Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

The other day, Robert Gottliebsen, the respected economy writer and former Australian journalist of the year, started a sentence in his regular column in the Australian thus: 'The building industry as in crisis, with vast segments completing fixed-price contracts at huge losses.' And he's right. It is a worrying situation, and I want to make a few wide-ranging comments in relation to the Social Services and Other Legislation Amendment (Incentivising Pensioners to Downsize) Bill 2022—not just in relation to this motion, which the opposition supports, but in relation to particulars across the regional economy, the housing market and other factors which have made this particular bill so important. Again, I emphasise that the opposition supports this bill.

Recently, Metricon announced that it was in trouble, and I appreciate that parliamentarians and business leaders have held crisis meetings behind closed doors to work out a plan for the future of this major home builder. Metricon wasn't the first—and won't be the last—in this current environment to feel the effects of a downturn. COVID-19 didn't help. In fact, it created all sorts of dramas for supply chains, in terms of accessing timber, metal, joints, concrete—you name it. And what happened in that regard was that many building companies, many construction firms, had contracts in place with customers, customers like Irna Miller from Victoria, and then prices ballooned out. It was not the fault of the customer; it was not the fault of anyone, really. People expected to have their houses constructed in a timely fashion, on budget and on time, and then the price soared because of difficulties sourcing materials and labour. Ms Miller's family have been living in a rental while waiting for construction to begin on their new home in Kyneton. She's just one of a number of people caught up in this impending housing crisis. And particularly in regional Australia, it is of great difficulty for housing companies not only to source materials but also to source people who can build houses.

I regularly speak with the Regional Australia Institute's Kim Houghton, whose last advice to me said that job vacancies—and this was late August—hit a new record for regions at 86,900. He said, 'It's plateauing but refusing to go down.' The previous advice from 27 May was 86,400, so it had gone up 500 in the intervening period, and unemployment ranged from nearly eight per cent in New England to 2.7 per cent in Riverina and under 1.5 per cent in Warrnambool. He said that splitting means responses must be tailored, and better skills mean more enterprise in high regions and more workers in low regions. I understand that. What does that have to do with this particular legislation? We want to see more people in homes. We know that 85 per cent of renters aspire to own their own home.

I can remember when Catherine and I were first married in 1986. We were paying anywhere between 18 and 21 per cent on our mortgage. If they were paying that now there'd be rioting in the streets. While I appreciate that it is very hard, because rates have been very, very low—and I don't point the finger of blame anywhere near Dr Philip Lowe, who, in some sectors of the media, has been unfairly criticised for conditions that are global, worldwide—Australia can't be isolated from what happens overseas. Economic conditions that happen elsewhere affect our country. We live in a global village. We operate in trading markets that are worldwide and, if there is a problem sourcing equipment to build houses in Australia, you can probably guarantee there our problems sourcing equipment to build houses elsewhere. If the economy elsewhere is faltering and Australia follows that trend, that can hardly be the fault of the Reserve Bank Governor.

Homeownership offers security and stability for individuals and families. The coalition government had a good record with housing policies. We supported 300,000 Australians with the purchase of a home. That's a high figure. We understand that owning your own home is important to the living standards enjoyed by retired Australians, and retired Australians should have the very best of conditions. They've worked hard, paid their taxes and contributed to the economy and to society mightily over many years. When they come to the age and to the stage when they should be kicking back a bit and enjoying life in the sunshine, they don't want to have economic conditions such that they can't afford to either rent or home their own home.

The coalition supported almost 60,000 first home buyers and single-parent families into homeownership through home guarantee schemes, consisting of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, the New Home Guarantee and the Family Home Guarantee, with a deposit of as little as five per cent or two per cent respectively. I commend the work that former minister Sukkar did in this regard. We protected the residential construction industry, with more than 137,000 HomeBuilder applications, generating $120 billion of economic activity. It was so important getting people back on the tools at a time when COVID-19 was having such a disastrous effect on the economy generally. Despite that, we then saw the supply chain difficulties that have led to Metricon and others having such difficulties.

