Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It should come as no surprise that I also want to speak opposing these amendments to the government's Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 and related bills which are coming back from the Senate. This is not $10 billion that is going into housing. It sounded great during the election and it sounded great for their first few months, but these amendments and the minister speaking on these amendments today show yet again that the Labor government has no idea how to address housing affordability and the shortage of housing within this country. This is not $10 billion going into housing. This is $10 billion that you are borrowing, and then you're hoping—relying on the vagaries of market returns—that you obtain a return that is greater than the amount that you will have to pay out. You'll have to pay fund administrators. There is no guarantee this is going to build one single house. This is lazy and irresponsible economics. It's lazy and irresponsible policymaking. It's lazy and irresponsible drafting of legislation. Initially, this was so bad that not even your friends in the Greens could support it, but now, after they've extracted $3 billion more from you, it has come back from the Senate.

But this is not a bill to house Australians. This is a bill to establish a fund and a bill brought about by massive government borrowing. You've caved to the Greens and put forward some amendments, which simply involve more spending. When we looked at where some of that additional money was going to be spent, at last we were hearing that there was going to be some attempt to actually address the shortage of housing in this country, which is the disconnect between many of the state and local governments in changing their planning and bringing about up-zonings and various other reforms. But underlying this is other legislation concerning the government's housing policy that simply says to the states: 'Here's $2 billion. You can spend it however you like. You don't have to tell us where you're going to build the houses. You don't have to tell us what the projects are going to be. Here is $2 billion—no strings attached.'

This is yet again irresponsible spending by a Labor government. This is simply a way that you could ensure that this funding was not shown on the balance sheets. This is just a lazy attempt to try to address what is a massive crisis in this country, and there is absolutely no talk here about what you're going to do for private home ownership and how you are going to get more Australians, particularly young Australians, into their own homes. When Australians own their own homes, the country does better. So there is no attempt here to assist private home owners. There is no attempt to assist those under 40, who are now at their lowest rates of home ownership since the end of World War II, to buy their own homes. Again, this is simply borrowing money, establishing a fund and hoping that it makes some money, but it is not going to deliver a single home.

We heard questions from the member for Riverina about where the labour is going to come from to build these homes. There has been nothing said about that. There has also been nothing said about how you're going to deal with the various state governments, particularly that one down in Victoria, who are now trying to say that you can't even have any gas appliances in a home. So we do not support these amendments, and we do not support this bill in general.

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