Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Some of the most distressing and difficult calls to my office come from people who are struggling with housing—whether they haven't got a place to live, whether they do and they're having problems with a landlord, or whether they're in public housing. I don't think it's hard to imagine how profound the concept of having a secure roof over your head is. Therefore, when it's at risk it is a very emotional and distressing situation.

I don't know when I first learnt of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs—I suspect it was when I did my first psychology subject back in the eighties—but that has come to mind as I've been considering this piece of legislation. Obviously, if you look at Maslow's hierarchy of needs, shelter is primary. I suppose I'd be much happier if this bill were to consider a housing-first approach to homelessness or to ensure there is support for people to maintain their tenancy rather than the approach it's taking. People also have primary needs for food, for being able to cook their food, for being warm. Then not far above that is the need for security and safety. So these are really profound issues that we're dealing with. But people also need to be able to look after the needs they have that are unexpected. It might be that at certain times of the year their household costs are high, whether that's due to car registration or back-to-school costs. What I'm most concerned about in what's being proposed by the government here is the lack of flexibility for people who live in public housing or who have probably only their welfare support to get them through this particular period of their life, and they have very little buffer. This is taking away a layer of flexibility that, until now, people have had. So I'm very uncomfortable with what seems to be a disproportionate response to the problem as far as the automatic rent deduction component of this bill goes.

I should note there are two different aspects to this bill. I will certainly be supporting the changes to the National Rental Affordability Scheme, and I will speak a bit more about that later. I want to focus on the automatic rent deduction. Under the proposal, states and territories, as well as community housing providers, would be able to request that the secretary withhold a portion of a tenant's income support and/or family tax benefit payments and use these funds to directly pay rent and utilities costs on behalf of the tenants. The bill will allow automatic deductions for people in receipt of not just one category of government support but a wide range: the age pension, the disability support pension, carer payment, family tax benefit, Newstart and youth allowance. This means that funds could be withheld from tenants without their permission, without them granting any consent, if a state chooses to apply it that way. We may well see that this is rolled out differently in different states, which just introduces another layer of confusion.

Maintaining a rental is important. Nobody questions that. But let's look at the actual problem that this legislation is supposed to address. The advice that I've seen from the Parliamentary Library shows that 343,000 households out of a total of 395,000 households in public or social housing, which is around 86 per cent, are already choosing to have voluntary rent deductions. Those are the 2015-16 figures. That's where people have absolutely stepped up and said, 'Yes, I would like it to come out directly.' That's a choice they've made. The other figure that we have here, which was presented to the Senate inquiry, shows that 90 per cent of tenants have no problem meeting their rental obligations. So you put those two things together and you wonder how big this problem is. The Parliamentary Library figures I've seen show that over the five years from 2011-12 to 2015-16—that might actually be four financial years—national rent collection rates have over averaged 99 per cent across public housing, community housing, state-owned housing and managed Indigenous housing. We're now starting to see the size of the problem. We're really talking about one per cent, yet we've got a bill that means it could happen to 100 per cent of people under Centrelink.

Labor took a different approach to this. When we were in government, we introduced the Social Security Legislation Amendment (Public Housing Tenants' Support) Bill 2013. I think that actually shows what our intention was; it was to support tenancy, not the much-loved big stick approach that those opposite have. We did this on the recommendation from the housing and homelessness white paper, which was called The road home: a national approach to reducing homelessness. I do think that we have an obligation, wherever possible, to prevent homelessness. That's because helping to maintain someone's tenancy is a way easier solution than helping them find a new place when they are homeless. Those are the principles that underlie it.

We did look to introduce an automatic rent deduction scheme four years ago with very special provisions around it. I might add that it was opposed by the Liberals. They opposed it. At the time, their shadow minister, the member for Menzies, claimed that it would increase housing stress and financial hardship. Those were the grounds on which it was opposed. Yet the scheme that they're choosing to introduce now, a few years later, is much harsher than the one that we looked at. Our scheme would only have applied to people who were in arrears and at risk of homelessness. The bill before us today applies to everybody. Whether they agree or not, it apples to everybody.

Our proposal also capped rental deductions to make sure that people weren't left without the ability to do some management of their own affairs or meet other commitments. This government bill doesn't place any limit on the amount of deductions, potentially leaving people with nothing to live on. There's nothing to protect people so that they can put some food on the table. If you combine it with the people on the cashless debit card trial, you can see how easy it would be for someone to end up with zero disposable income. You might say, 'Well, that's life. Those are the things that happen,' but what about treating people with respect and giving them some autonomy so that they can learn to manage their money?

