Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will not be supporting the amendments that the Senate has requested to this bill, because this bill seeks to put into place what is a cynical ploy directed at the Australian people, which, as the shadow minister for housing has so articulately pointed out on many occasions around the country in a whole range of forums, will not deliver the promised benefits. When you consider the basis on which the Labor Party, when in opposition, dreamt up this policy, it's pretty clear that they started by saying: 'How can we have a really big number that we can roll out anytime we're asked about housing? How about 10 billion? That's a great number. That's a big number.'

The problem is that, despite the way that Labor parliamentarians repeatedly refer to a '$10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund' in media interviews, they're not going to spend $10 million—or anything like it—on housing. It's a cynical exercise in coming up with a big number and being able to quote the big number repeatedly. Once you dig into the details of this policy, it becomes clear that it is nothing like the impression that the Labor Party is seeking to create in the minds of the Australian people. What is being spent is not $10 billion; it's the returns earned—if earned—in certain circumstances.

Let's remind ourselves that this is money which is being borrowed by the Commonwealth under the careful economic management of the present government. In fact, it's very far from careful; it's highly irresponsible. What they've decided to do is to borrow $10 billion and go and punt it on the stock market. That's the plan. They're going to borrow $10 billion and punt it on the Stock Exchange.

As the shadow minister for housing has pointed out on a number of occasions, if that had been done last year, how much money would have been available to spend on housing under this ripper scheme? It would have been zero. What we don't actually know is whether the losses to the scheme first have to be recouped before any earnings can be spent in years to come. If that were a requirement—and, in any business-like arrangement, that would be the requirement—then we'd be waiting even longer before this ill-conceived scheme made any impact at all on the provision of housing for Australians.

What we also know is that under these arrangements you can have no certainty each year about how much money is actually going to be available, how much money is going to be earned, because that will depend upon the vagaries of market returns. So, when it is repeatedly claimed by this minister that this will produce a reliable, dependable stream of earnings out of which the construction of housing can be funded, that is entirely the opposite of the truth. It will not be clear, from year to year, how much money will be available. On the contrary, it will depend entirely on the vagaries of market returns, so the downstream consequences for the provision of housing will be that there will be a lack of certainty when it comes to the amount of money that can be provided to community housing providers, to state governments or to others who are promised funding under these arrangements.

This is a deeply ill-conceived scheme. It is the kind of thing you come up with when you want to have some talking points about housing, when you want to be able to throw around a big number, when you want to be able to pretend that you have a solution to the issue and when you want to be able to say something to people who point out that the number of new housing starts under this government has collapsed. What you're looking for is a distraction, because it's very inconvenient to have to respond to the truth, which is that new housing starts under this government are collapsing. We have rarely seen housing policy more badly administered than under this minister and this government. For this reason, the coalition will be opposing these amendments.

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