Henry Pike (Bowman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's been a lot of discussion in the debate this afternoon and this morning on the housing crisis that many communities across parliament experience. In fact, probably every parliamentarian here represents a community that's facing a housing crisis. It's not just a crisis of affordability for people seeking to purchase a property and enter the property market as owners. It's a crisis being felt by people across the housing continuum. Many people in my electorate are unable to find a rental property. There are people who are unable to find social housing, and, of course, there are many Redlanders within my electorate who are unable to find a place to purchase and enter the market. It's one of the more challenging things that any level of government has to deal with, and in the Australian context it's an incredibly complex area of policy because the responsibilities cascade through all levels of government. This housing scheme, unfortunately, will not offer homeownership but rather home co-ownership with the government. It will not make a dent on the current housing crisis that's gripping the nation. Unfortunately, through this bill and through the lack of details that have been provided by the government, we simply haven't got the details to be able to answer many of the questions that are still left unanswered in relation to this scheme. For Australians—and there are many of these Australians within my electorate—who are desperate to buy their first home, all this bill offers is the prospect of co-ownership of a home with the federal government. That's not exactly the Australian dream.

Labor have paraded this scheme as a solution to the housing affordability crisis, but it will very much be a niche scheme, with a very small impact—certainly for the people within my electorate who are currently seeking to find a rental. I was at a rental inspection for a relative of mine. I joined her to check on a rental property within my electorate. The line-up for a two-bedroom townhouse was something to behold; it went down the block. There were families of four and six lined up desperately trying to get a roof over their head. This scheme, unfortunately, does very little to support them or support those who have broader ambitions in terms of ownership. It is very much a niche program. It's only available to a small pool; we're still not clear on what the parameters will be around the eligibility of that pool. With so many Australians feeling the bite of the cost-of-living crisis—which, unfortunately, this government has presided over, making the crisis far worse than it needs to be—this niche program, costing $5.5 billion, won't be a solution.

At the moment, the only housing policies which are supporting first home buyers are the policies that were implemented by the previous coalition government that the current government have been able to inherit. The coalition remains committed to making homeownership a reality for Australians. We want to make sure that Australians can own their own homes sooner. Our record in government reflects that, and the policies we intend to bring to the next election will demonstrate that as well. Unfortunately, what we are seeing from the current government are a lot of shiny brochures when it comes to housing policy but not much in terms of real content. This Help to Buy is certainly a niche program that fails to address any real need in the housing market.

Of course, the main crisis is not an affordability crisis per se; it's a crisis of supply. I fear that policies like this, which pump a certain element of demand, are not the true solution to housing supply in this country. Within my electorate you'd be lucky to be able to build any home under this scheme because you simply cannot find a lot of land to do so. There is increasing demand across all of South-East Queensland. Unfortunately, this is not going to touch the sides in terms of ensuring that we can get that supply up to the level that is required to meet growing demand. Increased migration levels—which was a topic of discussion in question time today—means that we are going to need more homes to house Australians and new Australians. We need to ensure that supply keeps up with demand.

Just this week, we've seen the Housing Industry Association confirm that Labor will fall at least 200,000 homes short of its 1.2 million home target. With 20,000 homes per month required to meet the 1.2 million home target and with the current monthly building data averaging at 13,000 per month, Labor will be lucky to even get 800,000 homes. So it seems to be gearing up that the ambition was 1.2 million; we're not going to get to 800,000—or we might just get to 800,000. This is, of course, far less than what was delivered during the previous government. This is 200,000 fewer homes than what was delivered during the last five full calendar years of the coalition government. Between 2017 and 2021 we saw an amazing 1,029,043 homes built across Australia. You've got to remember that was during a significant period of the pandemic response when building homes became incredibly challenging due to the restrictions.

Over the period when the government wants to build 1.2 million homes, the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation expects that 1.7 million new households will actually be formed. While the ambition is to achieve 1.2 million homes, the actual demand will be 1.7 million. So even under the ambitious target, we aren't going to get anywhere close to what's required to ensure that supply meets demand. The Labor government's goals are unambitious and dangerously so. They're not going to come anywhere near meeting these unambitious goals. Even if we meet those goals—and we know from the latest data that I've just outlined that it's now impossible—housing in Australia will be significantly less affordable at the end of this decade than it is today. With 1.5 million people expected to come to this country over the next five years, the equation is just going to go further out.

Under this government, rents have increased by 26 per cent. First home buyers and new home approvals remain at their lowest levels in more than a decade. Lending for new homes remains at a shameful 20-year low, and we've recently seen the weakest quarter of construction in more than a decade. Despite all of this, we're seeing this government continue to implement its big migration plans. When the market needs more homes, Labor instead is championing this Help to Buy scheme that does nothing to stop these shortages. In fact, it purely drives further demand.

