Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

These housing bills are an important part—key planks, if you like—of implementing the government's election commitments in relation to housing. But the context is important. There's no point pretending otherwise. There's a housing crisis across the country, and the housing crisis is a human crisis. There are untold thousands of Australians struggling to get a place to live, whether that's renting, buying or even emergency accommodation for over 100,000 Australians. This is affecting people of all ages in every part of the country—and I do acknowledge what the member for Indi has said, rightly, around regional Australia—in particular, First Nations communities, women fleeing domestic and family violence, and one of the fastest growing groups of homeless people: older women in this country, often with no superannuation, maybe broken-down relationships and little time in the workforce. The government inherited this mess—a decade of delay and dithering.

When I was elected six and a bit years ago the previous government didn't even have a minister for housing. That's how seriously the previous Liberal government took housing. They didn't even have a Commonwealth minister for housing. They did invent one. It was like a kind of little bauble—'Look, we've got a Minister for Housing.' It was the member for Deakin—not who I would have chosen for a pretty bauble, but there you go.

They didn't do anything useful. In nearly five years there was no meeting of the housing ministers. One of the jobs of the Commonwealth housing minister is to get all of the states and territories together, because the levers sit with both the states and territories and the Commonwealth.

There is something worse than doing nothing. On the rare occasion that the previous government decided to try doing something on housing they actually made the problem worse. There were nice-sounding schemes after schemes. They all had fancy names—HomeBuilder and what have you. They were all about putting more cash into people's pockets, which pushed up the cost of housing. HomeBuilder, as we know, was largely an expensive renovation scheme randomly enriching people who were already planning to do renovations, including bathroom renovations—'I'll have some better quality taps.' It wasn't a serious housing program. It just pushed up the cost of housing.

The government didn't make this mess, but we recognise and accept responsibility to intervene and grapple with it. As I said, this is a federation. We have the Commonwealth and the states and territories. It is fundamentally impossible to make any serious impact on the housing market—whether that's growing supply or making housing more affordable—if you don't work together, because the hard reality in our Constitution is that it's state governments, and under them local governments, that have many of the levers in relation to supply: planning and building approvals, zoning in particular and bringing on new supply. They have a responsibility to manage the social and public housing stock, and indeed to fund that. The Commonwealth has many of the demand levers, including obviously migration over time, taxation arrangements and so on. They are the facts of life. You can't deal with this stuff unless you get the states and territories together. I commend the Minister for Housing and the Minister for Homelessness, the member for Franklin, on her work. Now that adult government is back we actually get everyone around the table and start dealing with problems.

I know this stuff is lost on the Liberals. I occasionally talk about my gold medal for policy stupidity. The Assistant Treasurer there at the table would know the winner of that is the super-for-housing idea. It was pioneered by the former member for Goldstein. What happened to him? He's no longer here, is he? He was running around with this ridiculous idea. We didn't think anybody would seriously adopt it. Mathias Cormann and Josh Frydenberg both said: 'No. It's a dumb idea to let people raid their superannuation to buy houses. If you understand supply and demand, you know what that would do. If you put more cash in people's pockets, it pushes up the cost of housing.'

This is the reality we've inherited—neanderthal-like policies, which the Leader of the Opposition recommitted to last year in his budget reply speech. Their policy to make housing more affordable is to make it more expensive. If you go to an auction and you're bidding against people and you've your superannuation in your pocket, what's going to happen? You're just going to push up the bidding, so you may as well just give your superannuation to the guy selling the house. That's the reality.

These bills before us are a key election commitment. The supply council in essence is a role that the Commonwealth can take—if you like, the convening power of the Commonwealth to get the states and territories together and to hold that mirror to reflect in an honest, balanced way what's happening with supply. We did have efforts on supply under the former Labor government, but of course Tony Abbott got elected and abolished them all. This time—I think sensibly—we are reinstituting this as a statutory authority to make it a lot harder should—woe betide the country—the Liberals get elected again one day. It will be harder for them to wind this back. It needs to be entrenched permanently, and this bill will do that.

In a former life, many years ago as a public servant in Victoria, I looked after metropolitan planning. I was in charge of the long-term plan for Melbourne, including land supply. We instituted then a program that is still going—the Urban Development Program. Every year the government publishes accurate, evidence based, independent, impartial forecasts about land supply in each of the major growth markets and the established councils. We also look at competition in those markets. There's no point in having lots of land zoned if you've got two or three developers who are price-fixing, effectively, by holding back the lots. Hence, often there needs to be a role—I know this will be shocking to those opposite—for a government public land developer to come in, buy land and bust up the cartels and get it on the market to get the prices down. But all of these things sit with the states and territories, hence the National Housing Supply Council is a critical Commonwealth intervention to hold that mirror back at the states.

Then there's the Housing Australia Future Fund, to deliver more social and affordable housing. There's a $10 billion investment in the fund to deliver 30,000 new social and affordable houses over five years. This is capital investment to create a revenue stream—again, foreign concepts for those opposite and, indeed, the Greens political party—which means it's sustainable. So every year there will be money flowing in, instead of what we have seen for too long, which is lumpy investments and programs that come and go. We need to make it an ordinary part of the business of government to slowly but steadily increase the supply of affordable housing. That's what the bill does. It's desperately needed. There are hundreds of thousands of people on social and affordable and public housing waiting lists across the country. They are crying out for action, and the government has a mandate for this. It was a key election promise of the government, and this bill is implementing that promise that people voted for.

