Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

The Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017 is about housing affordability and particular arrangements for social and affordable housing in Australia, a matter which is of keen interest to thousands of Australians who can't afford a house to rent, let alone one to buy, a matter in which the coalition government has failed spectacularly. Former Treasurer Joe Hockey devised a strategy which was built around having rich parents, and it seems that policy in this area for the government has not advanced since that fateful statement. Labor will refer this bill to the Senate and make a final decision once the report has been issued.

There is of course the very good chance that the bill does not get finalised before the termination of this parliament, because the government has effectively gone on strike. Upon the conclusion of sittings for this year there is a meagre 11 sitting days between January and August next year. Frankly, you would struggle to find a parliament in the developed world which was so committed to not sitting. Clearly, the government have given up on governing. They can't trust their colleagues—clearly a motivation for not getting them together—they can't work with the crossbenchers and they can't agree on policies to tackle the big issues and the big challenges. Quite frankly, the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has run out of an agenda and run out of policies. They are just so totally focused on themselves and their own dysfunction that they've given up on Australia and they've given up governing for all Australians.

Before the Wentworth by-election, the Prime Minister said that to lose one Liberal MP would be to create economic instability and uncertainty for Australia. Well, the Liberals' contribution to the government has been to lose two Liberal MPs in one short month. We need an election. Quite simply, we need an election so that we can put our positive plans, our alternative plans for the country, before the Australian people; give the government parties the opportunity to sort themselves out in the shade; and enable those who can govern this country get on with dealing with the big challenges.

The Liberals can't be trusted to put the best interests of low-income Australians first. At the 2016 election, Labor pledged to halve homelessness by 2025 by immediately commencing work with the states and territories on a national plan to address this national issue. We are still committed to this pledge. A particular focus for national reform must be supporting women and children escaping family violence. Increasing family violence is forcing women and children out of their homes and into homelessness. Australian Institute of Health and Welfare data shows that each year about 100,000 women and children are seeking support for housing as a result of them attempting to escape family violence. Domestic and family violence is now the main reason why women and children have to leave their homes. Labor has already begun announcing policies to tackle homelessness. They include providing $88 million for a new safe-housing fund to increase transitional housing options for women and children escaping domestic and family violence, young people exiting out-of-home care and older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness. I will say something more about that in a moment, as it relates to my electorate. We're also committed to establishing a bond aggregator, to increase investment in affordable housing. We want to improve the National Housing Affordability Agreement by re-establishing the National Housing Supply Council and appointing a dedicated minister for housing.

What we see in the bill before the House today is just some tinkering around the edges of the schemes that were put in place by the last federal Labor government—no new ideas; no initiative. In complete contrast, the Labor government has fresh ideas, new ideas, on how to tackle the concerns around housing affordability and, in particular, homelessness. Our improving the National Housing Affordability Agreement will re-establish a National Housing Supply Council, and we will appoint a dedicated minister for housing—something that this country sorely needs. This builds on other important measures that we've announced to address housing affordability, including reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions.

They are controversial. The government is doing its level best to whip up fear and to provide misinformation about these important reforms, but we know that they are in the national interest, and by putting them forward well ahead of a national election we are ensuring that the Australian people know exactly what they will be voting on. We are doing this to ensure that we have structural reform within the taxation system, to bring the cost of housing down for those people who are currently locked out of the housing market. At the 2011 census, over 105,000 Australians were homeless. Tragically, more than 17,000 of these were children. No state, territory, city or country town is immune from homelessness, and every government has a role to play to reduce homelessness.

Our reforms to negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions will limit future negative gearing concessions to new housing and reduce the capital gains tax discount for those houses from 50 per cent to 25 per cent. Important to note is that this is for houses purchased after the implementation of this policy. These changes will moderate the growth of housing prices and redirect the generous tax concessions to where they are most needed—investment in new housing stock. We'll also prevent direct borrowing by superannuation funds, particularly with the growth in self-managed superannuation funds in this sector, by restoring the prohibition on direct borrowing by superannuation funds on a prospective basis, as recommended by the financial systems inquiry in 2014, to prevent the unnecessary build-up of risk in Australia's superannuation systems but also—and just as importantly—to take some of that heat out of the housing market.

