Jill Hall (Shortland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I greatly respect the member for Pearce and I find that I agree with her on a number of things, but I have to take issue on part of her contribution because an absolutely unacceptable shortage of housing exists throughout Australia, and that was allowed to bloom under the previous government. With regard to public housing, I was a state member of parliament when the Howard government came to power and one of the first acts of the Howard government was to reduce the money that went to the states. That had a flow-on effect in the amount of public housing that was available in each state. Overnight, the waiting lists for public housing doubled. Whilst I acknowledge that we do need more public housing in our states, I have to say very respectfully that that public housing shortfall was not a problem that you could direct and say was a state problem; it was a problem that did, to a large extent, come from the then federal government. I found it very pleasing that the Rudd government made it a priority to have a Minister for Housing, something that the previous government did not do. The simple fact that the Rudd government has a high-profile minister as the Minister for Housing shows that we are committed to addressing the crisis in housing in this country.

Be it affordable rents, be it home ownership, be it the fact that we need to help first home buyers to purchase a home, be it any area of housing, the Rudd government recognises the importance of housing and what it means when there are not enough houses available for the citizens of Australia. That can be seen by the fact that one of the first acts of the Rudd government was to look at homelessness, which demonstrated that one of the major causes of homelessness is the fact that there are not enough houses available.

This is one tier of the Rudd government’s approach to affordable housing. Initially, there was a three-pronged approach which was the Housing Affordability Fund, the establishment of the first home saver account and the National Rental Affordability Scheme Bill 2008, which we are debating in the House today. Another great boost to first home buyers is the increase in the first home owners grant announced in the package last week. First home owners will now be able to get a grant of $14,000, or $21,000 if they are purchasing a new home. This will also encourage our housing industry to pick up in this time of economic insecurity.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme is designed to encourage large scale investment in affordable housing for people who are struggling to find rental accommodation. The NRAS offers tax and cash incentives to providers of new dwellings on the condition that they are rented to low- and moderate-income households at 20 per cent below market rates. The NRAS is established in this bill. This bill amends the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to enable entities participating in the NRAS to claim a refundable tax offset in their annual tax return or through lodgment of an application by not-for-profit entities who would not ordinarily lodge a tax return. In addition, the bill amends the ITAA 1997 to ensure that state and territory contributions to entities participating in the NRAS, whether in cash or in kind, are nonassessable and exempt for taxation purposes and to ensure that there are no capital gains tax consequences from the receipt of the incentives under the scheme. This is just one demonstration of the Rudd government’s commitment to solving the shortage of rental accommodation in Australia.

The NRAS commenced on 1 July 2008. These amendments apply to income tax assessments for the 2008-09 income year and later years. The incentives comprise Commonwealth contributions in the form of a refundable tax offset or payment to the value of $6,000 per dwelling per year and a state or territory contribution in the form of direct financial assistance of an in-kind contribution to the value of at least $2,000 per dwelling per year. The incentive will be provided for a period of 10 years to complying participants and will be indexed in line with the rental component of the consumer price index.

The Rudd government did not think of this in making a spur-of-the-moment decision on an approach to looking at addressing the shortage of housing and affordable rental accommodation. Rather, this policy was developed in consultation with industry, those people who provide housing, and with those people who actually need to access affordable housing. What that says to me is that the Rudd government is engaging, consulting and then developing policies that will address the needs of the people of Australia. What enables the government to do this is the fact that it is consulting with all groups in the community.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme Bill 2008 will provide new principal legislation relating to the Australian government’s new National Rental Affordability Scheme. The cost of this scheme’s package is estimated to be $622.6 million over four years. The scheme will have a positive impact on low to moderate income families’ ability to rent a dwelling that is part of the National Rental Affordability Scheme at a rental rate that is 20 per cent below the market rate. It will have a very positive effect on rural and regional areas where incentives to support and build housing are not as strong as those in other areas.

I need to share with the House one story in particular that shows just how bad this rental accommodation crisis is. As a federal member of parliament, I do not have the same amount of contact as a state member would have with constituents who are looking for housing or rental accommodation. But I have to tell the House that over the last three to four years there has been an ever-increasing number of constituents coming to my office seeking assistance to find housing. An elderly lady in her 80s living within the electorate had a husband who was in the early stages of developing dementia. He threw her out of the house and locked her out. We contacted the department of housing but, because she was on the lease of her current house, we were unable to secure emergency accommodation for her.

