Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to discuss the three bills to be debated together: the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. The coalition will be supporting the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill and the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill, with amendment. The coalition will also be supporting the accompanying Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill once schedule 4 is removed.

Yesterday, in question time, the minister said there was a decade of little action from the coalition. I would now like to spend some time correcting that statement from the minister. During the coalition's last three years in government, our housing policy supported more than 300,000 Australians with the purchase of a home. The coalition supported more than 21,000 social and affordable homes through the establishment of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation, which due to this legislation is soon to be renamed Housing Australia. Imitation genuinely is the greatest form of flattery.

In particular, under the coalition, first home buyers reached their highest level for nearly 15 years, with the number of first home buyers rising from approximately 100,000 when we came to office to nearly 180,000 in our last full financial year in government.

The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation was established to operate a $1 billion perpetual facility for financing critical housing related infrastructure to speed up the supply of new housing through the provision of loans and grants and the making of investments and there was the Affordable Housing Bonding Aggregator, providing cheaper and long-term finance to registered community housing providers. The NHFIC has been a landmark coalition achievement, and since its creation, it has delivered $2.9 billion of low-cost loans to community housing providers to support 15,000 social and affordable dwellings, saving $470 million in interest payments to be reinvested in more affordable housing.

I had the opportunity as the member for Casey to visit a house that had been built through one of these loans and through community housing. It was amazing to talk to the recipients and the organisation and understand the impact the fund had. That's built, and it's there today, and people are living in those houses because of the former coalition government, so it's quite rich of the minister for her to stand at the dispatch box and insult all those Australians who in community housing, because the coalition delivered.

The NHFIC also unlocked 69,000 social, affordable and market dwellings through the coalition's $1 billion infrastructure facility to make housing supply more responsive to demand. It supported more than 60,000 first home buyers and single-parent families into homeownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme with a deposit of as little as five per cent or two per cent, respectively. Of these guarantees, more than half of the 60,000 guarantees issued were taken up by women, which is well above the market average. One in five guarantees issued went to essential workers, almost 35 per cent of whom were nurses and 34 per cent of whom were teachers, and 85 per cent of family home guarantees were used by single mums.

The corporation protected the residential construction industry with more than 137,000 HomeBuilder applications, generating $120 billion of economic activity. We established the First Home Super Saver Scheme, helping 27,600 first home buyers accelerate their deposit savings through super. I would definitely not call that insignificant. After spending time, with those who have benefited from the schemes, I know there are people behind these numbers.

The government will argue and has argued that the Housing Australia Future Fund will fund and facilitate the building and supply of social and affordable housing, as well as support acute housing needs for Indigenous communities, vulnerable women, children and veterans. The government says it will include 20,000 social housing properties and 10,000 affordable homes for frontline workers over the first five years. When the Prime Minister delivered his budget reply speech in 2021, he announced the fund with the annual investment return to build social and affordable housing and create thousands of jobs.

It sounds impressive, and they are worthy goals that, I have no doubt, all in this House support. Unfortunately, this bill follows in the tradition of so many government bills. It follows their very standard formula. It's a four-step process. Step 1 of this formula is an impressive-sounding name. 'Housing Australia Future Fund' sounds very impressive. Step 2 is: 'We will commit a lot of money and make it over a long time-horizon so every time we mention that number it sounds very impressive.' In this case, it is $10 billion over ten years. However, they exclude the fact that the HAFF will be capitalised with $10 billion of additional Commonwealth government borrowing. Step 3 of this important four-step process is a really crucial one for the Treasurer. You've got to place the fund in off-budget spending, because that allows them to continue the facade of responsible economic management. Step 4 of this important process is to ensure significant lack of detail in the bill so the government is not held to account when rushing this bill through parliament.

I'll go through the four steps in more detail. Step 1 is the impressive sounding name. 'Housing Australia Future Fund' sounds good. The government have simply renamed the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation to something, I'm assuming, they polled to make sure it polls better for them. I wonder how much time and money was wasted coming up with that irrelevant change. But they've got their impressive name, so they've got to commit a lot of money. Ten billion dollars sounds very impressive. Over 10 years? Not so much.

