Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This bill, the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Amendment (Waiver of Debt and Act of Grace Payments) Bill 2019, seeks to increase transparency and accountability of government decisions by amending the Public Governance, Performance and Accountability Act to require the Department of Finance to publish details relating to waivers of debt and act-of-grace payments in its annual report. I want to talk about two aspects of this bill: firstly, the need to increase transparency of and accountability for government decision-making and spending; and, secondly, in the context of the housing debt that was waived by the Commonwealth for Tasmania, the possibility of waiving similar debts for other states to improve social and Indigenous housing outcomes, particularly in my home state of Queensland.

Under division 7 of part 2-4 of the PGPA Act, the finance minister has the ability to extinguish debts owed to the Commonwealth, meaning that debts are completely forgiven and cannot be recovered. Under the same division, the minister has the ability to make act-of-grace payments to a person if they consider it appropriate to do so because of special circumstances. These debts relate to non-corporate Commonwealth entities, such as the Australian Taxation Office or Centrelink, and departments of state. Right now, waivers of debt and act-of-grace payments are not publicly reported and there is no requirement for them to be made public in any way, such as how many have been made and for what amounts. As senators would be well aware, in recent times a pretty significant debt waiver was made, which made headlines, when the government did a deal with Senator Lambie to waive Tasmania's historical housing debt, the substance of which I'll talk about a little bit later.

This private senator's bill, introduced by Senator Gallagher, seeks to provide more transparency and accountability when such debt waivers are made. As Senator Gallagher said in her second reading speech, in the interests of government accountability and transparency, rectifying this lack of publication is a small but important step. It is important to note that the amendments to this bill do not and will not require publication of any personal or sensitive information about any individual or organisation who receives a debt waiver or an act-of-grace payment. I think that's a very significant and important point to make. Making this information public will not require the publication of any personal or sensitive information, and that's an important step to take.

The accountability of the executive, and the transparency of its decisions, is fundamental to our system of government. In particular, when decisions of the executive relate to financial matters there should be increased levels of transparency that not only allow parliament to hold the executive to account on its decisions but also allow the public to know what decisions are being made and why. An increased lack of transparency and accountability has, sadly, been a feature of the Liberal-National government. The cumulative effect of this increased secrecy and lack of accountability should raise alarm bells in our community. Some previous examples come to mind: the backlog of FOI requests; refusing to answer questions during estimates, instead repeatedly putting them on notice; refusing to comment on on-water matters; shifting $500 million to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation so that decisions about the spending of that money can no longer be scrutinised through estimates or other methods; and the Prime Minister dismissing genuine questions from journalists as the 'Canberra bubble' or gossip. Most recently, the sports rorts debacle has shown that the government is willing to undermine the important values of transparency in government to avoid embarrassment. The failure to release the Gaetjens report, despite relying on it to claim that there was no biased decision-making during the notorious sports rorts scheme, shows a new level of secrecy and deception.

But, as I foreshadowed, the details of debt waivers, which sparked inquiries leading to this bill, are of particular interest to me as a Queenslander, because we need more social housing in Queensland and we need it now. So I was curious when, in September 2019, the Morrison government waived $157.6 million owed to the Commonwealth by the Tasmanian government. The debt was accumulated to pay for the construction of public housing between 1956 and 1989. At the time the debt was waived, the minister said:

… the Tasmanian government demonstrated unique challenges relating to housing affordability. It committed to state-wide planning and zoning reform to support housing supply targets consistent with economic and population growth projections.

The minister also acknowledged various members of the state government and Senator Jacqui Lambie for their advocacy for the significant reforms. As we all know, the subtext of that ministerial media release was that a deal was done to guarantee the passage of the government's tax cuts.

Now, I also understand the social housing challenges facing Tasmania, although I'm a Queensland senator. I certainly do not begrudge Senator Lambie for securing that deal and that debt waiver. However, Queensland, and particularly Far North Queensland, also has unique challenges relating to housing, and it is time for the government to consider that historic housing debt and the possibility of waiving that debt for Queensland.

Answers to questions on notice show that, as of 1 July 2019, Queensland's historic housing debt was $278.5 million. State housing minister Mick de Brenni said at the time:

If the Morrison Government forgave that historic debt to Queenslanders, the Palaszczuk Government could deliver another 957 new homes for vulnerable Queenslanders, creating 919 housing construction jobs in the process.

He went on to say:

We welcome the Prime Minister's willingness to potentially deliver more social housing in Tasmania, but it's galling that once again it's part of a last minute back room deal.

Those 957 homes would go a long way in regional Queensland.

