Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to speak about the First Home Saver Accounts (Further Provisions) Amendment Bill 2008 and the First Home Saver Account Providers Supervisory Levy Imposition Bill 2008. I want to speak about issues specific to the Riverina because at the present time it is having some difficulties with the higher costs of housing and rentals and the critical shortage of opportunities for housing.

It is getting tougher to cope not only with the rising costs of buying a home but also with the costs of renting a home. According to the Country Week New South Wales Rental Affordability Survey 2008, the average cost to rent a two-bedroom unit in the major regional centre in Riverina—Wagga Wagga—is $220 a week, which is significantly higher than Albury, a similar sized city on the New South Wales-Victoria border, where the average is $140 a week. High prices prove to be a huge challenge for people who are looking for somewhere to live, particularly when the rental market has so few rental properties and prices are so high. The higher rental prices mean that it is becoming increasingly difficult for future homeowners to have any money left over to put towards a savings plan for a new home. They are paying higher rental prices, which means that their actual savings are less. It is becoming increasingly difficult for them to put that money away into a home saver account. There is the ever-increasing cost of fruit and vegetables, groceries, petrol, electricity and gas. All of these things are adding together to put a question mark over whether or not this program will have any advantages and whether people will be able to partake in the process.

If you go back and look at our first home buyers grant, you will see that the difference is quite extraordinary. From its inception, our first home owner grant scheme in New South Wales has been a vital help for those who are purchasing their first homes. In my electorate there has been a significant take-up of the grants, and I will give the House some figures from the New South Wales Office of State Revenue, which distributes the grants. In Wagga Wagga, the largest regional centre in the electorate of Riverina, between 1 July 2000 and 30 June 2008 the first home owners grants totalled 3,505, at a value of $25.5 million. During that same period, 3,738 homeowners were able to take advantage of First Home Plus—which provides exemptions or concessions on transfer duties et cetera that are associated with the purchase of a first home or residential land. That has brought the total first home benefits, in Wagga Wagga alone, between July 2000 to June 2008 to $40.9 million. So almost $41 million has been provided to first home owners in just one regional centre in my electorate. That is in postcode area 2650, which is a centre of 60,000 people. That is a pretty extraordinary take-up of the first home owners grant that was put in place by the former government.

Wagga Wagga was ranked ninth in the top 20 postcodes in New South Wales for claiming the grants. In fact, it is the only regional centre on the list. It goes to show just what significant issues finding rental accommodation and the cost of rental accommodation are—that people were able to put themselves in a position to take advantage of the first home owners grant. They were also able to take advantage of First Home Plus, and that got them a very good start in their own homes. They are actually paying money into equity in their own bricks and mortar rather than paying extraordinarily high rents to somebody else’s retirement and savings plan. They have been able to utilise those schemes to get themselves into their own homes. I think that having the previous first home owner grants gave our first home owners confidence and extra assistance to realise the dream of owning their own homes.

In New South Wales, for the year ending 30 June 2007, there were 48,281 first home owner grant scheme payments issued, totalling $337.9 million. It is very interesting to compare this with the take-up of first home owner grants that we have seen in the past and note the difference. It is very interesting to note the lack of interest from financial institutions in this new plan, because it was real estate agents and financial institutions who were encouraging, assisting and being very involved in the first home owner grants. But you do not see that interest happening in the financial institutions. I read an article just last week in the Courier-Mail, which stated:

Of almost 200 banks, credit unions and building societies in Australia, just 14 obscure outlets mostly close to teachers—

so you would have a teachers credit union—

police—

or you might have a police credit union—

and those in the Cypriot community have expressed any interest with the banking regulator regarding the accounts.

I think it is very interesting that people are thinking ‘This is simply not going to work’, because—let me tell you—if financial institutions thought it was going to work they would be in there immediately. It is quite strange, because you think of the process of home buying happening in a financial institution and yet we do not see any of these banks, the major banks particularly, coming in here and deciding that they want to be part of this program. Life insurers and super funds can also offer the first home saver accounts, and so far the Labour Union Co-Operative Retirement Fund is the first to show any real interest in this. It begs the question: is this an ill-thought-out plan—policy on the run? You might just trash a policy for the sake of trashing it and replace it for the sake of replacing it, but has the replacement got the value of the trashed policy? Probably not, I would suggest. I am sure that member after member in this debate will say, ‘You have got foreclosures on houses and people who should never have gone into houses,’ et cetera, but you have got an enormous number of people who do have homes and who are keeping up their payments, and they have been given a tremendous start in being able to own their own home and appreciate not having to pay out good cash to somebody else’s retirement fund.

