Karen Andrews (McPherson, Liberal Party, Minister for Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I present a revised explanatory memorandum to this bill and move:

That this bill be now read a second time.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019 (the bill) contributes to the Australian government's comprehensive plan to address housing affordability, announced in the 2017-18 budget. The bill makes amendments to the National Rental Affordability Scheme Act 2008 (NRAS Act), to streamline and simplify the administration of the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) until it ceases operation in 2026-27.

On 19 October 2017, the Senate referred the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017, which included the amendments to the NRAS Act contained in this bill, to the Community Affairs Legislation Committee, the committee, for inquiry and report. The committee recommended that the housing affordability bill be passed.

National Rental Affordability Scheme

Amendments to the NRAS Act

The government's amendments clarify and expand the power to make regulations under the NRAS Act, by removing any doubt that the NRAS Regulations can provide for protections and rights for investors in NRAS, and for the tenants of NRAS rental properties. The amendments will allow the making of regulations that will require approved participants to pass on annual state and territory contributions to investors within a reasonable time.

The amendments also clarify and expand the power to make regulations about the transfer of allocations from one rental property to another rental property, the imposition of additional conditions and changing conditions on existing allocations, and the transfer of allocations to another approved participant.

The NRAS Act requires the NRAS Regulations to prescribe that the rent charged for an approved rental dwelling must be at least 20 per cent less than the market rent 'at all times during the year'. The expression 'at all times during the year' has been subject to different interpretations over the years, including a view that the requirement is satisfied if the rent charged over the course of a year is at least 20 per cent less than the market rent. This amendment confirms the intended interpretation, which is that each time rent is charged, it must be at least 20 per cent less than the market rent. There may be circumstances where a specific charge for rent is higher than permitted because of a mistake.

The amendments to the NRAS Act will permit the NRAS Regulations to provide for the secretary of the Department of Social Services to have a power of dispensation for a breach of the requirement in a specific instance, where it is established that the excessive charge for rent occurred because of inadvertence and the tenant has been fully compensated for the error.

The NRAS Act requires the NRAS Regulations to prescribe maximum vacancy periods for approved rental dwellings. The prescriptive nature of the current vacancy provisions has been amended to allow greater flexibility for the NRAS Regulations to prescribe permitted vacancy periods. This flexibility will assist in the future administration of NRAS should changes be required on how the maximum vacancy periods are to operate.

The Commonwealth relies on a number of heads of legislative power under the Constitution to support the NRAS Act. The amendments set out these constitutional powers and give the NRAS Act operation within the scope of these powers.

While most of the approved participants in NRAS behave appropriately in relation to investors, a small number of approved participants do not treat investors fairly. Examples of poor behaviour include delays in passing on incentives to investors, and the provision of misleading communications to investors.

The amendments will allow the secretary of the Department of Social Services to accept and then, if necessary, enforce a voluntary enforceable undertaking from an approved participant. This compliance tool will assist the Department of Social Services to modify the behaviour of some approved participants. In some cases, accepting an enforceable undertaking may be a more appropriate compliance response than transferring or revoking an allocation.

There will be no further new allocations in NRAS. The amendments to the NRAS Act will allow the NRAS Regulations to be simplified by the removal of provisions relating to the issue of new allocations.

The government is committed to reducing rental costs for low- and moderate-income households. This bill lays the foundation for improving the NRAS legislative framework to support the efficient administration of NRAS.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Labor supports this bill, the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019. The National Rental Affordability Scheme was set up by Labor when we were in government in 2008. Investors under the scheme are provided with 10-year contracts, through both state and federal funding, and rent is provided at at least 20 per cent below market rates. When the Abbott government came to power in 2013, they cut all new funding for the scheme and they capped it at 38,000 dwellings. They also did not replace this scheme with anything else.

NRAS, at the moment, is still helping a lot of people with the cost of housing, but the number of people that benefit from this scheme is now reducing every year. This year, around 1,141 families across Australia will drop out of the scheme. Next year, another 1,368 families or individuals will see their rent rise as they drop out of the scheme. In 2021, it will be 3,059 families that will drop out of the scheme, and in 2022 that will almost double again—6,362 Australian families that are currently benefiting from this scheme will see their rents rise by up to, and in some circumstances more than, 20 per cent. By 2026, there won't be any Australians left benefiting from the National Rental Affordability Scheme.

Until then, though, the scheme will keep operating, and it's important that it operate as well as it possibly can. That's the intention behind this legislation. We think that it will help to do that. We believe that it will make some important changes to the operation of the existing National Rental Affordability Scheme, and that's why Labor is happy to support it. In particular, it improves protections for tenants and investors. It ensures that any payments to investors are done in a timely manner to ensure NRAS stock is not withdrawn from the scheme. It also removes ambiguity in relation to the calculation of below-market rents in any one year and provides flexibility in the way maximum periods of vacancy are prescribed.

The bill was examined by a parliamentary committee. That occurred before the election, in the last parliament, and we're very grateful that the government has agreed to incorporate some of the recommendations that Labor members made in that parliamentary inquiry. As part of the process of assessing this legislation, Labor has consulted with stakeholders including the National Affordable Housing Providers, the National Affordable Housing Consortium and the Community Housing Industry Association. They support this legislation. The next step, once this legislation is passed by the parliament, is the development of regulations that will help implement it. I ask that the government, in developing those regulations, consult with those organisations that support this legislation and are keen to see it implemented effectively. Those regulations will be very important. We always benefit, in the development of laws in this place and of regulations that help implement them, by making sure that we're consulting with the stakeholders who use this legislation and rely upon it.

This bill was debated by the Senate back in July. As part of that process, we proposed a number of amendments to the bill, principally to ensure that the departmental secretary retains the ability to make new allocations under the National Rental Affordability Scheme. The legislation, as presented to the parliament, proposed to remove that power from the departmental secretary. We argued—and I'm glad that the government has agreed—that that power should be retained. What that means is that, if this government or a future government wanted to extend NRAS funding, they'd be able to do so. The government has made it clear that they've got no intention of doing that, and that's their decision. But, in our mind, there is no need—and I'm glad the government has agreed—to take this power away. Therefore we will move the amendment. As I said, the government agreed to that amendment, and we thank them for it.