We are going to increase the Financial Investment Review Board fees and penalties. Labor will double the fees and penalties on foreign investment rules to help first home buyers and put them on a more level playing field with investors. We're also going to look at the vacant property tax. Labor will establish a COAG process to coordinate and facilitate a more efficient and uniform vacant property tax across all of Australia's major cities. We'll also put in place a homelessness target. Labor will have a homelessness target for 2025 and develop a national homelessness strategy through COAG, in cooperation with the states and territories, to address this national scourge. A wealthy nation like ours should not have over 107,000 people, many of them children, homeless every night of the week.

I would like to say something about the circumstances affecting housing, homelessness and rental affordability, which this bill goes directly to, in my own electorate of Whitlam. We are, in Whitlam, sitting in the middle of one of the greatest urban growth areas in New South Wales outside of the Sydney Basin. More houses are being built in my electorate—in the West Dapto areas and in the Calderwood Valley areas—than in any other place throughout New South Wales. Over 19,500 new homes are being built in the West Dapto area. In the Calderwood Valley area over 5,000 new homes are being built. Over 56,000 people, the equivalent of a new city, will be housed in the West Dapto area, and 12,500 people will be housed in the Calderwood Valley area. This is a phenomenal achievement. But, tragically, there is not a plan in place for affordable and social housing in these areas. I want to repeat those numbers—over 19,000 new homes in the West Dapto area and over 5,000 new homes in the Calderwood Valley area and no plan for affordable or social housing.

This is an indictment on all levels of government. We already have a housing affordability problem in the Illawarra. Anglicare's rental affordability snapshot analysed over 1,050 properties that were available in the Illawarra, Shoalhaven and Southern Highlands on the weekend of 24-25 March 2018. Of those 1,050 properties that were advertised, only 16 of them were affordable and appropriate for households on government and income support payments. Of those 16 suitable properties, only five suitable rental properties were in or close to the CBD of Wollongong. The report also found that no rental properties in the Illawarra were affordable and appropriate for single people on Newstart or youth allowance—not one property. Not one of the 1,000 properties that were available for rent were affordable or appropriate for a single young person on a Newstart allowance and only five of the 1,000 were suitable for a person on income support. According to the Property Council annual report, the Illawarra is seeing an increase in demand for affordable housing and a decrease in affordability. The annual Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey ranked Wollongong as the 20th least affordable housing market of the 406 markets studied in 2016.

We have a crisis, and nobody's doing anything about it. This is an indictment on all three tiers of government. Nearly 20,000 homes are planned to be built throughout the Illawarra, but there is no plan for social housing and no plan for affordable housing, and yet we are ranked 20th on the affordable housing index over 400 regions throughout Australia. People often look at regional Australia as an alternative to living in the capital cities and say: 'That is affordable. We might be able to move to a place like Wollongong. We might be able to move to regional Australia and, if we're lucky enough to have a job, we might be able to afford to buy a house and live there.' That is not the case.

What makes all of this all the more galling is that one of the last acts of the Gillard Labor government was to provide over $13 million to the Wollongong City Council to provide affordable housing arrangements in the West Dapto area. A part of that money was spent on infrastructure—I applaud the Wollongong council for building that infrastructure—and road infrastructure to open up some rural land to housing development. But in excess of $9.5 million has not been spent in the five years since then, at the same time as housing affordability is going down, homelessness is going up and the dream of renting a house, let alone buying a house, is now increasingly out of the reach of people who are desperately in need of housing.

I am calling on the Wollongong City Council to meet immediately with me, the community and social housing providers throughout the Illawarra to agree a plan for the utilisation and the release of those funds. There should be no obstacle to doing this. What is quite clear through this bill before the House and the absence of other proposals to deal with affordable housing and social housing is the government is so wracked by division, so without an idea, so clueless on how to deal with the big issues facing our country that it has not got a plan. But that is no excuse for the local representatives not getting their act together to spend the money that has already been allocated.

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