Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the amendments be agreed to.

The Albanese government has a pretty simple belief: we want ordinary Australians on normal incomes to have the chance to own their own homes. Today this parliament will make that happen for 40,000 Australians who would never otherwise have the chance of homeownership.

Lots of aspects of what's going on in Australia with housing concern me but the one I am most worried about is this: 40 years ago, 60 per cent of lower income young people in our country owned their own homes. Today, that is close to 20 per cent. Housing is not just about bricks and mortar. What this statistic tells us is that the life experience of low-income young people is fundamentally different to how it was experienced a generation ago, and our parliament must do something about that. We want more Australians to have the stability and security that come from homeownership, to be able to put family pictures on the wall and not be told they can't, to make decisions with confidence, to know they are raising children in a safe and stable environment; for older Australians, to be able to grow old with security. That is what this legislation is all about. This bill is about Australia's nurses, childcare workers and disability workers. It is about older women who otherwise might be facing a retirement in poverty. It is about single parents who might be able to purchase the home that meets the needs of their families. This scheme builds on the enormous success of programs around the country run by state governments. In Western Australia, more than 100,000 Australians have gone into homeownership through a shared equity scheme.

Help to Buy is one piece of our government's very bold and ambitious housing agenda—$32 billion supporting our country to build more homes, get a better deal for renters and get more Australians into homeownership. Thousands of hardworking Australians who have been locked out of the market will now have a better shot at owning their own home. I want to say briefly of Minister Collins, who sits behind me, this would not have happened without her hard work and the work of her office, and I want to credit my staff also. I want to thank the crossbench. There are some people on the crossbench who bring enormous expertise and constructive dialogue with our government on housing and I thank them for that. And I thank the Greens, who eventually presided passage for this bill.

For all of us in this parliament, politics has many, many moments which feel highly performative and meaningless and then you get moments like this. It is not often that our parliament has the opportunity to change the lives of 40,000 people who need and deserve the help of government but we have that chance today. I commend the bill to the House.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We will not be supporting these amendments, because these amendments highlight the absolute absurdity of this policy. These amendments deal with the potential interactions with state and territory governments, which highlight the fundamental problems with this approach—that is, that we are taking schemes that have existed at a state level in virtually every jurisdiction in this country and bringing them national.

Australians have already voted with their feet on shared equity schemes. Why? Because in states like New South Wales, which had a shared equity scheme, more than 90 per cent of the places available went unused. So what genius in the Labor Party thinks, in the midst of the worst housing crisis ever, 'What policy should we come up with? What innovation, what new thinking should we come up with? Oh, let's take shared equity schemes at a state level and bring them to the Commonwealth.'

Meanwhile we have seen these schemes fail at a state level. Australians watching this may ask: why have shared equity schemes largely failed throughout our country? Because it is all care and no responsibility from the government. The government gets to take a share in your home. There are events that occur, including if your income rises, that might trigger a sale of that property against your will as a co-owner. The government will take their pound of flesh on the upside, but guess what? Even though the government gets to take their pound of flesh at the end, you, as the Australian co-owner of that property with the government, are responsible for every cost on the way through—all the repairs, all the maintenance, all the costs associated with owning that property—yet the government as a silent co-owner steps in at the end, having contributed nothing to those costs, and says, 'We will take our 40 per cent, thank you, including the capital growth in that property.'

So it's no real surprise that Australians have rejected these things. They don't want the Labor Party co-owning their property. It's absurd that, in an environment where this government has brought in 1.4 million migrants with no idea where they're going to live, which is doing them no favours and doing Australians no favours, their answer—their big solution, the new thinking, the innovation in their policy—is to replicate shared-equity schemes that have failed virtually everywhere else. They are bereft of ideas. They've got no idea what they are doing. It's no wonder we see it reflected in every single metric. The scoreboard is very clear. The scoreboard does not lie. We have fewer homes being built. We have fewer homes being approved. We've got fewer first home buyers. On every single metric in this country, housing has gone backwards. And what's the big idea from this government? Replicate shared-equity schemes that already exist elsewhere.

