Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I commend the previous speech from my colleague and the previous speeches that really demonstrate to me, unfortunately, again, that this is a government that doesn't understand the basics, the fundamentals, of equality of opportunity in Australia. Stable, affordable, permanent housing is the most important social determinant of health. As a paediatrician, I know how adversely affected many of my patients have been by the lack of stable, affordable housing. I have seen children with significant disability moved from house to house, area to area, because they couldn't get stable housing. That impacted on not only their education but also their health and their futures.

This National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill is—as one of my heroes, Rex Mossop, who was a rugby league and rugby union player and broadcaster from many years ago, would say—like deja vu all over again. This government continues to attack the most vulnerable. It is a tragedy and it is something that will affect some of the most vulnerable people in our communities for the rest of their lives. This government doesn't understand the real lack of opportunity that this will cause.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill largely replicates proposals in schedule 3 to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017. That earlier bill was introduced by the Turnbull government on 14 September 2017 but, although considered extensively in both houses, failed to pass before the calling of the May 2019 election. So it's now over two years since this bill was originally considered. The delay is only partly explained by the inquiry undertaken by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs which reported in December 2017. The government did not respond to that report until 17 October 2018, about a year afterwards, and the bill and government sponsored amendments to it were debated and passed by the House on 28 November 2018.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme seeks to encourage large-scale private investment in housing by offering accredited institutional investors an incentive to increase the supply of affordable rental housing while reducing by around 20 per cent the rental costs to low- and middle-income households. The scheme was introduced by federal Labor in 2008 by the then housing minister, the member for Sydney, in cooperation with the states and territories. The scheme was designed to bring on up to 50,000 new rental properties across Australia. That target figure was never reached, due to the Abbott government's infamous—and I underline 'infamous'—2014 budget cuts which effectively capped the number of supported rentals at 38,000. That infamous budget, of course, proposed cuts to a whole range of services to the most vulnerable in our community, including health services, and was, by common consent, the worst budget in the last 20 years.

Since then, the number of allocations has been steadily declining, and that rate of decline will accelerate sharply during the life of this parliament. The Abbott government's 2014 cuts were opposed by virtually all stakeholders, including industry, service providers, welfare and support groups, housing groups and building groups. Even those who were critical of aspects of the scheme wanted the NRAS to continue.

The NRAS was looked at by the National Audit Office in 2015 and 2016. The ANAO recommended some administrative changes but did not propose winding up the scheme. In 2017 the Turnbull government commissioned a review of the scheme by Deloitte, but, as I understand it, the report has never been released. One has to ask why it has not been released. This is a government that's very good at marketing itself but not very good on facts, not very good on science and not very good on evidence. And the people that pay the price for that ineptitude are the most vulnerable people in our society.

As things stand, the scheme is going to finish in 2026. The present bill was amended, on Labor's initiative, in the Senate to enable a future government to continue the operation of the National Rental Affordability Scheme—should it desire to do so—beyond 2026, which is also a commonsense change, although not the wholesale change that we think is needed. It's difficult to see the harm here in leaving law on the books that simply allows the government of the day, of whatever political colour, to extend the operation of a scheme that has assisted the most vulnerable.

Before the 18 May election, Labor committed itself to retaining this scheme in one form or another—ideally in an improved form—and our position has been that it would be better to leave open the option of improving the existing scheme, using much of the current administrative and legislative architecture, than to let the scheme lapse in 2026 and have to re-establish it at a later date. For its part, Labor is not seeking to delay further the enactment of this bill in the form recently agreed to by the Senate.

Even critics of the NRAS can see that more, not less, needs to be done to improve access to affordable housing. Certainly that's obvious in my home city of Sydney. Even in the south-west of Sydney, where my electorate of Macarthur is based, housing affordability is becoming more and more of an issue, particularly for those families who have increasing instability in work and increasing cost-of-living pressures. The Grattan Institute stated in a recent paper that was critical of the scheme:

Many low-income renters are in poverty, and many more are suffering financial stress. Inequality is increasing because rising housing costs have disproportionately whittled away the income growth of poorer households. A growing number of Australians are becoming homeless.

Low-income Australians clearly need more support with housing. The question is how.

With that I wholeheartedly agree.

As a nation, we need to do a much better job of providing decent, affordable housing for all Australians. This government says it believes in home ownership and seeing more Australians in their own homes. Belief is one thing; action is another. Since the mid-1970s, coalition governments have tended to nibble around the edges of housing policy, the argument being that it's primarily a state responsibility. The coalition's approach is deeply flawed. It fails to recognise that many Commonwealth policies affect the states and territories and their ability to meet their own housing targets. Housing, nationally, would benefit from additional Commonwealth involvement and funding, and I think we all agree on this.

