David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

It's deeply concerning to see housing affordability being politicised the way the climate debate has been. We know that all that happened was a delay to the actions we so desperately needed. I'm really concerned that we're now seeing the same thing here on housing. I agree that we need to see much more ambition from government—so much more ambition—starting with doubling the size of the Housing Australia Future Fund, from which we saw the first round of announcements of projects today. There is capacity in the sector to build more social and affordable housing faster, and the federal government can and should support them to do that.

We also need to start to address some of the root causes of the housing affordability crisis, which means that we must have a conversation about tax reform. We can't have a situation where young people can't afford housing while at the same time taxpayers are subsidising people in foregone tax concessions for their fourth, fifth or sixth investment property to the tune of $20 billion a year within the decade. We need to raise that revenue and direct it to more public and social housing. Only one per cent of Australian taxpayers own nearly a quarter of all property investments across the country. How can we talk about the egalitarian dream of Australia and allow that to happen, where one per cent of taxpayers own 25 per cent of the property and we have a whole generation of Australians locked out of homeownership?

Our housing crisis is feeding growing intergenerational inequality, and we have to turn that around. I hear so much from Canberrans who don't like what's happening. They see the intergenerational inequality, and they want politicians, decision-makers, to start turning the ship around. But that obviously means compromising, being constructive and actually making some changes. We know there are no silver bullets. That's magical thinking—to think that when it comes to housing there's a silver bullet that will change it all. We are in a very, very deep hole when it comes to this housing crisis, and it's going to take a lot to get us out of it. But I'm worried that politics is standing in the way of delivering measures that, while not perfect and certainly not the whole solution, can and will help.

I back the intent of this bill because it will help people who don't have wealthy parents get into housing. We live in a country now where the bank of mum and dad is one of the biggest lenders, and, if you don't have wealthy parents, you're basically stuffed. We can't allow that to happen. We need to start putting measures in place now and also dealing with some of the root causes of the crisis that we're in. This bill will help older women—the cohort most at risk of homelessness—purchase a home on their own, and the same for single parents. While technically a demand-side measure when what we need is more supply, this bill will help some of the most vulnerable people in our community get into homeownership.

Economists and experts are united in saying the impact of the bill on house prices will be negligible. That was pretty clear at the hearing. But the bill can be better, and I'll be moving a number of amendments, co-sponsored by crossbench colleagues, to do that. Firstly, I want to see the scheme expanded to 30,000 places per annum, with at least one-third of these places going to older women or First Nations people. Homeownership rates amongst First Nations people are below the national average. We know housing is an enabler of other social benefits. Access to safe, secure and affordable housing helps deliver better health, educational and economic outcomes.

This scheme should also extend beyond the forward estimates. Four years is not long enough to fix the housing crisis. If the government believes in this scheme, this scheme should operate for longer. I also want to see the object of the bill amended to sharpen the focus of what this bill seeks to do, by explicitly acknowledging the need to focus on housing outcomes for historically disadvantaged Australians, again including older women and First Nations people.

I'll also be moving an amendment to sharpen the focus of the review so that it explicitly examines how effective the scheme has been in supporting people to accelerate their access to homeownership—people who would otherwise be permanently excluded from homeownership. It's also imperative that this review considers how effectively the scheme is integrating with other first home buyer assistance programs that have been mentioned by various senators in this debate. I know, for example, that here in the ACT the property price caps are excluding more and more people from accessing assistance under the scheme. And I urge the government to actually negotiate on this. We hear publicly that you're open to negotiating, but in private it's flagged that there can be no amendments to this bill. That doesn't sound like negotiation to me. This bill will help more of those people into homeownership, and I urge my Senate colleagues to give this bill consideration and work constructively.

Senator Bragg rightly says that this won't solve things. We all know it won't. But his party won't entertain dealing with the root causes of the housing crisis either. They won't touch the capital gains tax discount or even talk about limiting negative gearing—finding a way forward. Their solution is for young people to use their superannuation. So we're going to have a whole generation of young people who have to choose between superannuation and that compounding over their working life, or getting into the housing market. Why should it be an either/or for young Australians? Why can't we actually deal with some of the root causes of this?

