Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023. This bill originally proposed to invest $10 billion and then spend the earnings up to $500 million a year on affordable and social housing projects. In its original formation there was no guarantee that there was going to be any money spent on housing. If the returns from that investment weren't good enough then the money just wasn't going to be spent. As everyone knows, we are here tonight because there has been pressure, campaigning and advocacy from the Greens here in this parliament and, particularly, across the country, and we have managed to negotiate an extra $3 billion to be spent on public social affordable housing upfront this year. This is $3 billion that is not dependent on a gamble on the stock market. It is $3 billion that will be spent immediately and directly this year—six times the maximum that the government had originally said it was willing to spend on an annual basis.

This extra $3 billion investment is the direct result of the Greens pressure. We have also closed the no-minimum-spend HAFF loophole and forced the Labor government to guarantee a minimum spend of at least $500 million annually from the HAFF, starting in 2024-25. These are very significant outcomes that have been achieved because of Greens pressure and Greens power. To everyone who told us over the last nine months to give in, to not stand in the way of a pittance being spent on social and community housing, and that a drop in the bucket was better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick, we want people to see that standing up to Labor's inadequate bills and staying at the negotiating table has delivered better outcomes. If people in the community sector praise Labor for delivering crumbs and only offering crumbs, that's all we're going to get.

The other huge outcome of us not giving in, of ramping up the campaign, of mobilising the community on this issue and of keeping working for more is that we have put the appalling circumstances of so many renters across this country front and centre on the public agenda. You need only to open up a newspaper, turn on the telly or look at your social media to see the plight of renters has been there in the public eye day after day.

The Greens supporting this bill tonight is basically us saying, 'Yes, it's a really good, solid start.' It's a solid start on investment in public and community housing. We know, however, that the campaign to be getting a good deal for renters has only just begun. Labor has refused still, despite our negotiations, to do anything to support renters. So we're putting the government on notice that the campaign with regard to renters has only just begun.

Renters have been ignored by Labor and Liberal governments alike. Rents have absolutely skyrocketed. People are living in hovels, with holes in the floor, rats under the bed and landlords who are unwilling even to make the most basic of investments to make these hovels habitable. They're paying through the nose for it, and being threatened,' If you complain, you're out on your ear—you're being evicted!' That's at the whim of greedy landlords, but governments have basically said, 'There's nothing we can do.' This government here in particular wash their hands of it and say, 'No, there's nothing we can do—it's all up to the states.' They're completely abrogating their responsibility for the basic human right for people to have a roof over their heads and a house in decent condition to call home.

The Greens have been talking to renters and to people in poverty who are paying upwards of 80 per cent or even more of their income in rent. We know what they want: they want rent controls. They want a rent freeze against the skyrocketing rents at the moment and they want rent controls. And those of them who are on income support want those rates of income support raised above the poverty line. There are few issues as fundamental as having a safe and stable place to call home. People are struggling to find a place that they can afford to live in with dignity. And just as poverty is a political choice, so is the state of housing in our country. It's a choice that this government is making daily. These choices have real consequences for Australians struggling to make ends meet, far beyond the chambers of this parliament.

The housing crisis in Australia is not a recent development; it has been simmering for far too long. We have to recognise that access to affordable and suitable housing is a fundamental human right. And it's the role of government to ensure this right for every Australian. We note that investment by the federal government and by state and territory governments in public affordable housing has completely fallen off a cliff over the last 20 years. This crisis has been developing in full sight. In tackling the public housing waiting list, we know that 640,000 people are on social housing waiting lists across the country. It's estimated that we should be spending $15 billion a year to make decent inroads into this, so the $3 billion that we have managed to negotiate with the government—and why we're supporting this bill—is a good, solid start, but it's still way less than what is needed. We're going to keep the pressure up on that!

This housing crisis extends far beyond economic considerations. It affects our society's overall wellbeing, health and stability. How many future changemakers are missing out on crucial opportunities simply because they're unable to make ends meet? As the chair of the Community Affairs References Committee, I've heard countless stories of poverty and deprivation over the last year. For so many people, the housing crisis is at the centre of so many of these stories. Housing factors, such as insecurity and lack of affordability, have been identified as core structural drivers of poverty. The Victorian Public Tenants Association characterised the relationship as interconnected, that poverty in Australia cannot be separated from our housing problem. They're wicked siblings, each driving growth in the other.

