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

Reducing the national debt—there we go; we heard it from a member opposite. I frankly do not think anyone who is choosing right now between feeding their kids and paying the rent cares about reducing the national debt. What they care about it staying in their home. What they care about is not being on a public housing waitlist for 10 years.

When it comes to housing, let's talk about the housing crisis. This is the worst housing crisis Australia has faced in generations, and the most money that the government is going to spend—the biggest line items in this budget for housing—is on tax handouts for property investors: tens of billions of dollars, $175 billion over the next four years, in handouts for property investors. That's where the lion's share of government spending on housing is going. These are property investors who go to auctions and bid up the price of housing, beating out first-home buyers. Imagine how many public homes we could build if instead we were giving that money to build public housing and help out renters rather than to wealthy property investors. By the way—and let's be clear about this—over 70 per cent of the Labor caucus in this place are property investors; 65 per cent of the coalition members in this place are property investors. Remarkably, there are more Labor property investors than coalition property investors—something to reflect on. And the parliament, right now, with the support of the government, is refusing to change any of the tax handouts for those same property investors. How are members of the Australian public meant to look upon that?

Then there is the huge, apparently really exciting announcement. But before we get to this announcement: it demonstrates how few members of this government probably get it, and how few people in the Labor Party properly get how serious the rental crisis is. Renters are in a massive crisis, and this is what the government announces: an extra $9 a week for people on Commonwealth rent assistance. Never mind that two-thirds of renters do not get Commonwealth rent assistance. That is $9 a week, when rents are going up by sometimes hundreds of dollars a week. In fact, we know that the total cost of increasing Commonwealth rent assistance by that much over the next year will be about $380 million. That sounds like a little bit, until you think about the fact that the rent increases over the next year alone, based on Parliamentary Library research, will be over $5 billion. So, renters are about to cop a rent tsunami of $5 billion in rent increases, and the government is doing nothing for two-thirds of renters, and all that the one-third of renters who do get Commonwealth rent assistance will get is $9 extra a week.

I think it's worth reflecting on and talking about the human impact of the choices the government is making in refusing to freeze and cap rent increases, refusing to build enough public housing so that people aren't waiting 10 years to get into a public home, refusing to phase out the massive tax handouts for property investors. Here are just a few stories from the People's Commission into the Housing Crisis, from Everybody's Home. There are people like Lyn, who talks about how she's been homeless on and off since her marriage ended because she couldn't afford any rentals or because her landlord was selling the house. Now, at the age of 73, after a 50-year career as a nurse, she hasn't even bothered putting her name down for public housing, because they told her it would be a 10-year wait—10 years; what is she meant to do in those 10 years? Sleep in her car? By the way, if she does end up sleeping in her car, she doesn't get Commonwealth rent assistance. The way the rules are written is quite remarkable: if you do not live in a home, you don't even get Commonwealth rent assistance.

What about Joe who, at 73, has had to move six times in under 10 years. Again, landlords kept kicking him out so they could sell their houses for massive profits. By the way, when they sell their house for a massive profit, 50 per cent of that profit is tax free thanks to the Labor government. During one of those moves, Joe fell backwards down the stairs, breaking his spine and 14 ribs. Frankly, he's very fortunate to be alive.

Racheal has been homeless three times since leaving a violent relationship 13 years ago. She is now facing homelessness for the fourth time in her life. Rents in her area have doubled since COVID—doubled by hundreds and hundreds of dollars—so what good is an extra $9 a week even if she were receiving Commonwealth Rent Assistance?

Lucie is a single mother who has been forced to move repeatedly due to rent increases and evictions. I thought I'd actually quote from her story directly. This is from Lucie:

I have three jobs, one permanent part-time and two casual jobs. Every chance I get I am working only to pay bills. I have nothing left over. I am exhausted. I have had just four days off in six months.