Yes, we have to have a debate about immigration. This is putting pressure on people already living here, and new migrants. It's incredibly unfair to arrive into a housing crisis. We have to be able to talk about this and, as Australians, decide how big we want Australia to get. We need to talk about the effect that's having on house prices and look at ideas put forward by people like Alan Kohler, who suggests that we should cap migration and double the completed dwellings every year to ensure that we are keeping up on the supply side.

Last week, the Parliamentary Friends of Affordable Housing and Reducing Homelessness, which I co-chair with Josh Burns and Angie Bell in the other place, hosted Maiy Azize and Everybody's Home for the launch of Voices of the crisis: final report from thepeople's commission into Australia's housing crisis. Hon. Doug Cameron and Professor Nicole Gurran did a huge amount of work in getting people together to consult and cooperate. I want to touch on some of the recommendations in the report, in a place where I feel like we hardly ever get to the root cause of these problems. We've got this big balloon in front of us, and we're just seeing little patches being put on whenever there's a leak.

The report makes eight recommendations. No. 1 is to invest in a broad-based social housing program. Who doesn't want to see the government invest in more social housing? Here in the ACT we have the highest rate of persistent homelessness in the country, under a Labor-Greens government. We've seen social housing sold off, not replaced. As a Canberran, I find it deeply embarrassing. I actually feel ashamed, looking at our rates of homelessness. On our social housing list, we have 3,100 people waiting for access to social housing. We need the federal government to step up and work with the states and territories and ensure that they make good on their commitments when it comes to social and affordable housing.

No. 2 is to recognise housing as a human right. This seems pretty commonsense to me. Is housing a human right, something that we should ensure that everyone in our community has access to, or is it an investment vehicle? When I talk to Canberrans, everyone says, 'Of course it's the first thing.' This is so fundamental to human health and being able to flourish. In fact, I have a bill before the Senate that would seek to enshrine housing as a human right, and I thank Kylea Tink, in the other place, who has introduced the same bill. No. 3 is to ensure housing assistance meets people's needs. We've heard the government talk about the huge increase in Commonwealth rent assistance, but we know that it is still nowhere near enough. At the same time as we talk about these new schemes that the government is putting forward, we can't forget that the NRAS, the National Rental Affordability Scheme, is winding up, and we're seeing thousands of affordable rentals exit the market.

No. 4 is to coordinate national rental reforms that limit unfair rent increases, end no-cause evictions and enact minimum standards. Again, this is something that Australians want in the Treasury Laws Amendment (Build to Rent) Bill, which I assume we'll be debating at some point this week. We've seen a really commonsense proposal from the Community Housing Industry Association, National Shelter and the Property Council. They don't often see eye to eye, but they've worked together to ensure that there are more affordable rentals in the build-to-rent package. Part of that work is adding some conditionality to Commonwealth money, requiring five-year minimum lease agreements and banning all no-cause evictions. It's an opportunity for the Greens and for us, for the first time, to have conditionality on those sorts of tax concessions to ensure that renters have a better deal.

No. 5 is one that, again, the major parties don't want to talk about: abolish the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing for property investors. There are ideas around incrementally reducing the capital gains tax discount on investment properties over the next ten years, phasing out negative gearing, abolishing incentives to downsize the family home, using the revenue savings for investment and supply of well-designed public and community housing that is affordable. We have to be able to actually turn this ship around, and it doesn't have to be an either/or. There are ways to start to address this. Senator Jacqui Lambie and I had a range of options costed by the PBO. There are options out there if the major parties are willing to entertain them. No. 6 is to support affordable homes and sustainable, inclusive communities. No. 7 is First Nations housing justice, which I touched on earlier. No. 8 is enshrining people's voices within a policy framework that is fit for purpose.

There are solutions out there if we are willing to listen to the communities that we come in here to represent, if we're willing to listen to the experts, but that's going to take some political courage. Again, all of these proposals and schemes have their place, but we all know they're not going to solve things, so let's actually get on with this. It's a small thing for people who don't have wealthy parents and who want to get into the market, but let's turn our minds to addressing some of the root causes of this housing crisis.