What this elderly lady had to do was move from one house to another house and then to another house, each night sleeping on the sofa of a different relative or friend. In the end it became too much for her. Here was a woman who was still facing actual physical danger but she returned to the situation that she had escaped from, simply because she had no other options. I must correct the record here. She and her husband had purchased their house from the department of housing so she was an owner of that house. Because she was an owner of that house, she was unable to get rental accommodation through the department of housing. She felt uncomfortable going to a refuge. In the end she was forced to return home. I believe that is a very sad story, one that shows the inadequacy of the current system.

In Lake Macquarie the availability of rental accommodation is less than two per cent, as has already been stated by the member for Charlton—and three per cent is what is thought to be a tight market. If you are a young family looking for accommodation or if you are a single person that has no rental record, your ability to find a house is next to none.

I have had a family of six come to my office saying that they were unable to find accommodation and they were forced to pitch a tent and live in it for some three to six months. I could tell you story after story after story about the way this housing shortage has impacted on the residents of the Shortland electorate. The Shortland electorate, I might add, has a very high level of homeownership and a very elderly population but still, even with that high level of home ownership, there is this incredible shortage of rental accommodation for those people that need it. And, if you move to the Central Coast part of the Shortland electorate, the shortage is even greater, exacerbating the difficulty of finding accommodation in that area.

We had the Howard government sitting on their hands for 12 long years. We had the Howard government ripping money out of funds to the states for housing. We had the Howard government not even bothering to have a housing minister. Because of their inaction, because of the simple fact that they were not prepared to face up to their responsibilities and ensure all Australians had the option of having decent accommodation, this enormous crisis in housing developed in Australia.

This bill will provide new principal legislation relating to the Australian government’s National Rental Affordability Scheme. Its object, of course, is to increase the supply of affordable rental dwellings, something that the previous government totally ignored. At the same time it will look at reducing the cost for low- and moderate-income households. The rental accommodation that is available in the Shortland electorate—and in other electorates it is even worse—is well beyond people’s ability to pay. The scheme will encourage large-scale investment in affordable rental housing by offering an incentive to providers of new dwellings on the condition that they are rented to people who are finding it hard to obtain rental accommodation at the moment—that is, people on low and moderate incomes, people who are really struggling. This rental accommodation will be provided at 20 per cent below market rates. The incentive for providers will be in the form of a tax offset over a 10-year period. The bill also addresses a number of scenarios that may arise under the scheme.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme is part of the government’s $2.2 billion affordable housing package which will increase the supply of affordable rental homes, help people save for their first home, lower housing infrastructure costs and build new homes for the homeless. If you remember, at the commencement of my contribution to this debate, I emphasised the importance that the Rudd government has placed on solving the problem of homelessness.

The scheme delivers on one of the government’s 2007 election commitments. The Council of Australian Governments agreed to implement the scheme in March 2008. The National Rental Affordability Scheme will create up to 50,000 new rental properties across Australia at a cost of $623 million in the first four years. The scheme provides incentives to participants to build new dwellings for renting to low- and moderate-income households, as I have already said. The incentive is made up of contributions from both the state and the Commonwealth, and it also has the support of the housing industry.

This is good legislation. The scheme will be reviewed in its early years of implementation to test whether it is adequately focused on those who would otherwise be in rental stress, people like the elderly lady or the family of six who were living in a tent that I have told the House about in this contribution. The review will test whether there is scope for simplification or reduction in the administrative burden and whether there are evolving issues of noncompliance that need to be addressed. The review may indicate a need for improvements to the scheme.

We have before us today a scheme that has been developed in consultation with all sectors of the housing industry. We have before us today legislation that has been developed to address a specific problem, and that is the shortage of affordable rental accommodation in Australia. We have before us today legislation that the government will continually review to see that it is actually meeting its objective of ensuring that there is affordable housing for all those people on low and moderate incomes, those people who are currently finding it very difficult to survive because of the proportion of their income they need to pay for rent, and those people who just cannot find accommodation and are either forced to live in unsuitable accommodation or live with friends or relatives, or find themselves homeless. This is good legislation that should be supported by all members of the House.

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