I also look at this and think, 'What about kids going back to school?' It is really expensive equipping kids to start the school year. It's expensive equipping them to start the winter part of the year. My children seem to grow out of their shoes very fast in a school year. You hold off until September and finally have to give out and buy them a new pair of school shoes. Of course, by the end of January, they will have well and truly grown out of those. These are the sort of costs that we are not giving people flexibility to move around. I've also had the example raised with me of a domestic violence incident, where someone needs to fix something that has been damaged. You're taking away the flexibility to do that. I heard the member for Solomon say that this seems like well-intentioned legislation. I don't think the consequences of this have actually been thought through for people in their homes day to day and week to week as they try to deal with this. Remember, it will depend on what the states decide to do. There are a lot of unknowns.

When we looked at this principle, it was a requirement under our scheme that tenants be communicated with before the amount withheld was changed. There is nothing in this bill to do that. There is nothing to say that there has to be communication with the tenant. This bill also allows an amount to be deducted to compensate landlords for property damage. If you think about some of the causes of property damage and you look at domestic violence and family violence, those can be the circumstances in which property damage occurs. Our bill limited the deductions to cover only amounts for rent and utilities so that people were protected from being forced to pay for damage that was caused by other people. They are some of the safety things that we looked at that are completely absent from this legislation.

We are really concerned about the impact of this scheme as its proposed on tenants—that this is something that could genuinely push people into financial stress and poverty. We have always said that the vast majority of people receiving income support are more than capable of managing their own finances. In fact, it is ironic that this very issue came up a couple of days ago in this place during the payday lending debate that we had. I noted comments by the member for Mackellar, who made the point:

… there are people in this country who may be on low incomes, but they actually have a much better sense of how they spend their money than some of the bureaucrats in the Labor Party do. They don't need you to tell them how to do it. That's because, let me tell you, they're aware of what they're doing.

It's interesting to have a comment like that in one debate, yet have legislation like this.

I think there was a misunderstanding about what we want to see with payday lending, which are protections to ensure that people are not exploited by dodgy payday lenders. But, ironically, this legislation will push people towards that sort of source of income if they find they have a problem that they need money to deal with, like a broken fridge, a washing machine or a tyre that's not going and they can't get to their job. I just think we need to bring some consistency. You can't really argue to treat people one way in one piece of legislation and then come up with something like this in another piece of legislation.

What we're seeing here is a problem that financial autonomy is only really respected when it's convenient. Let's remember that 90 per cent of tenants have no problem meeting their rental obligation and rent collection rates have averaged over 99 per cent across every sector. That's why I would argue that this is a really disproportionate response to what has been defined as a problem, but quite a small problem. I'm very uncomfortable with the continuing demonisation of people who, at a time in their life when things are really tough and they've turned to the government for help to get them through, are going to be hit by something like this.

The other aspect of this bill is the National Rental Affordability Scheme. In the time that I've got, I'd like to talk about housing affordability. So little has been done by this government on what is genuinely a big problem. There is not a day that goes by in my electorate where people don't talk to me about their inability to find an affordable rental property or, further down the track, their challenges in trying to find a home that they can call their own. I held an Older Women and Homelessness Forum. It isn't just young people who are talking to me about these issues. There are older women who are deeply concerned about their future when they stop work and as they retire, and some of these women were not far from that. Others have seen friends not able to find a secure home and therefore making choices to live in unacceptable and not-safe environments.

They're the issues that we really should be dealing with. While I welcome seeing some amendments to the National Rental Affordability Scheme, it is a pity that it is so little. I remember when this scheme was launched I was fortunate enough to have the then Minister for Housing, Tanya Plibersek, in her role. That is now of course being picked up by the shadow minister for housing and homelessness, Senator Doug Cameron. Both those people have showed a deep commitment to this area of policy. The minister was able to come up to the Blue Mountains, and we opened several places that had been renovated under the NRAS or built specifically to be affordable accommodation. They are good-quality places that have provided people with a secure place to live. Our original scheme provided for 50,000 new, affordable rental buildings, and, given the strong interest in the scheme, we look to extend it to a total of 85,000 buildings. Unfortunately, of course, that program was capped at 38,000 dwellings by the Abbott government in the 2014-15 budget.

As I say, it is pleasing to see some mention of housing affordability. I think perhaps that the name of the legislation is a little bit misleading. I would much rather be seeing a holistic package that looks at a range of issues that will address housing affordability, and that is everything from addressing some of the tax situations that we have, which Labor will certainly do, to providing more capacity for community based housing.

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