We provided $2.9 billion of low-cost loans to community housing providers, to support 15,000 social and affordable dwellings. This saved $470 million in interest payments, to be reinvested in more affordable housing. There's a lot of criticism, often, of the federal tier of government about housing. We play our part. All too often in this day and age, too much is expected of the Commonwealth to do the heavy lift when it comes to any area of endeavour in the economy, in society. The states sometimes get a free ride in this regard. Housing is one of those things—affordable housing, community housing, social housing. All too often what once was the remit of state governments becomes a burden that we need to carry. I'm not saying 'we' as the coalition; I'm saying 'we' as a level of government. State governments can do more of the heavy lift, I feel, in regard to housing, just as local governments can certainly do more in the area of opening up new subdivisions. The trickle-out effect of subdivisions in local government areas also has a great impact on young people trying to get into their first home and on older people.

We heard the member for Groom tell us about suburbs which 30 years ago were flourishing new-family suburbs. The people have stayed and their children have grown up, become adults and left to seek out their own lives. What happens then, as he so eloquently described, is that the schools find it difficult to have the numbers in those suburbs. I know these sorts of areas in my home town. Turvey Park and Mount Austin, to the south of the central business district of Wagga, are two suburbs like the suburbs that the member for Groom described in his home city of Toowoomba. You can see it also reflected in the football results. Once upon a time these suburbs had flourishing new football clubs which did so well, and now they often find it difficult to recruit players, because the players are coming from the newer suburbs in town, where the younger people are coming through, young adolescents who are seeking sport and seeking adventure.

Whilst in government, we also unlocked 6,900 social, affordable and market dwellings through our $1 billion infrastructure facility to make housing supply more responsive and demand-driven. We established the First Home Super Saver Scheme, helping 27,600 first home buyers accelerate their deposit savings through super. We did a lot in this space.

As I say, we support this bill before the House. We support these amendments. The bill amends the Social Security Act 1991 and the Veterans' Entitlements Act 1986 to support pensioners or other eligible income support recipients during the sale and purchase of a new home. It does this by extending the existing assets test exemption for principal home sale proceeds which a person intends to use to purchase a new principal home from 12 to 24 months, as well as by applying only the lower below threshold deeming rate to these asset-test-exempt principal home sale proceeds when calculating deemed income. It's important that this will help older Australians and veterans. Anything that we can do to support pensioners and veterans in finding rental properties, in finding homes, and to incentivise them to downsize from the homes that they own has to be encouraged.

As a good and practical opposition, we support good and practical measures. When we were in government, those opposite, now in government, all too often found fault with everything we did—just to be difficult, just to be flies in the ointment, just to make it look to the Australian public as though we were terrible as a government. Yet, as I described so accurately, we took all those measures to put people into their first homes, to help pensioners, to support veterans. There was the work that we did in infrastructure, the work that we did in the regions to help the economy of the regions, where often the receipts to the Australian tax office are far in excess of the support that those regions get by way of funding. All that's about to come unstuck, I think, in the October fiscal report, the budget that the Treasurer, the member for Rankin, is about to bring down. It is a concern. But we supported all of those areas I mentioned—pensioners, veterans, regions—and we will continue to do it. If the government comes forward with practical ideas, sensible ideas, proactive ideas, productive ideas, we will support them, unlike those opposite when they were in opposition. Everything that we did, they tried to stymie. Everything that we did, they tried to provide a roadblock. Everything that we did, they put parameters up to argue the case against it.

Currently, an income support recipient's principal home is exempt from the social security assets test. This bill extends the existing assets test exemption for principal home sale proceeds, when a person intends to use those proceeds to purchase a new principal home, from a year to two years. We support this. The value of home sale proceeds is subject to deeming provisions. If proceeds were placed in a savings account or in other financial investments, they would generate returns which a person could use to support themselves. We want more people in homes. We want more people with the opportunity to be their best selves. That is why, as a constructive opposition, we do support this bill. We do support these measures. We want to see Australians get ahead. We want to see Australians with a roof over their heads. We want to see pensioners with the very best ability to use the finances that they've built up, their nest eggs that they value and that they need for the rest of their lives.

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