Nola Marino (Forrest, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to second the motion by the member for Pearce. I call on the House to recognise the very serious state of housing availability and affordability in the public, not-for-profit and private sectors in many cities and towns in Australia and the extreme hardship it causes those on low and fixed incomes. There is no doubt that this is having a very serious impact on many in the community, including those on low and fixed incomes, pensioners, disability pensioners, veterans, young families and students.

An article in the South Western Times on 9 October by Kate Murnane states:

Women and children are returning to lives of domestic violence because they cannot afford to meet the rising cost of rent. South West Refuge manager, Barbara Payne, said staff had difficulty finding suitable and affordable accommodation for mothers and children escaping domestic violence.

Mrs Payne is quoted as saying:

It’s difficult to break the cycle unless you have somewhere to go. People will remain or go back to an abusive relationship because they cannot find a house or cannot afford one.

I ask what modelling the government has undertaken on the effects of the doubling of the first home buyers grant for existing homes and the effect that will have on renters right across Australia. Will this put further upward pressure on rents, thereby increasing the numbers of Australians living under rental stress?

A further example of badly researched government policy which will impact on the availability of affordable rental properties is the National Rental Affordability Scheme. An Australian Taxation Office ruling jeopardises the participation of the charitable, not-for-profit sector in the scheme and the bill is the subject of a Senate inquiry due to report. The tax implications for the not-for-profit sector should have been covered in the drafting of the legislation. How many charitable organisations have already developed projects ahead of the first funding round? How many potential affordable rental properties are impacted by this drafted legislation? And how will tenant eligibility provide a pathway to homeownership? Income thresholds should be raised for those trying to save to buy into private housing, otherwise renters under this scheme will remain on welfare and rental assistance for longer than is necessary.

I have received a letter from the Tenants Advice Service Inc.—a not-for-profit community legal centre which protects tenants’ rights—seeking my support for increased Commonwealth funding for the existing system of social housing because it is unlikely that those providers will be able to increase their supply of dwellings without additional Commonwealth funding assistance and, secondly, seeking my support on another major problem with the National Rental Affordability Scheme. They believe this will not assist the supply of community housing—that is, affordable rental housing owned and managed by not-for-profit organisations. Why? Because dwellings assisted with the NRAS incentives may not have ownership or title vested in community housing organisations. It is of course the ownership of the title that assists the not-for-profit organisations to finance new dwellings. There are other community groups which provide housing for people with special needs; however, that is also precluded from the NRAS.

Australian families simply cannot afford to have their problems made far worse because the Rudd government has failed to do its homework. The situation has been exacerbated by the dereliction of duty of state Labor governments in failing to maintain adequate stocks of public rental properties, with unacceptably long waiting lists for public housing. My office was recently told by a local office of the Western Australian Department of Housing and Works, regarding supplies of public housing in Western Australia, that it was acceptable for applicants to pay up to 60 per cent of their Centrelink pension in the private rental market. I have had constituents in my office who are paying 65 per cent of their pension in rent, and we all know that 30 per cent is considered to be rental stress.

Figures show rent assistance as a percentage of median weekly rent has dropped from 31.8 per cent to 20.4 per cent in June 2007. Current rental rates would significantly increase this differential. The demand for rental properties in Western Australia is amongst the highest in Australia, with rents expected to increase by 10 per cent over the next six months. The waiting list for public housing has blown out to many years. Public housing for one-bedroom requests date back to 2004—a four-year waiting list. Two-bedroom housing applicants have been waiting since 2002 and three-bedroom applicants have been waiting since 2005. Similar and longer waiting periods are being experienced all over the south-west.

In my electorate of Forrest, over 6,200 people receive rental assistance from Centrelink. According to the West Australian, 18,000 Western Australians were in the queue for public housing at the end of August. Clearly there was not enough Labor state government investment in public housing during the booming economic years in Western Australia. (Time expired)

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