We've also heard evidence at our inquiries into poverty in Australia and in our inquiries into the worsening rental crisis of how housing represents the highest cost in most family budgets. Those with lower housing costs, especially those who own houses outright, can achieve a higher standard of living than people on the same income who have higher housing costs. The more people pay on rent the less they have for other essentials, like food, medication and essential health care. At the poverty inquiry, Isabelle told us:

… I have seen how this country treats poor people. I've been on the receiving end of it long enough to have had a gutful, and it regularly makes me think, 'Hey, maybe death might not be such a bad idea.' I was born in 1994, and the policy of the government—by which I mean every government in my lifetime—has been to break us down and then pay someone a hell of a lot of perfectly good taxpayer money to do nothing except tell us that you're going to starve us if we don't drag ourselves back up by our bootstraps.

I met yesterday with Melissa, a wonderful person and tireless advocate. She shared with me her experience of living in poverty. The story she shared with me last year really encapsulates the situation of people living in poverty and living with housing they just cannot afford. She said:

I'm on Jobseeker with a reduced capacity to work due to chronic illness and disability. I live on 330 dollars a week. It was hard to survive before inflation hit but now it's devastating.

I'm great at budgeting but now budgeting means not buying the basics. It means rationing out food to last a fortnight. If I've budgeted well I can eat one meal a day. If another expense comes up I have to choose which days I need to skip food completely. I try to choose days I have no appointments so I can sleep through the hunger.

In November last year I was diagnosed with scurvy and malnutrition. Let that sink in. A country as wealthy as Australia and I'm unable to eat enough good food to get the nutrients I need to live. This has a devastating effect on my health. How can I possibly get work-ready when I can't afford to live? Yet jobseekers are expected to be able to find employment under these conditions.

I reiterate that this was last year. Nothing had changed for Melissa when I met with her yesterday. In fact, Melissa's situation has worsened as a result of the skyrocketing costs of living. Transport, medicine, bills, food and rent—there's nothing that hasn't increase. As I've said before, it's expensive to be poor.

Finally, this is the story of someone struggling to pay rent on JobSeeker:

My rent has just gone up $60 a week. This is after a $35 a week increase the previous time. $95 in 13 months is more than a 25 per cent increase. Once I pay the new rent and allocate my fortnightly bills—I add up all my bills for the year and divide by 26 to make sure I have enough to pay them all—I have $18 left over for food and everything else. I, therefore, shop at a foodbank and purchase out-of-date food to eat. There is very little fresh fruit and veggies, and my bloodwork now indicates my heightened cholesterol—something I've never had in my whole life. I also have severe anaemia, but cannot afford iron tablets. Rent is well over half of my income. A $2 a day increase doesn't even cover my rent increase, let alone everything else.

My neighbours had their lease renewal withdrawn after they asked to negotiate a $40 a week increase. Another set of neighbours left their property after a similar increase to mine. That was three working individuals who could no longer afford the rent. But with me on income support and only .4 of a per cent vacancy rate where I live I knew that I would be homeless if I asked to negotiate. No owner is going to want a renter on Centrelink benefits because they know that they will struggle to pay the rent, despite my personal history of always paying on time. My greatest fear is becoming homeless, and one more rent increase will result in that.

It's clear that we need action on rents and we need it now. We're here tonight because we have an extra $3 billion on public and community housing. Labor first of all said that it was impossible to spend any direct money on housing, and then they did it. Now they're still saying it's impossible to coordinate national limits on rent increases, but it's not. Just like the federal government was able to coordinate putting controls on power bills, the federal government is absolutely able to coordinate rent freezes and rent controls. Every state and territory other than Tasmania is a Labor government. Now is the time, the opportunity, for our Prime Minister to get all of these people together and say: 'The situation is desperate. We are in a crisis. We need to have rent controls. We need a rent freeze.' Over the next 12 months there's going to be an estimated $4.9 billion of rent increases. Given Labor have refused to lift a finger to do anything about rent increases, all of those rent increases are now on Labor's watch. They are now the Labor Party's fault. They had the power at National Cabinet to freeze and cap rent increases, and they refused.

We're going to support the passage of these bills this week, but we are putting the government on notice. The Greens absolutely are now turning our attention to fighting for the rights of renters—renters who have been left behind by these bills. That fight has just begun. Renters are powerful and their votes are powerful. We shouldn't have to fight this hard to get Labor to limit rent increases during this rental and housing crisis but we do and so we will. Rents never go backwards, so if Labor do not act now, they are sleepwalking into a crisis that will see housing become less affordable, more people evicted and hundreds of thousands of people joining the housing waiting list. That is the reality for people right now. Nothing changes if nothing changes, so I am desperately calling on Labor to work with the Greens to address this crisis.

We could have an emergency rent freeze being put in place right now, side by side with this bill, or what we can have is Labor continuing to side with the property developers to funnel more money into the pockets of the ultra-wealthy. This bill is a solid beginning but it is not enough. It does nothing for renters. We Greens are going to keep on fighting for renters, fighting for those 30 per cent of Australians in rental properties. An affordable and acceptable homes is the right of every Australian.