Last year I attended a Homelessness Week seminar where Dr Kathleen Flanagan from the University of Tasmania was the keynote speaker. She discussed the Tasmanian housing crisis and compared it with the Cairns housing market. It was significant to note that there are some similarities, and both communities are in acute need of more social housing. The current waitlist for social housing in Cairns is over 2,000 people. On top of this waitlist, the federal electorate of Leichhardt last year made a list of areas experiencing the highest rental stress in the state. According to a survey by the University of New South Wales, 29 per cent of tenants in Cairns are experiencing rental stress. This percentage equates to almost 8,000 households.

Queensland had eight of the 20 electorates in the country with the highest proportion of tenants in rental stress, and yet, from the federal government, there's no support and no plan—just a tired refrain about it being the state government's problem. It always surprises me when you hear that, especially in this place, because there are 29 members of the government who are from Queensland, and they want Queenslanders to believe that, when they come down here, their hands are tied. Where's their press release? Where's their acknowledgement of their advocacy? Why aren't they advocating for something to be done about these levels of rental stress or the social housing backlog? At least waive the debt—why aren't they calling for that?

The top 10 electorates experiencing rental stress in Queensland are in coalition-held seats. But what are they doing about it? I've got the list here: Hinkler, Moncrieff, Longman, Wide Bay, McPherson, Fisher, Fadden, Fairfax, Forde and Wright. That's 10 members of the government who know that their electorates are right now experiencing extreme levels of rental stress. In the electorate of Moncrieff, 40 per cent of renters are experiencing rental stress—that's 10,000 households. In Hinkler, 41 per cent of renters are experiencing rental stress. For a regional area, that is a big number. And yet, with all their numbers and all their might and all their bravado, those members of the government are doing nothing to address that rental stress or our need for social housing. There are 29 of them, and yet they're so impotent they can't get this one thing done. So what is the point of having them here?

The government had an opportunity to do something about social housing when they announced the HomeBuilder scheme a few weeks ago, but the announcement falls a long way short of what is needed to prevent massive job losses in the building industry and it also does nothing to fix our social housing problem. It is incredibly disappointing that the Morrison government could not fund a housing construction program that included one cent for social housing. HomeBuilder will not build a single home for the people who need homes the most—mums and kids fleeing domestic violence, veterans sleeping in parks, or essential workers. No wonder members of the government called the policy a dud! Our country lacks adequate social housing, and that is a disgrace. It impacts the health and safety of our community and the strength of our economy.

Building affordable housing and social housing also creates jobs, and, as we know, we are in desperate need of them right now. This crisis has also shown us how important it is for the good of our country for every Australian to have a good home not just to isolate in during a pandemic but to keep safe during the recovery. We're about to face an economic cliff when stimulus is pulled back, when bank payments begin again, and when the flow-on effects of job losses start to impact spending and savings. We need to do something about housing affordability, but this government, once again, has put its head in the sand.

In addition to social housing, Queensland is in desperate need of more housing for Indigenous communities, and waiving the housing debt owed by Queensland to the Commonwealth would go a long way to fixing this problem. As many people in this chamber know, the communities in Far North Queensland and our Indigenous communities in the Torres Strait have been isolated in such ways and have had such restrictions in place that we will never fathom how difficult those restrictions have been. One of the main reasons why it was so important to isolate and restrict access to those communities is the very poor health and housing outcomes of those communities. This should be a huge wake-up call to this government that it is time to get Indigenous housing right. It is not time to push it off into the never-never. If we have a community that needs to be cut off and isolated so severely because of its health and housing outcomes, that should ring alarm bells for this government.

But, unfortunately, their track record on Indigenous housing has been woeful. In Queensland last year, the federal government walked away from NPARIH, an ongoing housing agreement, and instead said that they would invest a one-off payment to councils in the area to build social housing. Those councils want that money, and they're supportive of getting that funding, but they also know that it's not going to build all of the houses that they need. In the Torres Strait, there's a seven-year waitlist for housing. They will be building houses, and they will not get through that seven-year waitlist with a one-off payment. What we need is ongoing funding. The NPARIH program wasn't perfect, but the government's own review of it in 2017 found it was making good progress on overcrowding. In Queensland, the program built 1,114 new dwellings and refurbished a further 1,419. That's what we need at this moment. At the moment, all we've got is $5 million that has been delivered, or will be soon, out of a $105 million program of funding that was promised over a year ago now, and there are people in communities who have been cut off. How much longer do they have to wait? When will this government understand that housing is a fundamental right and that it is a responsibility for them to get it right?

This bill is about transparency and accountability, and what we do not want to happen during this crisis is for governance or public accountability to be pushed aside. But we also need to use this crisis as an opportunity to recognise and fix the very grave problems with social housing and Indigenous housing in our country, because, if not now, when will we do it?