But there are bigger issues here than just what the government is trying to address in this legislation. Australia has a housing crisis. Homeownership rates are now at their lowest levels in 50 years, rental stress is through the roof, and more Australians are now homeless than ever before. These are big issues that this place and that this government need to confront, and it's not doing it. That's why, as part of this debate, I move:

That all words after "That" be omitted with a view to substituting the following words:

"whilst not declining to give the bill a second reading, the House:

(1) notes that this Liberal Government slashed the original cap of 50,000 dwellings in the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) to 38,000; and

(2) also notes that as a result of the Government's continuing inaction to meaningfully address housing affordability:

  (a) the percentage of Australians who own their own home has dropped to its lowest level since Robert Menzies was Prime Minister back in the 1960s;

  (b) the number of Australians behind in their mortgage payments today is at its greatest level since the global financial crisis;

  (c) a report released last month by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed that in 2017-18 over 1 million low-income households were in financial housing stress and that 43.1 per cent of low income households renting in Australia are suffering rental stress; and

  (d) there are more homeless Australians than ever before".

A report that came out this year from the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare shows that over the last 10 years we have lost more than 20,000 public homes. Public housing construction hasn't kept pace with population growth. People in private rental are really struggling. Rental stress is through the roof, particularly in major cities, like Sydney and Melbourne, and even in places like Hobart. Rental stress in Hobart is worse than anywhere else in the country. We have seen people really struggling to keep up with the increased cost of rent.

A recent report by the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare showed that more than 40 per cent of Australians on low incomes who rent are now in rental stress. In other words, they are paying more than 30 per cent of their available income just to keep a roof over their heads. The shutting down of the National Rental Affordability Scheme without replacing it with something else is only going to make this situation worse. As I said earlier, in the next six years 37,000 families are going to see their rent go up as a result of the closure of this scheme. That means that, on average, about 160 families in every one of the 151 electorates represented in this place are going to see their rent go up massively over the course of the next few years.

We have an economy that is really struggling at the moment. The report that came from the IMF this week predicted that economic growth in the years ahead is going to be weaker in Australia than in countries like Greece. Bills are going up but wages aren't. Interest rates are at crisis levels. When we were going through the global financial crisis a decade ago interest rates were at three per cent. They are now less than one per cent. Consumer confidence is down, business confidence is down and housing construction—the building of homes—is down, yet the government keep telling us that nothing is wrong. They try to convince us and the Australian people that everything is hunky-dory. Well, it's not. There are a lot of people who are really struggling. The best evidence of that is the struggle that people have on a daily basis to pay their mortgage and to pay their rent—to get a roof over their heads.

According to the Reserve Bank, there are now more people in Australia who are struggling to pay their mortgage and more people in Australia who are in arrears on their mortgage repayments than at any time since the global financial crisis. That should tell you that there's something wrong. That should tell us that people really are struggling and that it's not just made up. People don't stop paying their mortgage unless they're in real strife.

As I said before, people are struggling to pay their rent as well. There are now more than a million people in Australia on low incomes who are in housing stress, who are paying more than 30 per cent of their income in rent. Homelessness—the sharpest, hardest edge of all of this—is also on the rise. According to the last census, there are more people who are homeless today in Australia—who are sleeping rough, couch surfing or sleeping on a train just to keep warm—than ever before in Australia.

I will give just one example of what that means. On the weekend, Foodbank, the organisation that helps to provide food to people in need across Australia, released its latest report, and it showed that, over the last 12 months, there has been a 22 per cent increase in the number of people seeking food relief from the charities that they provide to. That's massive—in the last 12 months there's been a 22 per cent increase in the number of people seeking food from Foodbank. You don't go to a local charity and ask for food unless you're hungry and you can't afford to get it yourself. That should tell us that there's a problem here.

I mentioned housing construction as well. That's a barometer of how strong the economy is, how the economy is going—and it's going backwards as well. Building approvals for the construction of residential housing are in freefall. They've gone down by almost 22 per cent in the last year. Construction job ads are down 35 per cent from their peak just over a year ago. We've already lost 50,000 jobs in construction in the last 12 months. The government talk a lot about jobs, and so they should; there is nothing more important in the work that we do here than keeping Australians safe and keeping Australians employed. There have been 50,000 people on the tools working in the construction industry who have lost their job over the course of the last 12 months—and, if you believe UBS, who have done analysis in this area, they predict that there could be another 100,000 Australians who work in the construction sector who are going to lose their job in the next 12 months.

That's on top of all of the issues that the minister across the table is very familiar with in terms of flammable cladding and shonky building inspectors. All of that is very bad, and the minister says that's a state issue. That's typical of this government that just wants to wipe its hands of any responsibility for anything. The bottom line is that you've got an economy that is weak, an economy that's struggling—and people expect us, when we come here, to do our job, to work hard for them and to make their lives easier, not to have ministers say, 'Well, technically, according to the law, that's not my responsibility.' That shows just how out of touch this minister and this government are.

Today, the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank made a speech in Sydney. He talked about exactly what I'm talking about here: about problems in the construction sector. He said that there's a 'sizeable downturn' underway in the construction sector and that it's a drag on the economy. He said that the Reserve Bank of Australia is expecting housing investment to drop by a 'further seven per cent' next year. So it's already dropping and already costing Australia jobs, and the Reserve Bank is expecting it to drop again by seven per cent next year. He said that the 'decline could even be larger' and that that had the potential to take at least one per cent off overall GDP growth.