This bill, like the address delivered by the Governor-General on behalf of the government on 2 July, simply confirms that the re-elected Morrison government has nothing new to offer on housing. As with the Abbott and Turnbull governments, this government will do little directly to improve housing affordability and access to public and social housing, and little to make it easier for the most disadvantaged to have a stable roof over their heads. It refuses to limit the negative and market-distorting effects of its taxation policies, and it lacks a national population policy as well. Some might argue that it wants the economic benefits of high levels of immigration but refuses to bear its full share of the costs. Certainly the New South Wales state government would agree with that.

The housing policies of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments are perhaps more attuned to a time when homeownership was within reach of many single-income families earning a living wage. As the report issued by the government's own Australian Institute of Home and Welfare on 11 September this year confirms, that era is long gone. While a high proportion of our population is still well housed, we are no longer the world leaders with respect to home ownership. Increasingly, Australians are more likely to be mortgagees or renters for life. Many older people are reaching the end of their working lives with mortgages. The current reality no longer matches national homeownership aspirations past or present.

We are still a rich country, but, for all our wealth and even after 28 years of uninterrupted economic growth, around 120,000 people are homeless and many more live in housing related poverty. A disproportionate number of the homeless are young but older Australians, particularly older female Australians, are now the fastest-growing age demographic struggling to find shelter and support. About the same number of Australians now rent as own their own home outright. Around 31 per cent live in a dwelling they own outright, close to 35 per cent live in a property with a partly paid off mortgage and just over 30 per cent—and increasing—live in rental accommodation. Rates of outright ownership are in decline and it's taking longer, on average, for mortgages to be cleared. That is notwithstanding historically very low interest rates and the rise and rise in the two- or multiple-income family.

The percentage of renters is rising steadily and is not predominantly being driven by choice. Many more Australians than ever will never be able to own their own home. Younger Australians are more and more reliant on the bank of mum and dad to get a home of their own. They're the lucky ones of their generation. Many more Australians live in social or public housing, if they can find it, as both are subject to ever-lengthening waiting lists. Government programs, policies and the weight of federal government support, including massive tax expenditures, are more heavily geared to helping homebuyers than renters. That too speaks more to a bygone age when most Australians could reasonably expect to own their own home or flat outright before retirement.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's 2019 report confirms that rental stress is most common among low-income renters and is increasing. Rental stress now affects just on half of low-income renters living in the capital cities. A short reprieve from rapidly rising house prices in the eastern state capital cities appears to be ending. Barring a recession, the often overheated and volatile housing markets of the last 20 years seem likely to return. Housing prices, having briefly declined in Sydney and Melbourne, appear to have stabilised, and prices are now on the rise again in most capital cities. The small changes made by industry regulators in mid-2017 seem to be wearing thin, as many had expected they would. If familiar patterns repeat, the pick-up in capital city house prices and residential rents will again outstrip rises in household income by a long way. Housing affordability will further decline and conveniently sited private rental accommodation, already out of reach for most low-income earners, will increasingly be beyond the means of many even middle-income earners as well.

The difficulty of finding suitable and affordable housing is often seen as mostly affecting the young. However, that is changing. A recent report on homeownership by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute found that homeownership rates were falling while mortgage debts were rising for older Australians. Consequently, the number of private renters aged 54 to 64 is rapidly increasing. It's projected to increase by over 50 per cent to 560,000 people by 2031. For those over 65, many of whom are eligible for the age pension, the increase is even more acute, with those renting expected to double in the same time to just under 600,000.

Regrettably, the federal government has become one of the main problems for housing affordability rather than an institute for finding a solution. Poorly targeted, timid and ill-judged policies have stoked record levels of private debt while soaking up Commonwealth funds that might otherwise have been used to help those in the greatest need. Concerted and coordinated action by the Commonwealth is desperately needed. Will it happen? I doubt it very much. The Governor-General's opening address to the parliament setting out the government's third-term priorities offered little comfort to those shut out of the housing market and to those in rental accommodation. The same can be said for this bill. It neither enhances access to housing nor reduces the cost of renting. Together, the bill and the Governor-General's address mainly serve to confirm that the federal coalition has done little new thinking on housing policy for the best part of the last 10 years. With this bill, the Commonwealth is, again, merely tinkering at the edges of housing policy.

There's a commitment of sorts over the next three years to spend a billion dollars to help deal with bottlenecks in the housing supply. That money—largely to address market and regulatory failings—is welcome, but it is long overdue. It deals with only a small piece of the housing puzzle. It is not within a bull's roar of the comprehensive solutions that all levels of government, acting resolutely and together, could deliver. Unfortunately, this bill does little for the most urgent need of many Australian families, and that is stable housing.

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