Let's touch for a moment on some of the failures we've already seen with this scheme. It hasn't even been implemented yet, but of course it's well behind schedule. We're only debating this bill now in 2024, but the Help to Buy scheme was an election policy of the Labor government and it was meant to begin on 1 January 2023. We're already well past 1 January 2024, and this scheme won't see the light of day until well into this year at the earliest. At best, it's already 18 months late. It's not only late but it's also not well thought through. Labor's Help to Buy plan lacks the details of serious legislation. We still have no detail regarding the eligibility criteria. Importantly we don't have information on the obligations for those who are part of the scheme and whose financial circumstances change and place them outside of the scheme's parameters. That's a really important concept that we need to get the bottom of. What happens if you start engaging in this process as an eligible purchaser and then, over the course of the next 20 or 30 years—the life of the mortgage—you receive promotions, get a new job or come into some inherited income and find yourself outside the scheme's parameters? We need to understand the details of that.

We need to have details on which lenders will participate, how participants may be able to exit the scheme, how they may be able to buy the government out of their share and what the property price caps are. Will this be available for every single home in Australia, or will it be a target band? We don't have that level of detail yet. With so much unknown and uncertain about this proposal, the government are asking first home buyers to enter into this scheme and take a significant risk. The scheme also puts the Commonwealth at a financial risk if defaults on mortgages occur, due the removal of the need for lenders mortgage insurance. It's risky for homebuyers, it's risky for government and it's too risky for the coalition to support.

We've got serious concerns about the shared-equity model. The Help to Buy scheme is simply not going to work. Shared-equity schemes are not the solution to help Australians into their own homes. These schemes where the government co-owns the home of the participants can contribute to growth in house prices across the board. We've had comments in the press from Cameron Kusher, who's the Director of Economic Research at REA Group. The quote is:

If the government has a stake in the property, it has more of an incentive for prices to increase.

Potentially it could be inflationary …

These shared equity schemes also encourage Australians to take undue financial risk in a scheme that doesn't even answer all their financial questions. What happens if you need to undertake renovations or some serious upgrades to the property? I recently installed security cameras at my property, and I think it's an important investment that we've got to make, unfortunately, under the current youth crime crisis that's gripping a lot of South East Queensland. The question is: if I had to do that and the government owned half the property, would I be able to send half the invoice for that investment to the Prime Minister? Would I be able to get the government to pay for half of a driveway repair or a gutter repair? These are questions that are completely unclear at this point, but I think the answer would be, no, you'd be up to foot the bill for all the investment that you make in the property.

What happens if your wages increase and you earn a dollar more than the eligibility criteria—an important unanswered question. What happens if housing prices fall? That's an important question. Of course, we've had record growth in houses across Australia for many years, but it's not always a straight trajectory. What happens if house prices go down? What happens if financial circumstances of the participants within this scheme change?

Labor promised before the previous election that they would cut the cost of buying a home by 40 per cent for those who are part of the scheme. With a promise such as this, surely many Australians would want to be involved, yet the government has let them down through delays and a lack of detail. We've seen at the state level that these schemes don't work. The are so unwanted by Australians that places remain unfilled in the New South Wales Shared Equity Homebuyer Helper scheme, in Victoria's Homebuyer Fund, in South Australia's HomeStart Shared Equity Option and in Tasmania's MyHome shared equity program. Australians simply don't want to participate in these programs. Australians are voting with her feet and not taking part in these schemes because, unlike this government, they are making smart financial decisions for their futures. Aussies are saying no to shared equity because they don't want to give the Prime Minister and his housing minister a seat at their kitchen table. They want to make their own decisions about their own futures, not hand in hand with the government. That's what this government is trying to do. They're trying to force a niche option on Australians. Australians don't like the idea of sharing their mortgage with the housing minister; they want the Australian dream, not to be locked into the Australian nightmare. Many Australians need support and the housing market, but Aussies know that shared equity schemes are certainly not the way forward.

I want to reflect on the coalition's record on housing when compared to this rather weak option. Housing policies of the previous coalition government have supported more than 300,000 Australians with the purchase of their home in the last three years. The Coalition's home guarantee schemes have supported 60,000 first home buyers and single-parent families to own their own homes. One in three first home buyers are supported by the policies that were promoted by the previous coalition government. The coalition also helped 27,600 first home buyers accelerate their savings for their deposit towards homeownership through the First Home Super Saver Scheme. Those supported by the coalition programs do not co-own their homes with the government. The government programs help them achieve the dream of home ownership. I think there's a significant difference between what had previously been the housing policies of the federal government and what the policies now look like and the policy proposals that are being put forward by the current government.

In most of the country, we're in the midst of an ongoing housing affordability and rental crisis, and the government is offering this scheme as a solution to the housing market problems. The assumption is that there is a market failure in home building, but the failure doesn't sit with the market; it sits with the government. Home construction is not a declining industry. The Australian economy knows well how to produce new homes. We've led the world in this area and we need to have more policies that encourage supply, not just pump demand.

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