When the Reserve Bank is cutting interest rates to crisis levels, when economic growth is predicted to be less than Greece, when we've already also lost 50,000 jobs in the construction sector and when the Deputy Governor of the Reserve Bank comes out today and says that it's expected to get even worse and that's going to hurt economic growth, that should be ringing alarm bells in this place. It should be ringing alarm bells for this government. Instead of saying, 'That's not our responsibility,' the government should be taking action here to make sure that we turn this around. But all we get from this government is this head-in-the-sand, 'not our responsibility' approach.

The result of that approach will be that more people will struggle to keep a roof over their head; more people will struggle to pay the mortgage; more people will struggle to pay the rent; and more jobs will be lost in the construction sector. It could be very different. The Australian people expect their government to be focused on these issues. They expect the Australian government to understand how important the housing sector is to keeping the Australian economy strong. They expect the Australian government to understand how important housing is to ordinary, everyday Australians who are struggling to pay the mortgage, struggling to pay the rent or struggling just to have a roof over their heads at all. And now we've got jobs being lost in their thousands in the construction sector as the economy gets weaker. It's time for the government to act. The Australian people deserve a government that's focused on this. They don't have one at the moment.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the amendment seconded?

Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the amendment and reserve my right to speak.

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The original question was that this bill be now read a second time. To this the honourable member for Blaxland has moved as an amendment that all words after 'That' be omitted with a view to substituting other words. The question now is that the amendment be agreed to.

Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak in support of the member for Blaxland's amendment to the motion for the second reading of the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019. While Labor will support the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill, we know that this bill does not entirely tackle the challenges that we have in making sure that everyone has access to affordable housing. I believe, as a baseline, that everyone deserves access to affordable housing. It's fundamental to a fair go, the most quintessential of Labor values and Australian values. But what does that actually mean?

For me and my family, when my parents came to settle in Australia, a new country, as migrants from Egypt in the early seventies, having access to affordable housing helped them settle and gave them that baseline. Thanks to the policies of Labor governments working to ensure a fair go for all, my parents were able to raise me and my sister in a home that didn't cost them an arm and a leg, that was affordable. That's not to say that growing up in public housing as a houso was easy; it wasn't. But it did give us at least a good start in life. It gave us an opportunity and a chance to succeed like anyone else in Australia. Access to affordable homes, quality education and health care is the key to ensuring that in Australia, no matter who you are, where you've come from, your ethnic background, your class or your gender, you have an equal chance to succeed.

But the reality is that this government doesn't really care about that fair go, as it shows in its actions. This idea that everyone deserves a safe, affordable house or home is really being denied by this government, and it has no real plan to change this. If you look at my local electorate—obviously this issue is personal to me, but it's also personal to so many of the people that live in my electorate of Wills—one out of three people in Wills is a renter. That's about 25,000 people, and almost 30 per cent of them are struggling in housing that they can't afford. That's almost 7,000 people in our community that are seriously struggling. There are about 770 people in my electorate who are experiencing homelessness. The government has no plan to make housing more affordable for the people in my electorate, and it certainly has no plan to make housing more affordable for people across Australia. If you're struggling to pay your rent or your mortgage, this government has no plan for you. If you're shut out of getting into the market to buy your first property because prices are too high, this government has no plan for you. If you're someone who doesn't have a home to go to—if you're someone who's living on our streets or in your car—this government certainly has no plan for you.

Much worse than that, what's the contribution of the assistant minister for homelessness, the very person in this place trusted with the responsibility for taking action and putting policies in place to change this? He wants to 'put a positive spin on homelessness'. What an insult! Australians who are homeless don't want spin. They want a plan. They want action taken to address the issues that they face every day. But, frankly, it doesn't matter who you are; the government have nothing to offer, really, on housing. They seem perfectly content to see people paying more and more of their income for housing.

The Productivity Commission, in a report that was released last month, found that rental stress for people on lower incomes was growing. The number of low-income households experiencing this stress has actually doubled over the past 20 years. Two-thirds of low-income households spend more than 30 per cent of their income on rent, although many would be spending even more than this. This is the commonly used metric for the term 'rental stress' that we're talking about here. The report noted that, in Australia, about 170,000 households have less than $250 available each week after paying rent. So, clearly, more and more people on lower incomes are renting. This problem is not going anywhere. But the government has no solution for it and is hiding from it by putting out 'positive spin'—whatever that means.

According to the Productivity Commission, one of the reasons that more and more people on lower incomes are renting in the private market is that they can't access public housing or they can't afford to buy. As I said, 50 years ago, my parents got access to public housing. We grew up in a housing commission home. Back then, public housing stock as a percentage of total housing stock was some seven to eight per cent. Fast-forward to today: public housing stock in this country is around 4.2 per cent of total housing. We all know that our population has increased significantly since then, yet the percentage of housing that's public housing has effectively halved—if not more. Compare this to countries like Denmark, which has public housing stock of 20 per cent. France has 46 per cent in low-rent housing that's subsidised. Even the UK has had, at peak, public housing stock of almost 50 per cent.

These challenges around housing are connected, and pressure in one area means pressure in others. If you don't invest in public housing, something is going to happen elsewhere. Where is the government when it comes to these challenges? Nowhere. The bill before us in this House is a demonstration of the government's attitude towards one of our country's most pressing challenges. It makes some minor administrative amendments to the National Rental Affordability Scheme. It addresses some of the administrative concerns that tenants and investors have raised—I give credit to the government there. It addresses some of the issues around timelines of payments to the investor and the way that below-market rates are calculated, but it doesn't go much further than that.

This bill is really not about addressing the widespread challenge of rental affordability, that's for sure. If the government had had their way with this bill, they would have made sure that, if a future government wanted to continue the scheme beyond 2026, it would have required new legislation. It would have meant that, if a future government wanted to continue funding this program, they would have had to pass new legislation. We stopped that in the Senate. That is no longer part of this bill, thanks to Labor senators putting forward an amendment which passed the Senate. But that is a very small victory in the context of this government's abysmal failure on affordable housing.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme was created by the Rudd Labor government in 2008. We're proud of this program and that it helps thousands of people by enabling eligible tenants to rent private properties at 20 per cent below the market rental value, but this government has failed private renters who are struggling with rent. While this program is here to help people, Labor's original plan allowed for 50,000 new homes as part of the program. The Liberal government slashed this to 38,000 homes and has never restored it.