In the last ten years my children and I have moved seven times. I have had to move as I couldn't afford the rental increases. This is not what I want for my children. I would like them to have stability a home that they know. But unfortunately there is very little help for single parents in my situation. The housing waiting list is ten years—

again, 10 years because the government refuses to build enough public housing to clear the public housing waitlist. Lucie says:

I am on all the affordable housing lists I know.

Because I am paying my rent I probably won't be considered for public housing so this again puts me in a stressful situation.

Last year I was paying $640 a week—

and then—

the landlord raised the rent at the end of the fixed term to $840—

$840! Let's just pause here for a second: this could have been stopped if the government froze rent increases. If the government froze rent increases, right now Lucie—working three jobs, raising kids, making tough choices in her life—could have stayed in her home. Those are the choices this Labor government is making. Here's Lucie again:

I told her—

that is, the real estate agent—

that I could afford—

that rent increase—

but my limit was $750. She issued me with an eviction notice. Frantically looking for a new place, I was turned down so many times. We had nowhere to go.

She finishes:

I found a place near my children's school but I was only approved when a friend stepped in to be the guarantor. We have a roof over our heads but I am struggling to pay all the basics. Sometimes I do go without to provide for my kids meaning skipping meals.

I am now six months into my lease and I am worried because I know that at the end of this term the real estate agent will raise the rent and I won't be able to afford it.

This should not happen in a wealthy country like Australia. It should not happen! It should be a great shame on this government that when they have the power to freeze and cap rent increases, instead they choose to lock in unlimited rent increases. It should be a great shame that this government, over the next four years, will be dishing out $175 billion in tax handouts to property investors but won't spend enough money to build the public housing that this country needs to ensure people like Lucie aren't forced to make choices like this.

It is genuinely remarkable that the Commonwealth Bank can record a record $10 billion profit and just announce that and the government makes no changes in the budget to make sure we take a large portion of that money back from the Commonwealth Bank because we acknowledge that it is made off the back of the misery of millions of mortgage holders and renters and put that towards building public housing. I thought Labor was meant to represent working people. Instead, in this budget there is vastly more amounts of money going to the super wealthy property investors than there are going to people like Lucie.

But of course there is something we could do about all of this. The Treasurer could have stood at the dispatch box and delivered a budget that fundamentally changed the lives of millions of people. I know people watching at home, whose faith in politics is understandably pretty low at the moment, watching the gap between the major parties shrink every single day, are starting to wonder what the point is of paying attention to this at all. The first thing I would say to them is that is part of the government's strategy. What they are trying to do is shrink the scope of what is considered possible in politics. All of a sudden, when we're in the middle of the worst cost-of-living crisis we've seen in a generation, the government isn't able to say, 'Over the next five years we could build enough public housing to clear the waitlist.' No, that's impossible. But what is possible, apparently, is giving $175 billion in tax handouts to property investors. They continue to shrink the scope of what is considered possible in politics so you switch off. That is their goal. The lower your expectations, the less they have to meet them.

It is entirely possible for the government to have announced this year that they were raising taxes on gas corporations, scrapping the stage 3 tax handouts for people earning over $200,000, making the supermarkets and the banks pay tax on their super profits and raising hundreds of billions of dollars. The government could do that. They could use that money to help coordinate a freeze and cap on rent increases so people who are one rent increase away from eviction get to stay in their homes. They could phase out the tax handouts for property investors and invest that money in not only building enough public housing so the most vulnerable in our society have a place to call home but building housing and renting and selling it at prices people can afford to anyone who needs one. European countries do that right now. That's the thing. Everything that I'm proposing right now is done around the world.

We could entirely scrap student debt, not just tinker around the edges: scrap it entirely and make university free. There are a lot of members in this place on the Labor and Liberal sides who went to university for free. They're now denying it to millions of people, who are getting smashed by unfair massive student debts. We could bring dental into Medicare. We could bring mental health into Medicare. We could give people the things they need to get on and live a good life. Instead, this government is dishing out hundreds of billions of dollars in tax handouts and benefits to billionaires and big corporations.

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