I'll move on to step 3. The government has already committed to tens of billions of dollars of extra borrowing in off-budget spending. That's going to have a direct impact on inflation, and I'll get to that in a minute. But for all this off-budget spending the money needs to be borrowed and repaid. The impact of that is going to be felt across the economy. Let's remember that the government made these promises a couple of years ago, when there were no interest rates, but we're borrowing money now. With the 10-year government bond rate approaching four per cent—and let's hope they lock it in before interest rates go up under this government—$10 billion in borrowing will cost the Commonwealth approximately $400 million per annum in interest to service the debt. So the government are going to spend $400 million a year before they even spend one dollar on social housing—all so they can stand up and talk about the $10 billion and say, 'We're taking action.' That $400 million a year in interest payments is before they spend a dollar on actually achieving an outcome. And that's not to talk about how this increased borrowing will add to inflationary pressure in the economy, leading to even higher interest rates.

There is no certainty about disbursements from the fund, because it will be wholly reliant on the financial performance of the fund's investments in equities and other financial products. For those listening at home, it's like taking out a personal loan of $20,000—you'd be paying a lot more than four per cent; I can guarantee that—and then gambling that on the stock market and hoping the market will go up and the money you make will cover your interest repayments. I'm not a financial adviser, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I'm not going to give anyone financial advice, but personally I would not gamble on the stock market going up and taking a loan out to do it. It's staggering that this government is.

As an example, if the fund had been established in the last financial year then the Commonwealth would have lost approximately $370 million in addition to the approximately $400 million in interest on the borrowings. So last year we would have had a total loss of approximately $770 million before we'd even spent a dollar on these worthy initiatives—all so the Prime Minister and others can stand up and talk about their $10 billion. It's not about delivering outcomes; it's about the politics of it.

The mechanism that dictates how the proceeds of the fund are distributed has very little oversight. We heard today, from the Minister for Communications, and yesterday about inequities in regional funding and Labor seats—the 74 per cent. So there's one thing we all know: there definitely needs to be oversight, because what Labor said during the campaign and what they're doing are completely different things.

In addition to all the issues with this off-budget spending, the fund risks driving inflation higher. It's not just me and others on this side saying that. The Australian Financial Review last week reported that the International Monetary Fund and economists have said:

Strong aggregate demand and the tight labour market warrant continued focus on fiscal consolidation in the near term …

The IMF also said—here's the kicker:

Implementation of below-the-line activity through newly created investment vehicles—

like the National Reconstruction Fund and the Housing Australia Future Fund—

should be phased appropriately, and, more broadly, a proliferation of such vehicles should be avoided.

The Treasurer and the Prime Minister love to quote the IMF in this House. They have not quoted that in this House yet. It's very easy to selectively quote from the IMF. Real leaders, real economic managers, would take the advice of the IMF and understand. The Prime Minister probably doesn't know the economic implications of it because he doesn't know the cash rate or the unemployment rate, so I'll take it that he's just not aware of the implications. Dr Chalmers should know, given he's the Treasurer—although he's a Doctor of Political Science, Mr Deputy Speaker, so again there's a risk that he knows the politics of this four-step plan but doesn't actually know the economics. If he doesn't know it is incompetence and if he does know the inflationary impacts of off-budget spending and he is committed to $45 billion, it's a disgrace, because he's abandoning the Australian people for his own political gain.

Stakeholders have also criticised the limit on annual draw-downs, the lack of funding certainty, with no performance criteria to assess the effectiveness of the grants. The bill describes a five-year review time frame. That is wholly inadequate given the uncertainty I've just outlined around the funding model. Stakeholders have requested a much shorter period but, again, we know this government talks about transparency but nothing in their actions actually show it. This is a crucial question, because by designating this fund as off-budget spending, the government are committing to a return on investment for this capital. The reality is that this is smoke and mirrors from this government. We're on to step four, and those opposite are ensuring a significant lack of detail in the bill so they're not held to account. The investment mandate has yet to be released, restricting further scrutiny in key information on the fund's capability to deliver the government's election commitments. Without an investment mandate, this legislation is essentially a shell, with all key aspects to the operations of the fund likely to be contained in the investment mandate which has not been made public. On that basis alone, the coalition will not support this bill.

There is a failure to define key terms in the bill, such as: What is definition of social housing? What is the definition of affordable housing? And what is the definition of acute housing? The lack of detail in this bill flies a red flag, and taxpayer money is too important and hard earned to waste $1, especially at a time of high inflation.

I've listened to the contributions of those from the other side. I'm sure the member from Robertson will add his contribution as well. They've all spoken really well about the importance of social housing and the impact social housing has in our communities. I commend them for that. I'm on a unity ticket with them on the importance of social housing. I will support the legislation that gets the most vulnerable into the housing they need. I will always support that but I will not support legislation that does not deliver, that does not hold this government to account, that drives up inflation and that makes the lives of everyday Australians— (Time expired)

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