The government have no real interest in continuing this program beyond 2026. The government have not provided any new funding to the scheme since the Abbott government in 2014. So—worse than doing nothing—those in this government are happy to go backwards and reverse the little progress we have actually made. They will start to take people off this program this year, because they have stopped funding it. So about 1,100 people will come off the scheme this year. That's 1,100 people who will be paying 20 per cent more rent, thanks to this government's action in this place. There will be another 1,300 people in 2020 and another 3,000 people in 2021. You get the picture. It's just going to get worse. When all is said and done, this government's intent is to lower the number of affordable homes in our country. The quantum of that is going to be around 36,000.

As I said when I started my speech, my parents and I got an opportunity when we came to this country because we got access to public housing. We got access to affordable housing in a housing commission home. It was difficult. It was tough. But we were so appreciative of the fact that we were given that equality of opportunity—access to affordable housing, access to education and access to health care—so that we could achieve based on our hard work, our merit and our sweat. We didn't ask for any big favours, just a bit of a levelling of the playing field—that's all—and Labor governments provided that. They gave millions of Australians that equality of opportunity. As we debate this bill and the amendments to this bill, the actual fact is: what comes out of this bill is a reversal of that equality of opportunity. Thousands of people over the next couple of years are going to be paying more in rent as they're going to be taken off this scheme. It's not just not doing anything, or putting positive spin on the crisis in housing in this country; it's actually going backwards, and that is a crying shame.

Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I commend the previous speech from my colleague and the previous speeches that really demonstrate to me, unfortunately, again, that this is a government that doesn't understand the basics, the fundamentals, of equality of opportunity in Australia. Stable, affordable, permanent housing is the most important social determinant of health. As a paediatrician, I know how adversely affected many of my patients have been by the lack of stable, affordable housing. I have seen children with significant disability moved from house to house, area to area, because they couldn't get stable housing. That impacted on not only their education but also their health and their futures.

This National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill is—as one of my heroes, Rex Mossop, who was a rugby league and rugby union player and broadcaster from many years ago, would say—like deja vu all over again. This government continues to attack the most vulnerable. It is a tragedy and it is something that will affect some of the most vulnerable people in our communities for the rest of their lives. This government doesn't understand the real lack of opportunity that this will cause.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill largely replicates proposals in schedule 3 to the Social Services Legislation Amendment (Housing Affordability) Bill 2017. That earlier bill was introduced by the Turnbull government on 14 September 2017 but, although considered extensively in both houses, failed to pass before the calling of the May 2019 election. So it's now over two years since this bill was originally considered. The delay is only partly explained by the inquiry undertaken by the Senate Standing Committee on Community Affairs which reported in December 2017. The government did not respond to that report until 17 October 2018, about a year afterwards, and the bill and government sponsored amendments to it were debated and passed by the House on 28 November 2018.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme seeks to encourage large-scale private investment in housing by offering accredited institutional investors an incentive to increase the supply of affordable rental housing while reducing by around 20 per cent the rental costs to low- and middle-income households. The scheme was introduced by federal Labor in 2008 by the then housing minister, the member for Sydney, in cooperation with the states and territories. The scheme was designed to bring on up to 50,000 new rental properties across Australia. That target figure was never reached, due to the Abbott government's infamous—and I underline 'infamous'—2014 budget cuts which effectively capped the number of supported rentals at 38,000. That infamous budget, of course, proposed cuts to a whole range of services to the most vulnerable in our community, including health services, and was, by common consent, the worst budget in the last 20 years.

Since then, the number of allocations has been steadily declining, and that rate of decline will accelerate sharply during the life of this parliament. The Abbott government's 2014 cuts were opposed by virtually all stakeholders, including industry, service providers, welfare and support groups, housing groups and building groups. Even those who were critical of aspects of the scheme wanted the NRAS to continue.

The NRAS was looked at by the National Audit Office in 2015 and 2016. The ANAO recommended some administrative changes but did not propose winding up the scheme. In 2017 the Turnbull government commissioned a review of the scheme by Deloitte, but, as I understand it, the report has never been released. One has to ask why it has not been released. This is a government that's very good at marketing itself but not very good on facts, not very good on science and not very good on evidence. And the people that pay the price for that ineptitude are the most vulnerable people in our society.

As things stand, the scheme is going to finish in 2026. The present bill was amended, on Labor's initiative, in the Senate to enable a future government to continue the operation of the National Rental Affordability Scheme—should it desire to do so—beyond 2026, which is also a commonsense change, although not the wholesale change that we think is needed. It's difficult to see the harm here in leaving law on the books that simply allows the government of the day, of whatever political colour, to extend the operation of a scheme that has assisted the most vulnerable.

Before the 18 May election, Labor committed itself to retaining this scheme in one form or another—ideally in an improved form—and our position has been that it would be better to leave open the option of improving the existing scheme, using much of the current administrative and legislative architecture, than to let the scheme lapse in 2026 and have to re-establish it at a later date. For its part, Labor is not seeking to delay further the enactment of this bill in the form recently agreed to by the Senate.

Even critics of the NRAS can see that more, not less, needs to be done to improve access to affordable housing. Certainly that's obvious in my home city of Sydney. Even in the south-west of Sydney, where my electorate of Macarthur is based, housing affordability is becoming more and more of an issue, particularly for those families who have increasing instability in work and increasing cost-of-living pressures. The Grattan Institute stated in a recent paper that was critical of the scheme:

Many low-income renters are in poverty, and many more are suffering financial stress. Inequality is increasing because rising housing costs have disproportionately whittled away the income growth of poorer households. A growing number of Australians are becoming homeless.

