Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to offer a few comments on schedule 4 of the Treasury Laws Amendment (2023 Measures No. 3) Bill 2023, which makes administrative changes that enhance the ATO's powers to deal with applications for the first home savers scheme.

I'll start by stating very clearly that the changes proposed in this bill are sensible enough and that we certainly won't oppose those changes. But I do want to offer a few comments on the First Home Buyers Saver Scheme, to place on the record that this policy is just another demand-side measure that will actually push property prices up at the very same time that home ownership is decreasing in Australia. To quote Saul Eslake, 'Anything that allows people to spend more on housing than they otherwise would has one effect, and one effect only: people spend more money on housing than they otherwise would.' Mr Eslake is very right about that. Ultimately, this scheme ends up pushing house prices up and locking even more Australians out of the great Australian dream of owning their own home.

Of course, demographically speaking, the largest cohort of Australians who are being locked out of that great dream of owning their own home are young Australians. These are the very people who are facing extreme and growing rental stress, because rents are out of control in this country and are skyrocketing. That is why Labor should actually be stepping in and doing something about rents and enacting rent control so that unlimited rent rises can no longer occur. But, of course, Labor won't do that, because ultimately Labor is a party that backs in property speculators over and above people who are looking for a home for themselves and their families.

Ms Collins, Labor's housing minister, said the quiet thing out loud a few months ago in an interview on the 7.30 program when she said that Labor wants housing to be an asset and investment class in Australia. Talk about belling the cat! Housing being an asset and investment class is one of the major reasons we are in the mess we are right now with housing. Property prices are going through the roof, rents are going through the roof, and more and more Australians are in either a housing or rental crisis where they can't afford to pay their mortgages or they can't afford to pay skyrocketing rents. Of course, it's the property speculators who are winning here, because the Labor party is overseeing a system where you pay more tax on income that you earn by going to work than you do if you're already wealthy enough to speculate on property. That's the problem we've got. With negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, there are massive tax breaks for people who speculate on property, and the people who pay for that are the ordinary taxpayers, many of whom are being priced out of the rental market.

Labor needs to get serious about addressing the housing crisis. They need to significantly increase the supply of public and social and affordable housing, and they need to do that to a greater degree than what they are proposing to do in their Housing Australia Future Fund, which is about taking money, investing it into the stock market through the future fund and hoping it makes enough of a profit to maybe build a few houses over the next few years. The first thing Labor needs to do is increase its ambition and actually do more to increase the supply of affordable housing in Australia.

Secondly and critically, Labor needs to do something for renters. One-third of Australians rent their homes, and Labor is abandoning these people to the whims of the market, and the market is putting up rents at record rates. That's what's going on here. More and more people are being priced out of their homes because landlords are taking the opportunity to continue to put up rents. Through the inquiry into the rental situation that this Senate established we heard story after story of double-digit rent increases—repeated double-digit rent increases. It's extremely difficult to be a renter in this country at the moment. It is clear that the Australian Labor Party have no capacity to understand how hard renters are doing it in this country at the moment, because if they did understand it they would be taking action. They would be bringing in rent controls so that repeated and unlimited rent increases are illegal. Renters need protection here, and the Labor party is not delivering it.

The only party arguing for renters is the Australian Greens, and we've been very clear what Labor's solutions should be—significantly increase your ambition on supply, build significantly more public and affordable housing in this country and enact rent controls so that unlimited rent rises are unlawful. Do those two things, and do them well and in a meaningful way, and that would be a significant government response to the massive social crisis that exists in this country at the moment. But that's not what we're getting from the Labor Party. Instead, we're getting a tax system that massively favours property speculators. We are getting a slash in funding for the NRAS program, which means that somewhere in the region of 24,000 families will lose their affordable rental homes over the next three years. Of course, when that happens they'll face eviction into the private rental market and potentially homelessness over the next three years.

We hear a lot about Mr Albanese's log cabin story. My advice to the Prime Minister is: stop it. Stop trying to con people into believing that you actually understand the challenges that they are facing in the housing and rental markets at the moment. If the Prime Minister genuinely understood the stress that people are under, particularly renters, he would be doing something about it, but he's not doing anything about it. His log cabin story is just another bit of spin, and it is not driving the government's response to the housing and rental crisis in any significant way. While Labor is still abjectly failing to respond to the housing and rental crisis, my suggestion to the Prime Minister is: put the log cabin story away because it just makes you look like a hypocrite. It just makes you look like you don't get it. It just makes you look like you're all spin and no substance.

Labor has got to get real here. If they want to get real, they need to understand the stresses that people are under, particularly renters. They need to walk a mile in some other people's shoes for once. One of the ways that they could do that is to actually have a read of the many thousands of submissions to the rental inquiry that this Senate established following a Greens motion and have a look at some of the heart-rending stories that we are hearing from renters—absolutely heart-rending.

The rental market is out of control in this country, and it's out of control in this country because Labor believes that housing is an asset and investment class. Do you know what housing actually is? It's a place for people to make a home, and having a home is a fundamental human right. Every Australian should have a home. We're a wealthy country, and our homelessness rates are a national disgrace. We can do much, much better than we currently do. The fact that we're not is a political choice, and it's a political choice of the Australian Labor Party. They need to increase their ambition on housing supply significantly from where they are at the moment. They need to step up and do something meaningful for renters and enact some rent controls so that unlimited rent rises become unlawful in Australia. That's what we need to see.

As I said, housing is a human right. Housing should never be seen as an asset and investment class. For the Minister for Housing to say that that's the way Labor views housing in Australia—that Labor wants housing to be an asset and investment class—is an admission that Labor doesn't understand that what housing is about is providing a place for people to make a home. People deserve a place to call home. Every Australian deserves a place to call home, and they deserve to have a place that they can call home without having to pay so much money in rents or mortgages that it places them into financial stress.

I also want to quickly touch on the actions of the Reserve Bank over the last few years, because they have contributed significantly to the housing crisis, which is one of the things that the first home savers scheme seeks to address. During the pandemic the RBA printed hundreds of billions of dollars of money; they gave that money to the banks at extremely favourable rates. The banks turned around and lent it out to their highest-margin products—which, of course, are mortgages—and, inevitably, house prices went through the roof during the pandemic. Then, having induced people to take out mortgages by saying that interest rates wouldn't rise until 2024, the RBA embarked on a series of rent rises—a record series of consecutive rent rises. What that means is that people are now under mortgage stress, particularly if they bought at the top of the market, having believed Dr Lowe's promise that interest rates wouldn't go up until 2024. We have people under mortgage stress, we have people under rental stress, and what is Labor's response to these things? A pathetically small commitment to increasing supply and effectively nothing for renters.

This is the last thing I'll say on this today: Labor does have a chance to step up and do the right thing, and the Greens stand ready to work with Labor to put in place a comprehensive response to increase supply and take the pressure off renters. I genuinely hope Labor party will accept that offer.