Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Access to safe and secure housing is one of the most basic human rights according to the Australian Human Rights Commission. Alas, it's a right from which too many Australians are currently priced out. Over the decade to 2023, median house prices in Sydney rose from $615,000 to around $1.2 million. Housing stress is on the rise all around our country, and some 10 per cent of Australian households spent up to half their wages on housing in 2019, and that share keeps increasing. What those statistics hide is that it is mainly low- and middle-income households bearing the brunt of the housing crisis and being locked out of the market. New research by YouGov suggests that nine in 10 young Australians will never own their own home—the great Australian dream deferred, maybe for life.

This national trend has also hit the Northern Territory hard. In 2023, the median house price increased by 7.3 per cent in Darwin. As of December 2022, the NT had the equal second highest average rental price for a three-bedroom house. Darwin was the third most expensive capital to rent in Australia. Rental prices are now approaching the records set in Darwin in the 2010s. The Darwin Community Legal Service's head of tenants' advice, Matthew Gardiner, has been contacted by renters facing increases of more than $100 a week. He told the ABC that people 'basically are looking at moving interstate because there's nothing left here and they can't continue to stay here if there's nowhere to stay'. He says, 'It's really desperate times.' One of those people is local gardener Danielle Buxton, who rents in the Darwin suburb of Fannie Bay. She says:

We live week-to-week, day-to-day, really …

…   …   …

I don't want to have to move out to ... somewhere cheaper and then disconnect myself from the community and the support network that I do have here …

…   …   …

But it's going to get to the point eventually where I probably will have to do something like that—or—

worse—

move home to Melbourne.

Renting, let alone homeownership, has become extraordinarily difficult for far too many Territorians. While governments can't control market behaviour, they have an important role to play in improving housing affordability and availability.

The Help to Buy scheme is just one of the ways that our government, the Albanese government, will help tens of thousands of low- and middle-income earners be able to afford to buy a home. Under a shared equity scheme like this, the homebuyer shares the capital cost of purchasing a home with an equity partner, sharing the financial risks and benefits of that investment. This scheme will support up to 40,000 eligible Australians to purchase a home by providing an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes and up to 30 per cent for existing homes. It will be open to applications for four years, with 10,000 places available per year. The Help to Buy Bill 2023 gives Housing Australia the power to enter into these shared equity arrangements. The scheme will give those on low and middle incomes an opportunity to buy a home with at least a two per cent deposit. This will allow them to access homeownership, which is linked to short-, medium- and long-term economic security, as all members understand. The scheme will help participants overcome both the hurdle of saving for a deposit and that of servicing a mortgage. We all know that these are some of the key barriers to homeownership.

Help to Buy is designed to improve housing outcomes for Australians by reducing the upfront deposit hurdle and the ongoing mortgage repayments associated with purchasing a home. The scheme is intended to support Australians who otherwise would not be able to purchase a home. The government understands that safe and affordable housing is central to the security and, indeed, the dignity of all Australians and that many Australians are finding it hard to find an affordable place to buy. Not only have we got the difficulty of high rents and the barriers to buying but also it is often difficult to find an affordable place to buy. That's why the government has committed to an ambitious housing reform agenda, which includes establishing this Help to Buy scheme, to help more Australians into their own homes. As I said, this is just one pillar of our efforts. It is an important one though.

With the Commonwealth providing an equity contribution, scheme participants will have lower ongoing repayments from a smaller home loan. The financial risk and benefit—that is, the capital gains and losses—will be shared between the participant and the Commonwealth, proportionate to their interests. So the taxpayer also gets some capital gains, as they should, for their investment. States will be required to pass legislation for the scheme to operate in their jurisdictions. But territories, like the NT, do not need to pass legislation. Places will be allocated between participating states and territories on a per capita basis. Each state's allocation will be available to eligible residents on a 'first come, first served' basis. I know many in my electorate are keen to go.

Help to Buy aims to support Australians to achieve homeownership by enabling them to purchase moderately priced homes, with a price cap varying in each state. In the Northern Territory, the price of an eligible house will be capped at $600,000. You can build a good house for that. You can also buy a great existing property for that.

The Help to Buy scheme is one element of the government's commitment to improving housing affordability. Our plan includes the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the $3 billion Social Housing Accelerator payment and the largest increase to Commonwealth rental assistance in 30 years. In the Northern Territory, we also have a commitment to more housing for the homelands in remote areas of the Territory, which is important.

The Albanese government has also helped more than 86,000 people across Australia into home ownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme, including 13,000 through the new Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee. So I reject the idea that there is any trade-off between Help to Buy, a very innovative policy to help alleviate the housing crisis for thousands of Australians, and assistance to renters. Housing experts have signalled that short-term measures like rent caps and freezes do not work and that they would have perverse outcomes, including a reduction in the number of properties available for rent. Help to Buy is aimed at supporting Australians, including renters, to purchase a home. We also continue to work with state and territorial local governments to deliver better housing options and outcomes, including for renters.

At the national cabinet in August last year, the Commonwealth, state and territory governments committed to a better deal for renters to harmonise and strengthen renters' rights across Australia. It was needed, and we did that. This included developing a framework for genuine reasonable grounds for eviction, moving towards limiting rental increases to once a year and phasing in minimum rental standards. These changes will have a real and tangible impact on the almost one-third of Australian households who rent. The government has delivered the largest increase to Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years, as I mentioned, and that will assist low-income renters.

National cabinet agreed in August of last year to an ambitious new target to deliver 1.2 million new well-located homes over five years from 1 July this year. The Commonwealth is also providing $3 billion for the new homes bonus, a performance based payment to incentivise taken territories to undertake the reforms needed to help achieve this target.

We are tackling the housing crisis on multiple fronts. The government understands that affordable housing is critical to economic wellbeing and is committed to supporting more Australians to access housing, which is why we took the Help to Buy Scheme to the election in 2022. I know that many in my electorate, like those around the country, are very much looking forward to this becoming the law of the land. I'm very much looking forward to seeing that occur. Honourable members will understand through these measures that we are taking real action to help with the housing crisis in Australia and we will do more in the future.

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