Low-income Australians clearly need more support with housing. The question is how.

With that I wholeheartedly agree.

As a nation, we need to do a much better job of providing decent, affordable housing for all Australians. This government says it believes in home ownership and seeing more Australians in their own homes. Belief is one thing; action is another. Since the mid-1970s, coalition governments have tended to nibble around the edges of housing policy, the argument being that it's primarily a state responsibility. The coalition's approach is deeply flawed. It fails to recognise that many Commonwealth policies affect the states and territories and their ability to meet their own housing targets. Housing, nationally, would benefit from additional Commonwealth involvement and funding, and I think we all agree on this.

This bill, like the address delivered by the Governor-General on behalf of the government on 2 July, simply confirms that the re-elected Morrison government has nothing new to offer on housing. As with the Abbott and Turnbull governments, this government will do little directly to improve housing affordability and access to public and social housing, and little to make it easier for the most disadvantaged to have a stable roof over their heads. It refuses to limit the negative and market-distorting effects of its taxation policies, and it lacks a national population policy as well. Some might argue that it wants the economic benefits of high levels of immigration but refuses to bear its full share of the costs. Certainly the New South Wales state government would agree with that.

The housing policies of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments are perhaps more attuned to a time when homeownership was within reach of many single-income families earning a living wage. As the report issued by the government's own Australian Institute of Home and Welfare on 11 September this year confirms, that era is long gone. While a high proportion of our population is still well housed, we are no longer the world leaders with respect to home ownership. Increasingly, Australians are more likely to be mortgagees or renters for life. Many older people are reaching the end of their working lives with mortgages. The current reality no longer matches national homeownership aspirations past or present.

We are still a rich country, but, for all our wealth and even after 28 years of uninterrupted economic growth, around 120,000 people are homeless and many more live in housing related poverty. A disproportionate number of the homeless are young but older Australians, particularly older female Australians, are now the fastest-growing age demographic struggling to find shelter and support. About the same number of Australians now rent as own their own home outright. Around 31 per cent live in a dwelling they own outright, close to 35 per cent live in a property with a partly paid off mortgage and just over 30 per cent—and increasing—live in rental accommodation. Rates of outright ownership are in decline and it's taking longer, on average, for mortgages to be cleared. That is notwithstanding historically very low interest rates and the rise and rise in the two- or multiple-income family.

The percentage of renters is rising steadily and is not predominantly being driven by choice. Many more Australians than ever will never be able to own their own home. Younger Australians are more and more reliant on the bank of mum and dad to get a home of their own. They're the lucky ones of their generation. Many more Australians live in social or public housing, if they can find it, as both are subject to ever-lengthening waiting lists. Government programs, policies and the weight of federal government support, including massive tax expenditures, are more heavily geared to helping homebuyers than renters. That too speaks more to a bygone age when most Australians could reasonably expect to own their own home or flat outright before retirement.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare's 2019 report confirms that rental stress is most common among low-income renters and is increasing. Rental stress now affects just on half of low-income renters living in the capital cities. A short reprieve from rapidly rising house prices in the eastern state capital cities appears to be ending. Barring a recession, the often overheated and volatile housing markets of the last 20 years seem likely to return. Housing prices, having briefly declined in Sydney and Melbourne, appear to have stabilised, and prices are now on the rise again in most capital cities. The small changes made by industry regulators in mid-2017 seem to be wearing thin, as many had expected they would. If familiar patterns repeat, the pick-up in capital city house prices and residential rents will again outstrip rises in household income by a long way. Housing affordability will further decline and conveniently sited private rental accommodation, already out of reach for most low-income earners, will increasingly be beyond the means of many even middle-income earners as well.

The difficulty of finding suitable and affordable housing is often seen as mostly affecting the young. However, that is changing. A recent report on homeownership by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute found that homeownership rates were falling while mortgage debts were rising for older Australians. Consequently, the number of private renters aged 54 to 64 is rapidly increasing. It's projected to increase by over 50 per cent to 560,000 people by 2031. For those over 65, many of whom are eligible for the age pension, the increase is even more acute, with those renting expected to double in the same time to just under 600,000.

Regrettably, the federal government has become one of the main problems for housing affordability rather than an institute for finding a solution. Poorly targeted, timid and ill-judged policies have stoked record levels of private debt while soaking up Commonwealth funds that might otherwise have been used to help those in the greatest need. Concerted and coordinated action by the Commonwealth is desperately needed. Will it happen? I doubt it very much. The Governor-General's opening address to the parliament setting out the government's third-term priorities offered little comfort to those shut out of the housing market and to those in rental accommodation. The same can be said for this bill. It neither enhances access to housing nor reduces the cost of renting. Together, the bill and the Governor-General's address mainly serve to confirm that the federal coalition has done little new thinking on housing policy for the best part of the last 10 years. With this bill, the Commonwealth is, again, merely tinkering at the edges of housing policy.

There's a commitment of sorts over the next three years to spend a billion dollars to help deal with bottlenecks in the housing supply. That money—largely to address market and regulatory failings—is welcome, but it is long overdue. It deals with only a small piece of the housing puzzle. It is not within a bull's roar of the comprehensive solutions that all levels of government, acting resolutely and together, could deliver. Unfortunately, this bill does little for the most urgent need of many Australian families, and that is stable housing.

Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every Australian should have a place to call home: a place they can afford, a place they feel secure, a place that gives them shelter, decency and access to everything else that comes with their innate rights as a human being. The sad reality is that the last time we saw a substantial investment in public housing and a long-term commitment to public housing was in 2008, under the Rudd government.

I pulled out the member for Sydney's speech introducing the original national rental affordability scheme bill. The challenges that it outlined are, basically, exactly the same as what we face today—11 years on. There are many low- and moderate-income earners who are stuck in the rental market. We have a situation where rent rises—as the member for Sydney said 11 years ago—are outstripping wages and inflation. There is a poor supply of rental properties and, unfortunately, because of the 2014 cap on the National Rental Affordability Scheme by the then Abbott government, we continue to see this problem across our entire country.

