Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the House for granting leave for me to continue my remarks on the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill. As I was saying, there is a spectrum of people who face housing stress and housing affordability stress. On the one hand, there are people who have no issues with housing affordability and, on the other hand, there are other people who have no ability to pay for a home. This bill addresses those who require assistance to be able to access the private housing market at 20 per cent below the market rate. It is significant and it is an important policy—a Labor policy, one that was brought in because we understand that for people to be in their own home as part of the private market is good for industry. It's good for construction. It's good for those in the building industry. But, most importantly, it's good for families, for working parents and often single parents on one income, who face that rental stress.

So we in the Labor Party recognised that people were on a spectrum of housing affordability, and that's why we came up with a plan. It wasn't about having a very targeted, one-year approach; it was about making sure that, over the next 10 years, we tackled this problem, because it's not going away. More and more Australians can't afford to buy their own home. Thirty years ago, as I said in my first speech in this place, six out of 10 people my age could own their own home. Now it's fewer than four and it's plummeting. The number of Australians, on our watch, able to achieve financial security is plummeting.

We need to create pathways to financial security or to at least help people, especially young people who are entering the workforce, who are often on lower wages and often have young kids and high costs—as we know, childcare costs are not going down; they are going up on this government's watch—by having a long-term plan to address housing affordability. And that's what we took to the last election. It was not one tinkering with the edges but rather a 10-year plan, and that plan had building 250,000 homes at the core of it. It also included 15-year subsidies, $8½ thousand per year, to investors who built new houses on the condition that they rented them out at below the 20 per cent market rate, in line with the National Rental Affordability Scheme. We didn't just want the scheme to continue; we wanted there to be new stock.

My electorate of Macnamara includes the many amazing social services in St Kilda that do an incredible job, on a shoestring budget, of looking after those people who for whatever reason are facing financial stress and facing rental or housing affordability stress and may require a new home or a safe place to sleep. That reason can be something as simple as having lost their job and not being able to find a new job. But, way too often, it's women with kids who need to leave their home quickly and find a new home, a safe place to go.

A few weeks ago I went out with Launch Housing, a fantastic organisation, a hardworking organisation, in St Kilda to look at the stock—to look at where people are going when they are facing housing affordability stress or a crisis situation where they need to find a new home. It's amazing to see what's in your own neighbourhood when you actually have a look. I have to say some of the places are okay, especially places that women and children are going to on a short-term basis. It's certainly nothing flash and you would never choose to be there, but it's safe, it's clean and it's a place to go. But we spent about 35 seconds at a rooming house in St Kilda—I'm not going say which one—and it was not a place where I would want to spend much time. It was not a place where my friend from Launch Housing felt particularly comfortable. It was quite intimidating. And it was certainly not a place that I think it would be appropriate to send vulnerable people to, especially women over 55, who are increasingly a group of people in our society facing housing and rental affordability stress. It was very intimidating.

I had a conversation with Launch Housing about what we need in order to address housing affordability in this country. The answer came back to me very quickly and very clearly: there is just not enough stock. There are not enough homes being built out there to house Australians—certainly not enough affordable homes. People then slide down that scale of housing affordability. While they may have been fortunate enough to be at the higher end at one stage, they slide down. Housing affordability is becoming less and less tenable for Australians.

This bill is important because it does support an important scheme that the Labor Party supports, because it is our scheme—the National Rental Affordability Scheme—that we created in 2008 under Prime Minister Rudd. We understood that, wherever they are on that spectrum of housing affordability, sometimes a bit of help can make a huge difference to people's lives. However, I would absolutely say that the government should not think that the job is done after this bill has passed. The problem is not getting better. Australians are finding it harder and harder to own their own home. We can take this situation and, like many of the attitudes around the economy right now, simply say: 'We're doing a great job. Well done, government—tiptop! Let's all hit the watering hole.' Or we can actually do some work and realise that this is a serious societal problem in Australia that is not getting better. Housing affordability is not getting better. We don't need just one bill; we need a plan—a proper plan that's going to increase housing stock, that's going to support families, that's going to support single parents and that's going to support people in Australia who don't earn enough money because wages are flatlining.

Housing has not become more affordable. We need a plan from the government. We took a plan to the last election, and we accept the result of that; it hurts, because policies like that would have made our country better. Now is the time for the government to do more and actually address housing affordability in this country.

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