Claire Chandler (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are, talking about yet another deal between Labor and the Greens this evening. The Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 is a Labor con job on all Australians. Here's what the Australian Greens' position on this bill was for six months—this is a direct quote from the Greens' housing spokesman. In reference to the government, he said that they're 'gambling $10 billion on the stock market'. That's what the Greens had to say, non-stop, for six whole months on a bill that they're now supporting! They're supporting what they called in their own words 'a $10 billion gamble on the stock market'. We all know that, at the end of the day, for all of their posturing, these two parties are one and the same. We see it all the time at state and federal levels, and I've spoken many times in this place about what happens in my own state of Tasmania in particular when Labor and the Greens get into a cozy relationship in a parliament. Labor goes to an election saying they will never do a deal with the Greens. Then they get elected and they start doing deals left, right and centre with the Greens whenever they can.

This bill is about playing accounting tricks with the budget while dodging the responsibility of actually getting houses built. Once again they are taking billions of dollars off budget not because taking it off budget helps in any way to build more houses but because it assists the government in obscuring the real truth of their own budget position. We are here debating this bill so that Labor MPs can go around and boast that they have created a $10 billion housing fund, but this isn't a bill to build houses. It's a bill to build Labor's talking points about housing. If this bill passes, $10 billion is the amount of money that the Labor government won't be spending on housing. It will be tucking $10 billion away and hoping and praying that the economy and share market goes well so maybe some money can be spent on housing later. Or maybe it will actually go backwards and they will lose money on this housing fund. Certainly, given the way the economy is going, I wouldn't be surprised, but that's the gamble that Labor and the Greens are happy to make. The Greens, indeed, purport to hate gambling—unless the gambling profits are going to be donated to their political campaigns, of course, and then they love it. But this deal shows that they are happy to gamble with taxpayer money. These two parties have no care and no responsibility about managing taxpayers' money.

The best explanation that the Greens can give for this deal for the bill that we're debating here this evening is, 'They gave us $1 billion, so we said it's fine for them to gamble another $10 billion.' Of course, when it comes to actually getting houses built, both Labor and the Greens will wash their hands of responsibility and blame state governments if they don't meet their targets. Mark my words: that is what will happen.

Meanwhile, the Greens-led councils around this country will be doing their very best to stop any of this housing actually getting built in inner-city areas where it's most needed. We see that happen time and time again around Australia, including in Tasmania and especially down in Hobart. When the private sector is trying to build houses and apartments, they get blocked or the costs are raised through different conditions so substantially that they can't go ahead. And it's the Greens on local government that are imposing these conditions on developers. The Greens will be here claiming the credit for building houses because of this deal, but then rest assured they will fly back to their inner-city seats, grab their pickets and go protest against urban housing developments as sure as night follows day.

There is nothing whatsoever in this bill that guarantees that Tasmania, my home state, or indeed any other state in this country will get the speculated number of houses a year from this fund. We will see the Labor government announce it over and over again. We will see the Greens taking credit for it. But you can guarantee that this government, which is allergic to transparency, will make it all but impossible to find out just how many houses have actually been built.

This bill is an absolute con job. It is an attempt to make a claim of spending $10 billion on housing when in actual fact this government will be doing no such thing.