I personally didn't grow up in public housing, but through natural market forces my parents were able to enter the homeownership market by purchasing a house opposite the, then still operating, Fremantle prison. That was my first family home. I note that when it comes to public housing and experience, the only person who is in public housing in this chamber is, of course, the Prime Minister. I think we really need to engage with the experiences of people who rely on these sort of schemes, to make sure that they can have enough money to pay for everything else—their food, medical expenses, education and the rest.

The good thing about this bill is that it does address investor and tenant concerns with the operation of the National Rental Affordability Scheme. Ensuring that investors receive payments in a timely manner is something that Labor supports. It stops stock being withdrawn from the scheme, which then leads to increases in rent for people who may seek to stay in that particular property. It removes ambiguity in terms of the calculation for below-market rents. It is unfortunate when you have a debate between a tenant and a landlord about whether or not something is, indeed, below market. This bill will address that.

It's, proudly, a Labor program that we're talking about today. As I said before, it's one of the largest single investments in affordable housing that we've seen in recent times. Implemented in 2008, the scheme aims to have properties at 20 per cent below market rates.

The scheme initially provided for some 50,000 homes with a view that, in 2012, you would be able to expand that to another 50,000 homes once the scheme had proved successful. The fact we're amending the scheme shows that, in many ways, it has been successful—but it is only one part of that solution to provide affordable housing for Australian families.

The slash-and-burn budget of 2014 did cap the number of dwellings at 38,000. It means that we have fewer affordable properties for low-income families than we should in this country. It was criticised, and I pay tribute to the business groups that actually criticised that decision of the Abbott government. The budget of 2014 had many things wrong with it, but it was good to see people's increasing realisation about this issue. That included the Property Council and others, who have been active in my electorate in recent days and, indeed, today, advocating for more public housing.

We know that there's a need. What we have seen from the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute shows that, from 2011 to 2016, government expenditure on social housing decreased some seven per cent. We know that the amount of available stock is decreasing, not increasing. Again, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute estimates that there is a deficit of some 200,000 affordable dwellings across the Australian housing market. If we wanted just to catch up, then between now and 2026 we would need to be adding an additional 17,000 homes across the nation just to deal with that deficit. So this is an important bill. It makes sure that we get a little bit down that track, but it doesn't really address those big structural challenges we have in terms of making sure that every Australian has somewhere to call home.

The sector is not just confined, of course, to the National Rental Affordability Scheme. There are some 812,000 tenants in some 396,000 households in the social housing sector across Australia. When you look at what those particular households are experiencing, the estimate is that between four and 24 per cent of those dwellings are considered overcrowded—that is, the houses are not appropriate for the people who are living in them. At the same time, between seven and 26 per cent of those houses are underutilised—that is, there is too much space for the people who are in them. Our social housing system across the states and the Commonwealth doesn't work for so many people who are relying on it.

Then you get to the people who don't even have access to that system. On census night in 2016, the estimation was that there were some 9,000 people in Western Australia who were homeless—did not have somewhere to call home, did not have a mortgage, did not have even a lease for a rental property. That night, across the country, some 116,000 Australians did not have somewhere to call home. Most of the anecdotal evidence is that these figures are increasing and increasing. Homelessness is a huge challenge in my electorate of Perth, but it's not just about numbers. For any one person who doesn't have somewhere to call home, it is a very personal crisis and a very personal tragedy. It's something we can do so much more about if we take this issue seriously.

Housing is one of the biggest costs that households face. For most families, 29 per cent of gross income is spent on housing. That's slowly increasing over time; some 25 years ago, it was just 21.9 per cent. If we were to survey any of our constituents, I think people's expectations would be that they are going to be spending a larger, not smaller, proportion of their income on housing.

I will go back to the challenge of homelessness. In Western Australia there are 13,953 applicants on the Western Australian public housing list, waiting for public housing. They might be in the private rental market paying excessive amounts or they might be staying with family and friends, but we know that a large number of those people on that housing waitlist are what we would term homeless. In the Perth CBD the estimate is that there are some 600 people sleeping rough in and around the CBD, night to night. That's completely unacceptable. I have written to the Leader of the Government in the Senate, given his actions with the Tasmanian government in terms of housing, saying that the need is probably more pressing in Western Australia than it is in Tasmania—on a per capita basis, it definitely is.

As I said before: for any individual who doesn't have access to a home, it is a personal crisis and a personal tragedy. I would love to see the state government and the Commonwealth come to an agreement on the $343 million debt that the state government is unable to repay to the Commonwealth except on the Commonwealth's own terms, so that we can invest in more social housing in Western Australia. That would be consistent with the outcomes and the goals of this bill. It would also make sure that we have more money for things such as a Common Ground facility; I know that that has been a huge success in Queensland, and I know it's been a huge success in Melbourne. These are facilities that help people with that very difficult transition from homelessness to home.

If you want people who are homeless to be able to access the National Rental Affordability Scheme, there's a step before that. We all know that that is a very complex transition from homelessness into secure, stable housing, and the first step of that is to have intense wraparound services as provided through the Common Ground model. I would love to see the government invest in one in Western Australia. The former Rudd-Gillard government invested in them across the country. Western Australia at the time was going through a spectacular boom. We did not take up that opportunity. I think in retrospect that was a mistake of the then state government, but now it is an urgent need, and I urge members on the government side to look at what they can do to make sure that we invest in housing in Western Australia.

Labor is committed and will continue to be committed to investing in housing. We took a plan to the last election to make sure that we continued this discussion through COAG. I note that the government has, even on its own priorities of the environment and reducing plastics, decided to cancel COAG for the end of the year. We don't know when the next COAG meeting is. But I know that, had Labor been elected, homelessness would have been on the agenda and COAG would have been meeting. We had a plan to build an extra 250,000 new affordable rental homes over 10 years. That would have simply cleared the backlog; it wouldn't have got us further ahead. It would have just got us back to a point where there were almost enough homes for the people who need affordable housing.