I noticed that my colleague the shadow minister for housing, Susan Ley, was standing at the dispatch box earlier. Just recently Susan came into Wagga Wagga to meet with various groups in the city to discuss housing issues. There were fabulous ideas put around the table. I brought in people from the housing industry, from public housing and others, and it was very interesting on all levels. One particularly interesting thing was when we visited the Wagga Wagga women’s refuge. They were the ones who were saying that the crisis in housing is so bad that far more people were finding their way to the refuge in order to seek accommodation for longer periods of time. They were very concerned at the shortage of public housing.

The Minister for Housing, the Hon. Tanya Plibersek, has many times raised in this House the continuing issue of the housing crisis and the problems associated with housing. I sent a copy of a newspaper article to the minister one day, because I was infuriated by it. I had been in here listening to the minister doing her job, advising us of the plight of homeless people and the housing shortage, and the very next day there was an article on the front page of my local Daily Advertiser about a disabled couple who lived in public housing. The New South Wales government was selling the home they had been in for 20-odd years. These people were told: ‘Out you go. We’re going to sell his house.’ But where were they going to go? Where were they going to put them? The couple were basically saying, ‘Where are we going to go?’ I was very concerned. I grabbed the article and sent it off to the minister. I said to her: ‘You’re talking about the plight of the homeless. I’m listening to what you’re saying. I’m very concerned, compassionate and caring about this issue, because many people are experiencing it.’

But the problem lies with the states as well. With all the dollars that have been given to the states for public housing, you would think there would be more public houses available. But instead we have fewer houses on the books. The increase in funding that the former government gave to the states to increase public housing availability, build new public housing and replace public housing has been negated by the fact that the public houses are sold off—in this particular case, by the New South Wales government. I think that is a travesty, a social injustice. I do not understand how you can be getting more money to put toward public housing but have fewer houses on the books than when you started. The continuing mismanagement is an indictment of the New South Wales Labor government.

It was interesting to hear from Housing NSW about the plight of these people. As I said, finance and mortgage brokers and real estate representatives met with the shadow minister during her visit. They outlined some really significant critical issues, including homelessness and the fact that affordable rental was simply not available in many of the areas across my region, let alone Australia. According to the Australian Bureau of Statistics 2006 census of population and housing figures, 29.6 per cent of occupied private dwellings in Wagga Wagga were fully owned, 33.4 per cent were being purchased and 32.2 per cent were rented. There were 3,277 private dwellings rented through a real estate agent, 1,625 rented from another landlord type—an owner, the person who collects the rent, or community housing—and 1,287 rented from the state housing authority, Housing NSW.

Recent reports in the Daily Advertiser about the public housing rental crisis have really concerned me. Housing NSW residents in Wagga say that the rent increases they are enduring are absolutely unreasonable and the ongoing maintenance problems are of extraordinary concern. The reports stated that the rent on a Wagga Wagga resident’s one-bedroom unit in Edward Street had increased by 45 per cent, and another resident had received notice that her rent will rise to $205, up from $155. This is the third increase this particular resident has had in four years. Her kitchen needs fixing and her windows, doors and many other things need repairs and maintenance. I am concerned that the amendments in the First Home Saver Accounts (Further Provisions) Amendment Bill 2008 will not go far enough to alleviate the housing shortage and the strain on young people trying to afford their first home.

In speaking on this bill today, I want to raise issues that are of concern to many of the people that I represent—and I am sure that many other members have very similar circumstances. I want to question the reality of the program. I want to question whether the rules, guidelines and criteria need to be looked at in order to make it function properly. Where in fact are we are up to with respect to public housing? The last government was looking at a competitive tender process for the delivery of public housing directly through the Commonwealth rather than through the state process. In the state process, most of the money is chewed up in mismanagement and maladministration—particularly, as I said, in New South Wales. I urge the government to consider how they can be sensibly involved with the private sector in the construction of affordable public housing for low-income earners. The government should ensure that the private sector constructs this purpose-built public housing in a timely and responsible way. This will enable many smaller communities to remain sustainable by offering rental options in the public-housing arena.

There are certainly difficulties in my electorate of Riverina with regard to the public housing numbers. But rather than just trashing the first home owners grant and replacing it with the first home savers grant—which does not seem to be of great interest to the boffins who determine whether this legislation will be successful and whether it is worth while putting together the administration to deal with this type of legislation—maybe we should provide this help for a particular sector and put more emphasis, more thought and real muscle into delivering public housing in conjunction with the private sector in order to relieve the housing shortage.

We are always talking about the budget surplus being under threat, but the budget surplus that was left by the previous government could be utilised in a socially just way by enabling people to access public housing. And there is no better way for them to get access to it than entering into joint venture contracts with the private sector to deliver public housing to those who are most vulnerable. In speaking to this bill, I urge the government to seriously reconsider and determine how they will tender and enter into a public-private partnership to deliver some very timely public housing for vulnerable people.

See this speech in context