Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I, too, would like to make a contribution to this debate, and, in particular, support the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Blaxland. As has just been said, the National Rental Affordability Scheme is certainly near and dear to the hearts of everybody on this side of politics. It was a Labor program that was embarked upon. It was ambitious. It was about doing the right thing, particularly for people who were increasingly being confronted with the prospect of homelessness. As such, I emphasise that, being a Labor program, we have every interest in seeing it succeed; therefore we will be supporting the passage of the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019. But I ask those on the other side to have regard to the intent of the amendment—that is, to ensure that the National Rental Affordability Scheme continues to form a role in addressing homelessness in this country.

The bill was examined by a parliamentary inquiry in the last parliament. As a consequence, changes were made—and, by the way, I congratulate the government for picking up many of the recommendations moved by Labor members on that matter. But what this bill will actually do—and I'm not sure whether those opposite appreciate this—is make it impossible for future governments to continue with the scheme, because it removes the power of the secretary to make any new allocations under the scheme. It will not grow. It will not continue to provide what is the very object of the scheme itself.

That's why Jason Clare, the member for Blaxland, moved his amendment. The government should give consideration to looking at the ongoing operation of the scheme. The current government may not want to continue with the scheme, as it is determined to restrict any future development. But any of us representing electorates which are finding themselves in stress at the moment. Electorates like mine in which people living with disadvantage are overrepresented—and I dare say many of those opposite wouldn't have to look too hard to find disadvantage in their communities as well—will tell you that restricting the operation of this scheme will have deleterious consequences well into the future.

Labor's original scheme provided 50,000 new affordable rental dwellings to be built. That was a pretty significant undertaking. But the Abbott government, in its 2014-15 budget, announced that the scheme would be capped at 38,000 dwellings—38,000 and no more. That wasn't a decision taken because homelessness had suddenly decreased; it was one of those budgetary decisions taken by the Abbott government, regardless of the electoral mandate he thought he had, to change what we do in this place—which, after all, is looking after people in need—into a budget line item.

That decision was criticised by various stakeholders: the Property Council of Australia, Homelessness Australia, National Shelter, Mission Australia, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Federation of Community Housing Associations, Anglicare and St Vincent de Paul. That's just to name a few. They all came out and criticised the government's decision to cap the scheme, because, particularly for Anglicare, St Vincent de Paul and Mission Australia, they are at the sharp end of looking after these people in need. They are the ones who see that we must do something. The decision that the Abbott government took was very, very short-sighted, and they failed to bridge the funding gap, which has now severely curtailed the supply of affordable rental housing in our communities.

Housing policy experts are pretty well unanimous that bridging the funding gap is essential to improving housing affordability and securing better housing outcomes for Australians. We understand that. We understand that having affordable, secure and appropriate homes with reasonable access to services is essential to the financial and social wellbeing of our people. All Australians should have the right to secure, affordable and appropriate housing throughout their lives. You'd think, in a country like Australia, that would be a basic human right. For too many people housing pressures are getting worse, not better.

Australia has a housing crisis. You see that on display in Sydney, Brisbane and Melbourne and no doubt in other capital cities around our country. But that doesn't mean to say that all of a sudden people are able to access social housing. As Associate Professor Lisa Woods from the University of Western Sydney succinctly put it, addressing the real and intergenerational effects of the failure to invest in people in respect of housing:

We see there is a risk of inequality. A lot of people who are homeless have experienced childhood trauma. There are mental health issues. Many of them are victims of … sexual abuse. So they are complex cases. Those inequalities are deep rooted.

And she's right. It's not just the battling low- and middle-class families that are feeling the brunt of this government's problems; it extends to all those areas where there are complex needs. I'd just ask other members here to reflect upon the vulnerable Australians in their own communities. What about those victims living with domestic violence or mental ill health, people who have no option but to seek refuge in crisis accommodation?

