Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There's no doubt that there's a housing and homelessness crisis in Australia and that Australians are suffering because of it. For those that are in secure rental accommodation but want to realise the dream of owning their own home, this is getting harder and harder. The median house price in Australia's capital cities is now close to $900,000. That means the deposit needed to get a mortgage is almost $200,000. I'd hate to be a young person trying to get into the housing market at this stage. In 1984, average house prices were 3.3 times average incomes. Today, they are a little over 10 times average incomes. If the growth in house prices had kept pace with the growth in income, we would be paying $300,000 for the average house and putting down a deposit of $60,000.

Life is tough for renters trying to own their own home, but it's even tougher for people who are homeless or at risk of homelessness. Figures from the most recent census, in 2021, showed that there were 123,000 people without a home on census night. Mission Australia's 2023 homelessness and stable housing impact report found that there has been a 103 per cent increase in Australians sleeping rough between 2020 and 2022. I'm embarrassed to acknowledge that, while there was a roughly five per cent increase in homelessness from the 2016 census to the 2021 census, the largest state or territory increase was 45 per cent, in my home state of Tasmania.

Some of the recent homelessness figures for Tasmania are shocking. In Tasmania, according to the latest housing dashboard released by Homes Tasmania, there are just shy of 4,500 individuals and families on the social housing waiting list, and the average waiting time for priority applicants is 80 weeks, far longer than when the Tasmanian Liberal government came to power in 2014. I just want to point out that that waiting list figure includes, as I just said, individuals and families. In other words, it's substantially more than 4,500, and it includes hundreds of children under the age of 18. As a longstanding advocate of the protection of children, the idea that children are without stable accommodation is deeply concerning to me. For about five years now, Hobart has had the distinction of being Australia's least affordable capital city for rental properties, according to the rental affordability index. While Hobart has seen a recent fall in median weekly rents, they are coming off a very high peak. The median weekly rent of houses and units combined is $489, which is way out of reach for low-income earners.

And it's not just the facts and figures that tell the story about the housing crisis. As a parliamentarian, I see anecdotal evidence of the urgency of this crisis. There's been a marked increase in the number of appeals to my office for people seeking help with housing, and I've heard stories about people on elective surgery waiting lists who are sleeping in their cars. Can you just imagine what living in a car does for not only your physical health but also your mental health, particularly for someone whose health is already at risk? In Hobart, we're seeing tent cities popping up across the town. If you're familiar with the Hobart winter, you'll understand how tough living in a tent, car or caravan is at this time of year. Far more than before, I see people begging on the street. Hobart City Mission estimated last year that around 245 Tasmanians were sleeping rough in the south of the state alone. Even homeless Tasmanians who are not sleeping rough still have to deal with the stress and anxiety of knowing that the roofs that are over their heads today may not be there tomorrow.

It's incredible that in the midst of this crisis the previous government had their heads planted firmly in the sand. Let's not forget that in 2019 the assistant minister for housing denied that there was a housing crisis and said he wanted to put a positive spin on housing and homelessness. Doesn't it speak volumes about the previous government's attitude to the housing crisis that they would expressly wish to put a spin on it rather than actually acknowledge the depth of the problem and take some action to solve it? For almost a decade, calls for action by community service organisations, homeless Australians and Australians under rental stress were falling on deaf ears.

As with so many issues the Liberals and Nationals have denied, neglected and failed to address, it has fallen to Labor to clean up their mess and finally take the action that needed to be taken. We went to the election promising real action on the housing and homelessness crisis that is gripping Australia, and that is exactly what we are doing. We put to the Australian people an ambitious agenda to build more social and affordable homes and help more Australians to own their own homes, and they gave us a mandate to deliver it. This legislation giving effect to the Housing Australia Future Fund is a key part of that agenda.

What we have before the chamber right now is a package of three bills: the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023, the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023 and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. The bills will establish the Housing Australia Future Fund and make consequential amendments to legislation in the Finance and Treasury portfolios to support the new fund. The housing council bill establishes the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. This will be an independent statutory advisory body which will inform the government's approach to housing policy by delivering independent advice on housing supply and affordability.

The $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund will use annual disbursements to fund social and affordable housing and other acute housing needs. The fund will provide a source of funding to support increased social and affordable housing as well as funding other acute housing needs for remote Indigenous communities, women, children and veterans. We've had criticisms directed to us in this place and through the media that the Housing Australia Future Fund is insufficient to address the housing crisis, but it's worth putting a few things into perspective. This is the biggest single investment in housing in over a decade. Of the 30,000 homes we have committed to delivering over five years, 20,000 are social housing properties.

