Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Cormann) to questions without notice asked today by Senators Gallacher and Green.

The question asked by Credit Suisse is: 'Is the HomeBuilder scheme big enough to really move the needle?' Credit Suisse of course answered that question in their briefing note, because they say no; they say it's disappointingly small. They say, 'We doubt the incentives are large enough or the eligibility criteria wide enough to really move the needle.'

Senator Cormann has explained that this program is going to directly support 140,000 jobs. Well, we'll see whether or not that comes about, because it is telling that, even in providing that answer, Senator Cormann was very careful to say that these are estimates only, and we've learnt quite a lot about estimates in recent months haven't we? We've learnt quite a lot about the government's capacity to accurately estimate the take-up of their programs, the cost to the budget and the impact on the economy, because it was a pretty big failure in estimating when it came to JobKeeper, and I have very little confidence in the answer provided today by the minister.

The truth is: that's true for his colleagues as well. That's why the member for Herbert has gone on the record raising concerns about the program; that's why the member for Leichhardt has raised concerns about the program, and it's why Senator Canavan, representing the National Party in this chamber, is raising concerns about the program, because anyone who looks at it closely, who looks at the fundamentals, at the architecture, of this program, knows that it all looks pretty improbable. Australians who earn less than $125,000 a year are expected to spend more than $150,000 on a renovation. Not only that—they are expected to enter into the contract now, with no certainty about whether they qualify for the grant.

More broadly, people are generally concerned about their economic position, and nowhere more so than in regional Australia. It is one thing to cap a program at an individual income of $125,000 or a household income of $200,000. What do people think the actual median household income is? What does the coalition actually believe is going on in normal households in regional Australia? Well, I can tell you that, in New South Wales, the median income for a household outside of the Sydney metropolitan area is $45,000. That's the median in a regional area like the seat of Page, an area I spent quite a bit of time in. Does the government really think that people whose disposable income at a household level each year is $45,000 are going to be able to stump up the cash to meet the $150,000 threshold that is necessary to even qualify for a program of this kind? Is that really what they think? Certainly members of your own government don't believe so, because the member for Herbert is raising concerns that renovations of houses in his electorate won't get anywhere near the $150,000 threshold. That's what the member for Leichhardt is raising. Clearly, those people understand that, in their areas, people do not earn these vast amounts of money that are assumed by the people sitting around on the government benches.

Perhaps they haven't saved the money. Perhaps, on their $45,000 disposable income a year, they haven't been able to save, to put aside in the bank, $150,000. Perhaps they could borrow it. Well, what is one thing that has been raised over and over and over again by the RBA over the last 18 months? It is the vulnerability of the economy, produced exactly by indebtedness—by rising debt to income ratios. Perhaps that is what the member for New England was talking about. Perhaps that was his concern when he said, 'I'm concerned about the complexity of trying to pay back that debt.' Perhaps that was what Senator Canavan was concerned about when he said, 'I'm worried we are putting ourselves in a weaker position if asset prices in Australia were to fall.'

People are not sitting on $150,000 waiting to splash it on a home renovation, and they're not in a position to borrow it. The government's program is not going to produce a much-needed boost for the construction sector. It's not going to help Australian families, it's poorly targeted and, as the Grattan Institute has said, it is classic retail politics but lousy economics—which is exactly what you'd expect from Scotty from marketing.