We had a commitment—which is something that I would again encourage the government to look at—for an $88 million investment in a safe housing fund to help women and children escaping domestic violence. I know, again, that in my electorate of Perth the services that provide that are constantly oversubscribed and have to move people out of their services, often before those families—those children and those women—are ready to move into a more normal tenancy arrangement. Anything that we can do in this place that would increase investment in those services and allow people to make that transition when they're escaping family violence is something that should be looked at by the government. Indeed, I think you'd find much support on this side of the House.

Affordable housing is one part of addressing poverty. This week is Anti-Poverty Week, and these things are all interconnected. You can't have a National Rental Affordability Scheme without acknowledging the other causes and impacts of poverty. We know there are some three million Australians who live below the poverty line. Of those three million Australians, 739,000 are children. In fact, one in six children are estimated to live below the poverty line. We know that those on youth allowance are some of the most likely to experience poverty, as are those on Newstart. A report released earlier this week showed that as many in one in five Australians have experienced food insecurity in the last year—that is, skipping meals. Parents have said in this report that they will choose to not feed themselves so that they can feed their children. I know that the member for Blaxland earlier spoke about the work that Foodbank does. The fact that Foodbank expanded its program in New South Wales for another 500 schools is a sign that something is not working in this country and that things aren't as they should be.

We also know that, when it comes to secure housing, people pay their rent first. The most tragic thing that can happen is for someone to have to go through an eviction. The ongoing cost of dealing with that crisis is serious. So, when rents go up, it reduces funding for food, health, schooling and all those other things. If we want to break the cycle of poverty in Australia, we have to be serious about investing in housing.

I want to put in a broader context the need not just for this piece of legislation to go through but for more action on affordable housing, national action on affordable housing. I want to put it in the context of Australia's broader human rights obligations. Housing is a human right. It is one of the most complex to deliver on, because it's not just about a piece of legislation. It's not just about saying we shouldn't discriminate. It is about a big piece of coordinated government action to build houses and to provide the economic circumstances in which houses are affordable. The right to housing is enshrined not just in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights but also in the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights. It is a human right.

Some estimate that there are one billion people in the world who do not have adequate housing. In fact, the best estimate is that there are some 100 million people who you would consider are homeless by Australian and international definitions. Those numbers are hard to comprehend. There is lost economic potential in our community and our global family. Those 100 million homeless people are not making a serious contribution and are not able to make the sorts of decisions we in this place take for granted.

Let's look at where we enshrine housing as a human right. We enshrine it as a human right in the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women. We include it in the Declaration of the Rights of the Child. We include it in the ILO conventions. We include it in the housing rights of Indigenous peoples. Housing is something we should take more action on. I do support the bill.

Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Over the past five months, since being elected, I have listened to countless Lilley constituents who are struggling to make ends meet as the cost of living continues to skyrocket. With stagnant wages, increasing rates of unstable employment, higher energy bills and growing housing stress, many Australians are looking to us for help to keep their heads above water.

In 2008 the then Labor government introduced the National Rental Affordability Scheme, with the vision of constructing 50,000 new residential buildings to increase the supply of affordable rental dwellings and reduce rental costs for low- and middle-income households. The scheme attracted private investment of approximately $12.9 billion and delivered 37,000 affordable rental dwellings to Australians in need of a hand up.

Labor welcome the amendment before us and recognise the need for improvements to protect tenants and investors participating in the NRAS. We also commend the government for agreeing to amend the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019 to allow the departmental secretary to allocate new funding in the future. However, the government should hold off on patting themselves on the back for a job half done. There is a severe shortage of affordable housing in Australia and too many families are struggling to find and keep a roof over their heads. The Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute has estimated that there is a shortfall of more than 525,000 affordable rental properties in Australia and an additional 727,000 social dwellings will need to be constructed over the next 20 years in order to meet our emerging needs.

Despite this warning, the Abbott, Turnbull and Morrison governments have axed and capped initiatives like the NRAS. Under this third-term government, the NRAS has not received any funding since the number of dwellings was capped back in 2014—that's five long years for these people. There have been five years and five budgets without funding, and there is no plan to resume funding in the future. This decision has been rightfully and widely criticised by housing sector stakeholders, including the Property Council of Australia, the Housing Industry Association, the Urban Development Institute, Homelessness Australia, National Shelter, Mission Australia, ACOSS, the Federation of Housing Associations, Anglicare and the St Vincent de Paul Society.

Without further NRAS funding, 10,229 households in my home state of Queensland will be cut off from receiving NRAS support in the next six years, forcing private investors to sell their properties or increase their rent to the full market value, and slashing the supply of affordable rental housing. The Grattan Institute has found that rapid growth in house prices has lowered homeownership rates among younger and poorer households, has contributed to widening wealth inequality and has left the economy more vulnerable to economic shocks. With so many Australians locked out of homeownership, decreasing the supply of affordable housing will only widen inequality and increase the gap between rich and poor.

Australians who rely on the NRAS for assistance—and they have been promised that, if they have a go, they will get a go—are currently at risk of being forced out of the private market and into social housing or, worse, homelessness. The short-sighted decision to stop the NRAS funding without any feasible substitute is just another example of this government's willingness to turn a blind eye to struggling Australians. A budget surplus means nothing to the 116,000 Australians who are worried about how to keep a roof over their head. In June 2019, 12.71 per cent of renters on the north side of Brisbane reported difficulty keeping up with their rent each week. This equates to approximately 56,513 people whose household budget has strained to pay their rent while keeping up with other basic necessities like food, utilities, child care and school expenses.

