Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The government are trying to pull the wool over your eyes and crush your hope that they are capable of doing anything real or substantial to tackle the housing crisis. What do we make of a parliament and a government in 2024—with millions of people struggling to pay the rent or struggling to pay their mortgages, giving up on ever being able to buy a home—when the one piece of housing legislation that the government brings to this parliament, the Help to Buy Bill 2023, is going to screw over 99.8 per cent of renters? They're going to set up a sick lottery. If you're a renter watching at home right now and you're thinking, 'Oh, I'd love to be able to buy a home,' guess what? The government's only solution this year is one where you spin a wheel and, 99.8 per cent of the time, you lose. The gall of this government to get up and say that it cares about people suffering at the moment and about people struggling to pay their rent, when 75 per cent of the members of this government own investment properties! It's quite incredible. They are also supporting massive tax handouts for property investors that are denying millions of renters the chance ever to buy a home.

One of the remarkable things we heard from the housing minister, which she said repeatedly, was: 'Our ambitious housing reform agenda is working across the board.' Tell that to the renters right now who are one rent increase away from eviction. Rents, by the way, are increasing at almost double the rate of wages. Tell that to the pensioner who emailed our office and said: 'I just copped two $50-a-week increases, six months apart, and now I'm on $100 a week. That's what I'm trying to survive on now, after rent.' Tell them that the housing agenda is working across the board. Again, the housing minister says, 'Our ambitious housing reform agenda is working across the board.' Tell that to the single mum I doorknocked over the weekend, who has copped another massive rent increase. She said to me, 'I'm skipping meals at the moment because I can't afford the rent and I really want to be able to afford my baby's nappy rash cream.'

This is such a wealthy country, but it's so clear that the government wants to crush people's expectations that it's capable of doing anything other than tinkering around the edges. I'll tell you what those opposite are capable of doing. They are capable of dishing out $39 billion a year in tax handouts for property investors. They are capable of giving tax handouts to property developers to build to rent. I'll tell you about the latest build-to-rent project that the government supports down in Melbourne: one-third of the tenants were evicted by the private property developer, and the apartments were re-advertised with jacked up rents.

Can anyone guess who this government appointed to the head of its National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, the body that's meant to advise the government on dealing with the housing crisis? It's the outgoing CEO of Mirvac, one of the largest property developers in this country. Let's talk about Mirvac for a moment. They also did a build-to-rent project. They advertised it in Sydney with rents that were 20 per cent above market rent.

I'll tell you who the government's solution to the housing crisis is being applauded by. The Property Council—the head of the property developers in Australia—are really happy with the government's response. The banks are really happy with the government's response. The minister says, 'This ambitious housing reform agenda is working across the board.' I bet who it's really working for right now is the Commonwealth Bank, who just reported a record $10 billion profit. It is working for property developers, who get extra handouts from the government. It is working for the 75 per cent of Labor members over there who are property investors, who benefit from the massive tax handouts that property investors get, which are driving up house prices in this country and screwing over millions of people.

Let's be very clear: we just had a Labor member in this place talking about how, post World War II, there was a really big improvement in housing affordability. There were three things happening then that this government could do right now. They have the power to do it, and if they tell you they don't they are lying to you. Firstly, cap and freeze rent increases. Right now, rents are increasing at close to double the rate of wages. The only way to stop that right now and give people relief is by putting a cap and a freeze on rent increases.

Secondly, we could phase out the massive tax handouts for property investors. This is what those tax handouts mean. You go to an auction. You've been saving for years. You've been making sacrifices and giving up meals just to save up enough for a deposit. You go to the auction, and there's a property investor there, with thousands of dollars of tax handouts from this Labor government in their pocket. They bid up the price of the house and you get screwed. I speak to wealthy parents in my electorate who say, 'My kid will never be able to buy a home.'

Finally, if they phased out those tax handouts for property investors, they could spend billions of dollars building public housing. Do you know how many public homes this country could build if we phased out those massive tax handouts? Half a million homes. That would come close to ending the shortfall of public housing in this country. Think about the millions of lives that we could change right now in this place if this government had the guts to stand up to the banks, the property developers and the massive property investors, who are the main beneficiaries of this broken housing system.

Let's talk about this Help to Buy scheme that the government loves to talk about. You'll notice that they say, 'This is a scheme that's going to help people to buy a house.' They conveniently always forget to mention that it will only help 0.2 per cent of renters every year. For the other 99.8 per cent of renters, it will drive up the cost of housing. Don't ask the Greens, though. Here are two different senior economists—two radical lefties, by the way. One is Saul Eslake, former ANZ chief economist and notable radical leftie. Commenting on the New South Wales shared-equity scheme, he said, 'Anything that allows first home buyers to pay more for housing than they otherwise would will result in higher house prices and, as a result, lower homeownership rates.' Another radical lefty, AMP chief economist Shane Oliver, echoed this, arguing that bringing forward demand for housing risks worsening the crisis. The Prime Minister said, 'The New South Wales shared equity scheme is working really well.' Well, last year there were 3,000 places in that shared equity scheme. Can anyone take a guess at how many people took advantage of it? One hundred and seventy-two. That is a 95 per cent fail rate. It's almost comical. It would be comical if it were not for the fact that this government has the power to lift millions of people out of rental and housing stress and is instead lying to people. They get up and they say, 'We're about caring about people being able to afford a home,' but they absolutely know that this scheme will not lift the millions of people who are in desperate need of help right now out of housing and rental stress.

Over the last 10 years, house prices in Australia have doubled. On average, every year after these massive tax handouts for property investors were introduced by John Howard—a John Howard policy, by the way, that now the Labor Party supports; when people say they can't tell the difference between the Labor Party and the Liberal Party these days, God only knows why—house prices on average have gone up three times faster than wages every single year. Now we have a situation where people are telling us, 'We can't afford the rent,' and the government say, 'We're going to lock in unlimited rent increases.' We have a situation where people are saying, 'I can't afford a home,' and the government are introducing a bill to drive up house prices even faster. People are saying, 'I'm waiting 10 years to get into a public home,' and the government are saying, 'No more money for public housing.' They wonder why people are upset and frustrated.

I think members of this government are missing a beat. I don't think they understand how angry, disappointed and frustrated people are right now. The only asset this government has is that people have low expectations about what politics can achieve. That is why I think the government repeatedly comes out and says: 'No, we can't do that. No, we can't change those tax handouts, even though they were only introduced by Howard just after 2000 with the capital gains tax discount.' They will come out and say, 'No, we can't build any more public housing,' even though housing construction starts right now are at a 10-year low. This is what's remarkable about the government.

The government will say, 'There are not construction materials or workers to build any more public housing,' even though there are a lot of materials and workers sitting idle because they have overseen a housing system that, when they talk about supply, has reached a 10-year low. We could put that construction material and those workers to work building thousands and thousands of new public homes, which could be built, by the way, with money we save from no longer giving massive property investors huge tax handouts. But the government say, 'No, we're not going to be able to do that.' This is despite the fact that, as they know, post World War II was the only time in Australian history where we saw big increases in home ownership, when we capped and froze rents. They also know that they could coordinate that through national cabinet, and yet they refuse. The reasons they refuse are—because, really, when it comes down to it, who does this government act in the interests of?—property investors, the banks and property developers. How do you know that they do that? Don't look at what they say; look at what they do: unlimited rent increases, refusing to build any more public housing, protecting tax handouts for massive property investors and trying to ram a bill through this House, a bill which even conservative economists say will drive up the price of housing. It's genuinely remarkable.

What's really frustrating is one of the lies they try to tell: 'Give us some time'—

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