An organisation I've spoken about many times in this place is Bonnie Support Services. They operate in my community, in Fowler. They do a fantastic job, particularly looking after women and children who are victims of domestic and family violence. Tracy Phillips of that organisation often tells me how desperate they are to find alternative accommodation for people, particularly in crisis situations. There is a lack of crisis accommodation across the board, and here's this organisation that's working in an area which has a very high proportion of domestic and family violence. They go shopping around, trying to find accommodation for these people, because they don't have access to sufficient available crisis accommodation.

According to the 2016 census, homelessness in Australia increased by 13.7 per cent over the previous five-year period. That's approximately 116,000 Australians who experienced homelessness on any given night in this country. While homelessness and housing instability is a very real problem across the nation, can I just particularise it to my electorate of Fowler, where, as I indicated at the start of my contribution, there is an overrepresentation of people living in distress situations and trying very desperately to survive within a community. Regrettably, we have an overrepresentation of people living with disadvantage, and clearly a lot of it is associated with mental ill health, disabilities, unemployment, relationship breakdowns, substance abuse, gambling addiction or family and domestic violence. All these matters significantly contribute to the rental stress that has occurred in my community.

In talking about rental stress, I note that a research paper prepared by the University of New South Wales, entitled Everybody's home, showed my electorate of Fowler being the area most impacted by rental stress. In other words, it's the area where it is most likely that more than a third of a person's income goes to paying the rent. When you consider that, in my electorate, the average household income—not the average income but the average household income—is just a little over $60,000, it surely shows the demographics that we are trying to represent and whose voice we are trying to make sure is heard in this place and not just papered over by the Abbott government's idea of capping access to affordable rental housing at 38,000, as they did, cutting it back from Labor's proposed 55,000. In real terms, it certainly has an impact on the community as a whole. We have so many people who just cannot afford to live beyond pay cheque to pay cheque. It's simply putting it that way. This impacts on those people who belong to very low-income families.

If you look at how the Parliamentary Library would delineate areas such as that of my colleague in Werriwa or mine in Fowler, they will talk about these areas' industry as being largely light manufacture. The truth is that a lot of that light manufacture is already gone. Those blue-collar workers who were engaged in those industries are now out of work. We just had that debate earlier today about what happens to them. The truth is that a lot of these people are now on welfare, and they are highly unlikely, if they're aged 55 or over, to be able to secure another job. So, when we talk about access to affordable housing, these people should be front and centre in our minds. They didn't participate in the debate that said, 'Okay, we can go into a world trade competition, and whether your industry survives or not that's it.' They were just people who were going to work, day in and day out, and a lot of their incomes went on rent. They are now people living on welfare and still struggling to find somewhere safe and affordable to live. They are seriously impacted now because of the restrictions.

Also, the objective of this government with the idea of affordable social housing is that the scheme will stop. There will be no more. We've got to be better than that. Any of us who have the honour of being elected to represent communities in this place must start thinking that this goes beyond base politics. This has to be something where we talk about making a difference for the better in the lives of people. And it's not just those of us on the Labor side of politics; we're talking about all those communities represented here—the whole 151 electorates in this place. We actually need to be doing more. To simply put a cap on this scheme is not going to help anybody.

So I fully support the amendment moved by my colleague the member for Blaxland. The government should have access to breathe life once more into this scheme. Not only will it provide affordable social housing for people in need; it will also have a significant impact in terms of driving construction and job generation within our respective communities. The impact of this will be long lasting. Quite frankly, one of the reasons we have the honour of being in this place is to make decisions that affect people's lives now and into the future.

I urge those on the other side of politics, those on the other side of the chamber, to have regard for the fact that the bill, as it's currently proposed, will restrict the secretary of the department from making any further additions to dwellings under the National Rental Affordability Scheme—no construction of any more buildings. Please have regard to what has been proposed through the amendment and give these people who we have the honour of representing a chance to survive in life.

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