More broadly, across Queensland, there are 190,000 households that are currently suffering rental stress, which means more than 30 per cent of their income is spent on housing. Low-income households, young people and pensioners are particularly at risk of falling into this toxic cycle of rental stress. We must increase the supply of affordable housing and reduce the unacceptable level of rental stress to prevent vulnerable Australians from entering poverty or continuing to be impoverished.

ABS data shows that one in six young Australians aged between 15 and 24 are living in poverty and that the rate of homelessness of people aged between 19 and 24 increased by 22 per cent between 2017 and 2018. While the cause of poverty and homelessness is a complex issue, it must be noted that unemployment also significantly affects young people. Youth unemployment is at around double the national average and is as high as 25 per cent in regional Queensland.

I recently met with a team from Youth Housing Project, which is a crisis accommodation program and specialist homelessness service on the north side of Brisbane. Alison Cole and her dedicated team see firsthand what happens when there are not enough affordable housing options for young people.

I heard the stories of two young Brisbane mums who, for different reasons, had to reach out in desperation to the Youth Housing Project to keep a roof over their head. One mum was sharing a house with her child and a friend, and the friend moved out without notice. Although the young mum worked part-time, she couldn't find a rental property that she could afford on her own or one that a real-estate agency would approve her income for.

The other young Brisbane mum had to reach out to the Youth Housing Project after experiencing the breakdown of a relationship through domestic violence. She was left to pay private rent on her own after her ex-partner moved out. This eventually became too much for her to bear on her own, and she ended up owing her landlord rent and finally getting a notice to leave. She then had to contact the Youth Housing Project, who helped her get back on her feet and into accommodation.

Unfortunately this isn't an isolated or even rare experience, as women aged 25 to 34 with a child are the most likely demographic to seek homelessness services in Australia. Vulnerable Australians like this Brisbane mum who are facing the loss of NRAS support over the next six years will be forced onto the social housing waiting list, or they will become homeless.

Homeless and emergency housing services, like the Youth Housing Project, will bear the brunt of the NRAS ending. But these services cannot afford to support a mass influx of those in need, as there are approximately 20,000 Queenslanders on the waiting list for social housing. With 15 per cent less being spent federally on housing and homelessness than was spent in 2013 and 2014, rental properties that are both affordable and available to women and children attempting to leave unsafe domestic situations are crucial and increasingly rare.

Pensioners are also more likely to suffer because of a lack of affordable housing. Queensland pensioners who rent in the private market are at the greatest risk of living in poverty in comparison to other seniors. A single older person reliant on the pension survives on an annual income of approximately $24,000, and a couple survives on approximately $36,000. An income this low, without the ability to work, almost guarantees that pensioners will remain in poverty and be forced to trade off basic needs. Single women over 60 are particularly vulnerable, with 34 per cent of single women living in poverty by their 60th birthday. They deserve better. Australians deserve better than trying to keep their heads above water.

Housing policy experts are unanimous that bridging the NRAS funding gap is essential to improving housing affordability and securing better housing outcomes for all Australians. Failure to address the growing need for affordable housing now will only result in economic, social and infrastructure challenges in our future. On behalf of my constituents in Lilley and the two women on the north side of Brisbane who I've spoken about today in particular, I call on the government to stop taking their victory lap, to look up, to listen, to hear the urgency of these needs and to do more to improve housing affordability and secure better housing outcomes for all hardworking Australians.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to echo the words of the member for Lilley and again call on the government to do more. This bill, the National Rental Affordability Scheme Amendment Bill 2019, goes to the National Rental Affordability Scheme, which was, of course, a Labor initiative. It was an idea that was brought in in 2008 by the Rudd government because the Rudd government understood that there is a spectrum of people in terms of housing affordability. On one end on the spectrum, you have people who can own their own home. Some people are lucky enough not to have much of a mortgage. It goes right through to people who are sleeping rough and don't have much at all. Of course, somewhere along that spectrum are people who face rental stress, economic stress, for their own home and their own family. The National Rental Affordability Scheme was about making sure more people could afford to live in their own home because, ideally, that's what we want. All Australians should have their own home, a safe place to come back to at the end of the day.

The National Rental Affordability Scheme is a joint collaboration between state and federal governments. It provides incentives for private investors to lease properties to the NRAS, the National Rental Affordability Scheme, for tenants at 20 per cent below the value market rate. That 20 per cent was sometimes all it took to be able to maybe get your extra groceries, your food, your medicines or, as the member for Lilley rightly points out, your kids' footy shoes. It can be the difference, because, wherever along that spectrum you might be, sometimes just a small difference can make a huge impact.

But as with many things that happened in the transition from the Labor government into the Abbott government—much like the NDIS—the National Rental Affordability Scheme is an example where the policy that was originally put forward by the Labor government was amended and cut by the Abbott government. While the original targets were 50,000, the Abbott government brought that down to 38,000. If that had been based on demand, that might have been a reasonable thing, but it wasn't. It was, like many things, a way of saving the government money. Like many things with the Abbott government, it targeted Australia's most vulnerable people—people who were in need of just a small amount of assistance to be able to afford their own home.

At the last election, we in the Labor Party recognised that the problem of housing affordability is not going away. In fact, it's only getting worse. I've said it before in this place and I'll say it again now: we absolutely need to learn lessons from the last election. There were things that we didn't get right. But I don't think having a plan to ensure that Australians who need a home, wherever they are on the spectrum of housing affordability, can get a home was something that we got wrong. I think having a plan to ensure that people who need a home can get a home—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wonder, given the messages that have just been received from the Senate, whether it would be helpful to the House for me to seek leave for the member speaking to continue his remarks at a later hour so that we can interrupt business.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the duty minister minded to deal with these matters now?

Angus Taylor (Hume, Liberal Party, Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, we are, Mr Speaker.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In which case, the member for Macnamara simply needs to seek leave to continue his remarks at a later hour.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Speaker. I seek leave to continue my remarks at a later point.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There being no objection to leave being granted, that will be the course.

Debate adjourned.