But there is a threat to getting this done. The Liberals and the Greens appear to be teaming up in an unholy alliance to stop the creation of more social and affordable housing that is desperately needed, right across the country. We understand from the coalition, the 'noalition' as many have been calling them, that they would instinctively oppose progress. They've never supported social and affordable housing. They funded nothing for social and affordable housing in their last wasted decade in government. If you see a good idea, you can guarantee they would oppose it. But I am stunned by the Greens' yet again teaming up with the Liberals to block progress. I want to record my dismay at, frankly, the idiocy of the Greens political party on this issue. They are set to oppose the bill, they say. The Greens are set to oppose social and affordable housing. How do we know their position, you may well ask. It's not because they've told the government. The minister has had three meetings, at least, sitting down, talking through the bill, inviting them to contribute and inviting thoughts and feedback. But no, they came up with a set of amendments and dumped them, leaked them, to the media. That's how serious they are about impacting government policy, about making a difference.

For any Australian who thinks the Greens political party are some kind of constructive force, that we should vote Green because it might push the Labor government to be more progressive, consider the facts and have a serious look. This is the archetypal case study on how pointless and ineffectual and juvenile they are. The Greens are saying they don't want a $10 billion fund and they don't want $500 million a year in a sustainable way for affordable housing. They want grants—$5 billion a year, 10 times. That sounds nice, except there are two big problems. It's inflationary in the current environment. Can you seriously think of anything more irresponsible than throwing petrol on a fire? Throwing $5 billion a year out into the housing market. Just make up a number; that's what they do. It's all fake money in their imaginary government and their fantasy budget there in the Greens political party, frankly. That's what it is. They're never accountable; they just say stuff. But it would be highly inflationary and push up the cost of housing. They're impossible numbers in the current construction environment. Anyone trying to find a builder at the moment would know that. The more cash that governments splurge on infrastructure—goodness me, $5 billion a year from the Commonwealth would further push up the cost of housing.

The Greens are calling for rent caps. Small problem, Greens Party: the Commonwealth has no power. But that doesn't stop them; it's all about a headline. The whole point of parliament for the Greens political party seems to be to move ridiculous motions and call for things which the federal government has no power on, purely for stunts and memes on social media. That is the point. At least once a week we get a silly motion so they can force the government and the opposition to vote together and create this fiction of the old parties that we are somehow all the same. It's a business model. I've been here for six years. Week after week, that's what happens. It's a stunt.

I was interested to read TheAustralian on the weekend. It said the Greens and the coalition are working together to scuttle the $10 billion fund and the flagship housing policy—classic Greens behaviour. They don't come here to build and influence; they come to wreck. The member for Griffith, their housing spokesperson, took to Twitter on the weekend. There was a rambling statement full of, frankly, misinformation and scaremongering. He said 'A $10 billion fund represents a cut.' That is just ridiculous and untrue given the former government invested nothing. How on earth could it represent a cut? Then he said, 'The fund is a $10 billion gamble on the stock market.' That is also nonsense. It has been carefully designed with the guardians of the Future Fund, drawing on design of the Medical Research Fund, the Future Drought Fund and so on to smooth out the variations in returns so there is a steady flow of money over the next few years to construct 30,000 new social and affordable dwellings. The hypocrisy is unbelievable. One of my favourite moments in question time is when the Greens housing spokesperson gets up and asks the Prime Minister some sanctimonious question full of nonsense about affordable housing and they rightly get a whack.

I was a mayor of a council the 22 years ago. I know how hard it is with the community battles—Dai Le, the member for Fowler, you've done this—how hard it is to get residents on board for social and affordable housing. But I will stand by my record over the Greens political party any day. Whenever anyone complains on their councils, they vote no. At any opportunity, their deeds don't match their words. They vote against affordable housing, just as they're threatening to do in the parliament here in Australia. If you really care about housing, you actually have to vote yes. When I was the mayor of a council, I was criticised by the local Greens. The council owned 450 houses. We took a tough decision to vest the houses in a trust and set up an affordable housing association to leverage the balance sheet and attract funding—you know, adult council. The Greens opposed it, just as they oppose any sensible reform now that makes a difference if it upsets their ability to get a silly meme up on social media.

Two months ago, if we go with the theme of hypocrisy, the member for Melbourne, Dr Bandt, the Leader of the Greens, sent a heartfelt message to supporters asking them to think about housing and homelessness and those struggling to pay the rent over Christmas. I have a copy. Right in the middle of this lovely email the Greens political party sent to their supporters, he said, 'If you really care about the homeless at this difficult time of year, maybe you'd like to make a donation to the Greens Party by flicking the orange button'. We're not here to use this as a fundraising opportunity. Labor members don't see the parliament as an opportunity for stunts and memes. I noticed not one member of the Greens Party in the House has joined the parliamentary committee, not one of them. They are not here to do serious policy work. They don't try and influence colleagues. None of them have ever knocked on my door to talk about an issue. The point of parliament for the Greens is stunts and memes, like this is one big never ending episode of student politics. I say to them: stop the opposition, stop the stunts, don't scuttle the legislation in the Senate and vote for the fund. Without 30,000 new dwellings, the consequences for people right across Australia would be horrendous. They're fighting against the millions of people this bill will help, people fleeing domestic violence, people who fought for our country—veterans—First Nations Australians who live in remote communities, and people across the country in the cities and the regions who need a home.

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