The pain and suffering that's going to inflict on a lot of people who Labor claim to be helping is, I think, hard to measure at this stage. So we need to see the modelling. We need to see the detail behind this scheme to make sure that, when these problems that do arise are hurtling towards us like a steam train, we know how to deal with them. But Labor continues to hide this information from the Senate.

More analysis, from Cotality this time, shows that around one-third of homes bought since August last year are now valued below their purchase price. Aussie Home Loans say that 20.7 per cent of Australians who bought since July 2023 now have less than 20 per cent equity in their home, and the average mortgage is around $646,000. These are not people sitting on enormous gains built up over decades. These are recent buyers, many of them exactly the sorts of people Labor said they were helping. Well, it doesn't look like you're helping. It looks like you are pushing them towards more pain, more suffering, higher mortgages, less money for the groceries and less money for their future. Some are finding it harder to refinance because they now simply don't have enough equity. They are in what is termed a 'mortgage prison'—that is where the term 'mortgage prison' comes from. If you go into a home with a five per cent deposit, you have very little room for prices to move against you. A modest fall can wipe out that buffer, but the debt is still there and the repayments are still there. What did Treasury tell government about that risk? I think the Senate has every right to know. Did it model falling prices? Did it model refinancing problems for highly leveraged buyers? Did it look at what happens when rising repayments and falling values hit at the same time? If that work was done, why does Labor still refuse to release it?

This scheme goes to the heart of the mistakes that Labor keeps making on housing. It keeps treating a housing shortage as though it's a finance problem. Australian doesn't have too few mortgages. Australia has too few homes and too many migrants, and today's figures show that problem is getting worse. Yet Labor spent years driving demand higher through record migration while failing to get enough homes built. It has pushed more people into the market without fixing the shortages underneath it. Then it tries to paper over the problem—and then, when we ask to see the information behind your decisions, you refuse to hand it over, and now we're seeing the results. People still trying to buy face huge prices, renters are still paying enormous rents, recent buyers are now trapped with large debts and shrinking equity, and the supply pipeline is weakening—four crises all at the same time, and Labor needs to own every one of them.

There are other ways to deal with this. One Nation's approach is to deal with the cause: get migration back to sustainable levels, take pressure off demand and work on getting the cost of building down. But ultimately this government should release the documents and explain exactly what advice it received before encouraging more first home buyers to take on this risk.

In taking note of this ridiculous explanation, if you could call it that, I again remind the Senate that the government has actually produced extensive amounts of modelling; it's just that it's been redacted. The Treasury was commissioned by this government as an afterthought—after it announced its radical restructuring of the five per cent deposit scheme, where it abolished the place caps and abolished means testing—to do this modelling, and that basic modelling should be made available to the Australian public for their inspection. It is not a secret cabinet document; it is the modelling which may underpin a cabinet judgement, but it is the modelling which proves that the government knew that there were risks in unbundling this scheme from its means testing and its place caps. For the minister to come in here week in, week out and say, 'We're not going to give you the modelling; we're going to trample over the powers of the Senate,' shows their disdain for democracy and it shows their disdain for the process and operation of this parliament. It is not true to claim that modelling which underpins a cabinet judgement is a cabinet document. It is not true and the minister needs to go back to school and learn a few things.

We are fortunate to live in a country where we can also try and get the information through the FOI process, as established by the Fraser government. The Information Commissioner is currently reviewing this case, and I'm sure when it gets to it—because it's backlogged with all the other cases—it will find that this document should be produced for public inspection. So we won't give up on that, because, if we gave up on the task of trying to get information which is germane to policy judgements, when they go wrong, as they have here, we would be giving up on our jobs as representatives, and we shouldn't waste taxpayer funds to come to this Bush Capital to do that work.

The problem here is that the government is afraid that they will be embarrassed, but they won't be embarrassed, because they will be seen as doing the right thing by the Australian people by being transparent. They campaigned on the promise that they would be transparent, but the Centre for Public Integrity says they are the most secretive government since the Keating government, as judged by their record on responding to Senate orders and by their record on responding to freedom of information requests. I say to the government again that you are adults and that you are responsible people. You've been elected by the Australian people. Do the right thing and provide the information that has been ordered, not by the Liberal Party and not by the National Party but by this crossbench and the opposition. That is a reasonable cross-section of this parliament, which you should pay respect to, not because of who we are but because of who we represent in the Australian society.

The five per cent deposit scheme has been a massive failure, because we know that the modelling that was done, even though it's been covered up, couldn't have been right, because the Prime Minister's claim that it would push up prices by 0.6 per cent over six years was thrown out in the first six months of the scheme's operation, where we saw a 6 per cent increase in entry level house prices. So we know it's wrong, but, of course, this government has got everything wrong in housing. Their Housing Australia Future Fund has had three years, has had 10 billion bucks and has built about 1,000 houses, half of which it has bought, not built. Who could believe the government's housing scheme would buy as many houses as it's actually built itself?

Then we have these taxes, which have made a bad situation much worse. We have a new system of taxation where we have higher rents, fewer first home buyers and fewer houses. For a government which has collapsed housing supply by 30,000 houses each year compared to the last government, should we be surprised that they have a budget which designs deliberately to suppress supply by another 35,000? The answer is no. This government has a deliberate policy to reduce housing supply. Because of that, we now see fewer houses, we see higher rents, and we see fewer home loans. Last week we heard in the Senate committee that the National Australia Bank has seen a 15 per cent reduction in home loans going to owner-occupiers. You have to ask yourself: who wins from these new taxes? It's not renters, it's not homeowners, and it's not investors. It's no-one. No-one wins from high taxes, just like very few people win from the five per cent deposit scheme, which has pushed up prices for people who can least afford it. And you can bet London to a brick that no-one has won from this housing future fund, which has spent 10 billion bucks to build only 1,000 houses over two years. We will never give up on trying to get to the bottom of these things, because you are wasting taxpayer funds, you are wasting public resources, and the Australian people won't stand for it.

Question agreed to.