Craig Thomson (Dobell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

These bills, the National Rental Affordability Scheme Bill 2008 and the National Rental Affordability Scheme (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2008, will provide new principal legislation relating to the Australian government’s new National Rental Affordability Scheme. One of the bills will amend the Income Tax Assessment Act 1997 to enable eligible entities participating in the scheme to claim a refundable tax offset. One of the bills will also ensure that state and territory contributions to entities participating in the scheme are non-assessable and non-exempt income for taxation purposes and that there are no capital gains tax consequences from the receipt of incentives under the scheme. The fiscal cost of the National Rental Affordability Scheme package is estimated at $622.6 million over four years, including administration costs.

It is important that these bills are passed without delay to enable the first and second round calls for applications for National Rental Affordability Scheme incentives to have maximum effectiveness. The aim is also to provide certainty in relation to the taxation aspects of providing incentives to build affordable rental housing under the scheme. The object of the bills is to increase the supply of affordable rental dwellings and reduce rental costs for low- and moderate-income households. There will be a positive impact felt in rural and regional areas such as mine—particularly the northern areas of the New South Wales Central Coast—where incentives under the scheme support the building of affordable rental housing.

The scheme encourages large-scale investment in affordable rental housing by offering an incentive 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 incentive comprises a Commonwealth contribution of $6,000 per dwelling per year and a state or territory contribution in the form of direct financial support or in-kind contribution to the value of $2,000 per dwelling per year. The incentive can be in the form of a refundable tax offset or payment. The incentive will be provided each year for 10 years to complying participants and will be indexed in line with the rental component of the consumer price index.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme is a key part of the government’s $2.2 billion affordable housing package and will increase the supply of affordable rental homes. The package will also help people save for their first home. The package has also been designed to lower house infrastructure costs and build new homes for the homeless. What a contrast this bill and the approach by the Rudd government are to the previous government. The previous speaker, in his contribution to this debate, mentioned that one of the early actions of the Howard government on coming to office was to get rid of and no longer have a housing minister. We see there the complete contrast with one of the first things that the Rudd government did in responding to the pressures that people were under in terms of the affordability of housing: it was to make sure that we had a housing minister, someone who could drive policy in relation to this area and make sure that people who were doing it tough, struggling to find affordable housing would have a minister who would be in their court, fighting for them and pushing forward policies that make it easier for them to find a place that they can call home, a place that they can afford to live in.

On the Central Coast of New South Wales, where the electorate of Dobell is, we have seen the availability of rental properties decrease quite alarmingly. Earlier this year, the rental availability rate dropped from 2.7 per cent to 1.8 per cent, nearly a whole percentage point, in just one month. You only have to look in the classifieds of the local newspapers or online to see that there is a definite shortage of houses to rent at an affordable rate. Dobell has a high rate of unemployment compared to the rest of New South Wales—in fact, almost double the national unemployment rate; we are at over 7½ per cent. Dobell also has the lowest median income per capita in the whole state of New South Wales. So we have a lack of affordable housing, we have a high rate of unemployment, which affects people’s incomes, and those who are earning an income are getting the lowest median income in the state. So, in my electorate, it is easy to understand why a lack of affordable rental housing puts extra pressure on families and particularly low-income earners trying to find a place to live.

Key emergency accommodation agencies in the region face a constant dilemma. Some have had to turn away three out of every four people who come to them for help. This is a very disturbingly high rate. A lot of these people in need simply cannot afford rental housing and for them seeking emergency accommodation is the only hope they have of putting a roof over their heads, albeit a short-term solution. In terms of housing through the state government, the waiting list is now over 12 years for public housing in my area—12 years if you go through that scheme.

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