Helen Haines (Indi, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to speak briefly about schedule 2 of the Treasury Laws Amendment (2021 Measures No. 3) Bill 2021, which will enact the Family Home Guarantee program that the government announced earlier this month in the budget. That program would allow single-parent families with an annual income lower than $125,000 to build a new home or purchase an existing home with a deposit as little as two per cent. The program would be open to 2,500 single-parent families per year for four years. To be eligible for the scheme, these single parents would need to show that they could service the remaining 98 per cent of the loan within 30 years. The property price must be below a maximum threshold which ranges from $700,000 in Sydney to $375,000 for electorates like mine in regional Victoria.

I will not oppose this bill, but I want to table a number of concerns I have about the Family Home Guarantee and the housing crisis regional Australians face right now. First of all, I am disappointed that the government decided to establish this program as part of the omnibus Treasury bill. It was entirely possible for the government to introduce this measure separately and not put MPs in a position where we're also considering welfare supports for thalidomide survivors and recovery grants for flood and storm victims. The government must be ready to debate the standalone merits of this policy, which it has sold as one of two pillars in its Women's Economic Security Package.

Second, the Family Home Guarantee program totally misunderstands the economics of the current housing crisis, which is clearly a supply side issue. We have not had a comprehensive national housing policy in Australia since World War II, and, quite frankly, it shows. You're living under a rock if you think better access to finance is the silver bullet that's going to fix the housing crisis. What we really need is more mixed housing stock, including social housing and crisis accommodation for the homeless or for women escaping family violence. I have heard that message time and time again from the Master Builders Association in Wodonga, from the nine local councils across my electorate and from the hundreds of small businesses I speak to who are under immense pressure because they can't attract new workers to town, primarily because there's simply nowhere to live.

Earlier this month, the Regional Australia Institute reported that there are 66,200 job vacancies across regional Australia. This is the largest since records began, and even beats the demand during the mining construction boom a decade ago. For years, the government has said, 'Build it and they will come.' Well, they've come and we haven't built it. The latest data shows that less than 0.5 per cent of properties in north-east Victoria are vacant. That's the lowest level since these records began over two decades ago. We also know that less than a third of properties in Indi can be classified as affordable, based on local income data. Let's put that into perspective. Only 0.1 per cent of houses in Indi are available and affordable to an average salary earner, let alone low-income, single-parent families who earn much lower than the median salary. Based on the latest census data, we are talking about 60-odd houses across all of Indi—29,000 square kilometres—that might be available. Median house prices across the electorate are also soaring way above the $375,000 cap this program imposes for regional Victoria. The latest Domain report shows house prices increased 83 per cent in Alpine, 32 per cent in Wodonga, 57 per cent in Indigo, 35 per cent in Wangaratta and 41 per cent in Benalla in the last five years. The median house price is now $409,000 in Wodonga. So good luck finding one of those 60 houses across Indi or in Wodonga under $375,000.

It is a total stretch of the imagination to think that many single-parent families would be anywhere near the $125,000 salary cap in this program in Indi. Less than four per cent of Indi earns over $100,000 a year. More than half earn under $50,000 a year, and the median salary is $42,809. So it beggars belief to think single-parent families could find a way to save $10,000 for a deposit and demonstrate that they could service monthly mortgage payments of $1,500 over 30 years, when they're bringing in around $700 per week after tax. To me, and I think to anyone reasonable, this is the definition of unacceptable mortgage stress. It seems to me that the people this program aims to help will either miss out or suffer great financial hardship as a result. Indeed, they are likely to miss out. There are more than one million single-parent families in Australia, and only 10,000 places in this program over four years.

The third and final point I'd like to make is about how this package is framed as a women's economic security measure. The government made a lot of noise on budget night about its $1.8 billion package to create new opportunities for women and secure their economic future. But it was, essentially, two flagship measures: an increase to the childcare subsidy, and this: the Family Home Guarantee program for single parents. I have spent the last few weeks consulting with over 1,000 constituents in my electorate about their views on the budget, via an online survey. Here's a quote from one constituent who lives in Marysville: 'I want to see spending on social housing, not spin, on the few who may be able to buy a house, then struggle to pay the mortgage when the interest rates go up. There's no point in putting money into refuges if there's no available housing for women escaping violence to go to.' I'm still working through all the results of that survey, but it's pretty clear already that people don't think this package truly understands the economic challenges women are facing. Single-parent is not synonymous with single mother. Child care is not the sole responsibility of women. Sure, these two measures will go some way to support women, but single parenthood and child care is not the totality of the experience of women in modern Australia. It's much broader than this, and the government has some work to do to truly understand this.

I won't be opposing this bill today, but I do want to record some central concerns I have about it. To that end, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes:

(a) the housing availability crisis is reaching new heights across Australia, including North East Victoria where residential vacancy rates are at their lowest level since records began;

(b) the Family Home Guarantee will not address the underlying need for affordable and diverse housing supply, including social housing;

(c) that in some regions, a single parent earning the maximum allowable income under the Family Home Guarantee would have to commit close to half their monthly income to be able to service a loan based on median property prices; and

(d) the Family Home Guarantee will only support 10,000 single parents over four years, while there are currently one million single parent families across Australia; and

(2) calls on the Government to take a leadership role in urgently addressing the housing supply crisis by working proactively with local and state governments to unlock creative solutions, including incentives for private developers to build more affordable low-cost housing stock at scale".

See this speech in context