Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (National Housing and Homelessness Agreement) Bill 2018. Despite reservations when this bill was introduced, Labor support this bill with the amendments made to it in the House. For the record our reservations about the bill concerned the conditionality of housing and homelessness funding the government was seeking to impose upon the states and territories. Concerns were quite rightly raised by the states and territories that the government was seeking to create what would in effect be a vetting role for the Commonwealth over the housing and homelessness strategies of the states. Concerns were raised by many stakeholders that the potential for conflict between the Commonwealth and the states would inevitably delay funding to the states under the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. Amendments moved by the opposition and the government in the House have, however, allayed those concerns.

The purpose of this bill is to amend the Federal Financial Relations Act 2009 in order to repeal the current national affordable housing specific purpose payment and replace it with new funding arrangements under which states and territories will be contingent on their being party to primary, supplementary and designated housing agreements. The NHHA will provide $375 million over three years from 2018-19, maintaining the current $115 million of annual homelessness funding provided under the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. This funding will be ongoing and indexed in order to maintain and provide funding to frontline services that help Australians who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless. To ensure that funding for frontline homelessness services is preserved the NHHA will separately identify the indexed funding to be matched by the states that relates to the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness.

In Labor's 2013-14 budget annual homelessness funding under the NPAH stood at $159 million. In the Abbott government's disastrous 2014-15 budget $44 million a year in capital funding was cut from the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. Having an affordable, secure and appropriate home with reasonable access to services is essential to financial, social and emotional wellbeing. All Australians have the right to secure affordable and appropriate housing throughout their lives. Having a genuine chance to live near job opportunities is essential for the social and economic participation of Australians. For too many people the housing pressures they face are getting worse, not better. Australia has a housing crisis: a crisis of supply, affordability, suitability and sustainability.

Homelessness is a destructive and growing social and economic problem. It is simply unacceptable that in a country endowed with wealth and opportunity such as ours, many of our fellow Australians have nowhere they can call home. It is an inalienable human right of all Australians to have access to safe and affordable housing. There is no greater example of increasing inequality than the fact that many of our fellow Australians have to sleep on the streets, couch-surf or live in overcrowded, unhygienic and unacceptable housing conditions while others live in unimaginable luxury and privilege.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics census figures released recently show that the number of homeless Australians increased by 13.7 per cent since 2011, to 116,427. In New South Wales, my home state, the state hardest hit by the housing affordability crisis, the homelessness rate rose by 27 per cent, driven in large part by an increase in the number of people living in severely overcrowded dwellings. It pains me to say that my home state now accounts for one-third of all homeless Australians.

The government announced its intention to negotiate a new NHHA as part of its 2017-18 budget measures. The government has described the measures as 'a comprehensive plan to improve housing affordability'. Prior to the announcement of the 2017-18 budget measures, the Assistant Treasurer, Mr Sukkar, told Sky News: 'The housing package will be extraordinarily large. It will be far reaching. It will deal with all groups on the housing spectrum. It will be an impressive package. It will be a well-received package.' Well, we're still waiting. As it transpired, the package that was finally delivered was not well received at all. In fact, John Daley, the chief executive of the Grattan Institute, said:

You'll need a scanning electron microscope to see an impact on prices.

I can't see any reason why this budget is going to make a discernible difference to housing affordability; a discernible difference on the number of younger people that buy a house.

This bill places requirements on states and territories, with little commitment from the Commonwealth to use its own policy levers. The bill does not include any requirement on the federal government to deliver a plan. The Turnbull government does not have the comprehensive housing strategy that is necessary to resolve the country's large and growing crisis of housing affordability and supply for low and very low income households. The Abbott and Turnbull governments have had four budgets, in which they've had the opportunity to reform negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, and they have failed at every turn. Worse still, the superannuation measure in the last budget aimed at helping young people to save for a house deposit actually undermines the retirement incomes of young Australians. The government's housing affordability package, as a whole, has to be described as a complete sham. But, as I said in my opening comments, the amendments that have been made to the bill in the House do improve the legislation and Labor will support the Treasury Laws Amendment (National Housing and Homelessness Agreement) Bill 2018 as it stands.