The other part of the story that is inconvenient but highlighted by these amendments is that all of these require state and territory governments to pass their own legislation, again highlighting that these are the province of state governments. The Prime Minister said yesterday that they'd all signed up. Only Queensland has passed their legislation so far. I hate to rain on the minister's parade of this being a heroic moment for her, but this means very little today outside of Queensland because no other state or territory has passed their legislation. This means very little because, until they are passed in state parliaments, this today and these amendments do not take practical effect for any single person who may want one of these products.

Having said that, we know that these have been unused throughout our country. Victoria is winding up their scheme. In New South Wales, again, 90 per cent of places went unused. So again I highlight the point: if you're thinking how you can help first home buyers, why on earth would you replicate a product that's already been rejected? Why on earth would you claim that that is some massive solution to the huge problem that has been exacerbated by the very poor decisions of this government? Quite frankly, we know you've run out of ideas. We know your heart is not in homeownership. Only the coalition believes in home— (Time expired)

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a good day in the people's house and it's a good day for people looking to buy a house. Today our government delivers on a commitment that I put at the centre of my campaign launch in Perth back in May 2022. It has taken some time to get agreement through this House and through the Senate, but what we have done is make sure that today this becomes policy of the nation. The name of this policy, the name of the bill, tells you everything you need to know: Help to Buy. But those opposite don't want to help people and they certainly don't want people to buy their own home. This is new help for 10,000 aspiring homeowners every year and a new road to homeownership for hardworking Australians.

We've held to this policy in the face of reckless obstructionism and rank opportunism. We've persevered even when we were told there was no chance that it would get through this parliament. We've stood our ground because we care about helping more Australians know the security of a roof over their heads because our Labor government supports the aspiration of homeownership and we want to bring that dream in reach of more Australians. That's what this bill is about. It's a circuit breaker for Australians who have done all the right things. They've worked hard, made sacrifices and saved up as best they can, but they can't save for a 20 per cent deposit and pay rent at the same time. They just can't get their foot in the door. What we've done to support renters, of course, is to be the first government in 30 years to boost rent assistance not once but two years in a row, and we've worked with the state and territories to strengthen renters' rights, but we don't think everyone should have to rent forever.

We don't think you should have to settle for paying off someone else's mortgage when you could be settling on a home of your own. And that's why we're stepping up and helping out. Our Help to Buy plan will put in in 30 per cent of the purchase price of an existing home and 40 per cent of the purchase price of a new home. That cuts your deposit to as little as two per cent. That means you pay less up-front, you have a smaller mortgage and your monthly repayments are smaller too. We are doing this because we know that a home of your own is more than a place to live. It's about security and opportunity, stability and a sense of connection to your local community. It's a foundation on which you can build a good life for yourself and your family, and that's why this legislation is just one vital part of our $32 billion Homes for Australia plan, all of it driving our ambitious target of building 1.2 million new homes by the end of the decade, because we know that the key is, of course, supply.

That's why we're also training more tradies through free TAFE, also opposed by those opposite, building more social housing, public housing and private rentals through our Build to Rent scheme, which we hope to see pass this parliament this week as well, and building more crisis accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence, opposed by those opposite as well and delayed by the Senate, through the Housing Australia Future Fund. We're working with state, territory and local governments across Australia to cut red tape, speed up approvals, unlock more land for construction and build more homes where people want to live, close to family, jobs, services and public transport. These are the practical and positive messages you get from a Labor government.

There's something else all those measures have in common: they have all been opposed at every turn by the Liberal and National Parties. The Liberals talk a lot about homeownership. The shadow minister yesterday was down there talking with the Greens political party at the Press Club. I'll give him credit for this: unlike his leader, he does know where the National Press Club is! So that's a plus. I give him credit. Yet all they have done is oppose everything—oppose more social housing, oppose more public housing, oppose support for people who are renting and oppose more private rentals through the Build to Rent scheme. That is what they have done. Well, Labor stands for homeownership and aspiration. We stand up for superannuation, not trashing it, as those opposite want to do. And today, we send a clear message to Australians looking for help to buy a home: our Labor government is on your side, and I'm proud to join my colleagues in commending this bill to the House.

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the question be now put.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the question be now put.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question before the House is that the Senate amendments be agreed to.