Another thing that's lost in the public debate is an appreciation that the Housing Australia Future Fund does not stand alone in addressing this crisis. Let's not forget that providing social housing in particular is primarily a state and territory responsibility. The Albanese Labor government is stepping in to help with this effort because we recognise that the scale of the problem is too great for the states and territories to deal with alone. This has been the case for some time, but the problem has become considerably worse because of almost a decade of inaction under the previous government. Yet they're still going to vote no to the bill.

The other important point that often gets lost in this debate is that the Housing Australia Future Fund is not the only action we are taking to address the housing and homelessness crisis—in fact, far from it. Let me remind my colleagues in the Senate of what we have done in this space already. We unlocked up to $575 million to help fund more social and affordable rental housing through the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. In this year's budget, an additional $2 billion in financing was announced to support more social and affordable rental housing, by increasing NHFIC's liability cap from $5.5 billion to $7.5 billion from 1 July 2023. Also in this year's budget, an extra $67.5 million has been provided to states and territories to help tackle homelessness as part of a $1.6 billion one-year extension of the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. We provided incentives to increase the supply of rental housing by improving taxation arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation, and we've expanded the Home Guarantee Scheme, which has already helped more than 50,000 Australians into homeownership. We've also delivered a new national housing accord, bringing together all levels of government, investors and the residential, building and construction sector in a shared ambition to build one million new well-located homes over five years from 2024.

We've invested $350 million to deliver an additional 10,000 affordable rental homes over five years from 2024 as part of the accord. In June, we announced an expansion of our commitment under the accord, the Social Housing Accelerator. This $2 billion commitment was delivered almost immediately to state and territory governments, creating thousands of homes for Australians on social-housing waiting lists. The states and territories will ensure that this additional investment in housing will work alongside better planning, zoning and land release. This demonstrates our commitment to working with state and territory governments to address housing affordability, supply and homelessness. We also announced recently that we will be adding a billion dollars to the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to make sure that we can get more homes on the ground, more quickly.

Altogether, the Albanese Labor government's investment in housing and homelessness in the last financial year alone has been $9.5 billion. That is a phenomenal effort, particularly if you compare it to the inaction and indifference shown by the previous Liberal-National government. The Minister for Housing and Homelessness, the member for Franklin, Julie Collins, ought to be congratulated for this effort. I know how incredibly hard she works and how motivated she is to give every Australian the security and dignity of a roof over their head. After all, Ms Collins was once a beneficiary of social housing, as was our Prime Minister, so they both understand the extraordinary life-changing difference that social and affordable housing can make.

I welcome the recent decision by the Greens to support the passage of these bills. While I would have liked to see them make this decision earlier, so we could start building affordable homes earlier, I guess it is a case of better late than never. I note that the Greens are still calling for rent controls, even though this demand is no longer linked to the passage of these bills. On the subject of rent controls, I would like to bring to the Greens' attention a recent study by the Centre for Equitable Housing, which is a think tank that advocates for all Australians to have secure, affordable housing. The study said:

We find that first generation rent control, or a "rent freeze", would be a poor response to the real challenges facing Australia's housing system, almost certainly making the problem worse for those in real housing stress. Freezing rents has been shown to reduce supply at the lower end of the market, as investors shift to higher-yield property development and withdraw more affordable properties from the market altogether.

The study goes on to say:

In the medium- to long-term, increasing social housing stock is critical to resolving rental unaffordability and insecurity.

In a nutshell, the study is saying that rent controls do not work.

I welcome the Greens' decision to no longer make a measure that demonstrably does not work as a pre-condition of passing these bills. Having said that, it has been disappointing to hear such disingenuous debate over the months since the bills were originally introduced. One argument I've found especially disappointing is the description of future fund investment as gambling on the stock market. We've heard it again tonight from the nay-sayers on the other side. Any suggestion that this investment is a gamble is patently false. Australia's future funds are carefully managed and balanced portfolios of investments including private equity, cash and tangible assets. They have returned an average of nine per cent per year over the past decade. This type of balanced investment is similar to the approach taken by Australia's superannuation funds. Australia's future funds provide for consistent and reliable disbursements, and the claim that the money invested in them is being gambled is patently ridiculous.

From this fund we are firmly committed to delivering 30,000 houses over the first five years, including at least 1,200 in Tasmania, my home state. I remind all senators that the Housing Australia Future Fund is supported by the community housing sector. It's supported by the Housing Industry Association, Master Builders Australia, homelessness services, National Shelter, Homelessness Australia, the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Housing Association, the Community Housing Industry Association and the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute. They all want to see these bills passed as a matter of priority. They want to see us get on with the job of delivering this housing. So let us get on with it. Let us pass these bills and get shovels in the ground, and hand over the keys of thousands of new houses to the Australians who so desperately need them. I commend the bills to the Senate.