Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise to make a contribution on the Help to Buy Bill 2023 and the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023. Here we are again, in this chamber, in the Senate, at an impasse on housing—how absurd. It is absurd we are standing here again with a plan on the table which will make an impact on young people's future and which will make an impact on housing, and yet again we are at an impasse.

This is the biggest issue facing so many Australians but especially young Australians in this country. It is my generation and those younger than us who feel locked out and let down by what is happening in housing in this country, and they are right to feel it. And when they look at debates in our chamber there is no hope for them because there are these constant impasses driven by the coalition on one side, who see political gain in not enough happening here. They're not interested or vested in a positive outcome. They're vested in a political outcome; you can see that in the way they engage in these debates and you can see it in the way they continually show up to this chamber without a better plan on the table, without constructive engagement with the government. On housing, they come into this chamber time after time with one word on their lips: 'no'. They are only doing that because they have an interest in this not working. They should be fronting up instead, working with the government and supporting plans which will make an impact on housing in this country.

Earlier in this debate the coalition were lamenting the fact there aren't enough houses being built in Australia. How many housing plans have they come in here and voted for? What have they done to work constructively with the government to get more houses built in Australia, to drive that investment we know needs to happen not just in social and affordable housing but through the private sector? They have no credibility on this because they never come to these debates and constructively engage to get outcomes on housing to solve this challenge, which sits in the pit of the stomachs of so many young Australians who feel locked out and let down. They're not helped by the Greens, who are also part of this impasse and are more interested in chasing social media engagement than social impact, more interested in chasing clicks than outcomes. They could walk into this chamber, too, and engage constructively. They could engage constructively rather than delay and delay, and block and block.

So, yes; young Australians feel locked out and let down. I pity any watching the debate in the Senate today, where there's another plan on the table which would make a difference on this issue—this issue which weighs so heavily on their hearts, their minds and their concerns for their future. Instead of constructive engagement, they see the Senate at an impasse again. They see a plan on the table, they see those opposite saying no and they see those to my side quickly drafting up memes on social media—they're doing the work there!—but not being interested in outcomes, the impact and the change which will make a difference in people's lives.

Let's be clear on what this bill does. It's a national shared-equity scheme designed to help more Australians into homeownership, where homeowners can purchase property with just a two per cent deposit. The government will also support eligible homebuyers with an equity contribution—up to 40 per cent for new homes and 30 per cent for existing homes. It will support up to 40,000 low- and middle-income Australians to save hundreds every month on their mortgage. It's a good bill. It's a bill that will make a difference. It is not the whole answer to everything happening in the housing market. It is not the answer to every challenge before us. But it is an answer. It is one pathway. It is one thing that will make a difference. But, like every other bill we've brought to this place and every other plan we've brought to this place, it will be subjected to meme after meme after meme and click after click after click, and we will hear, 'No, no, no, no,' from those opposite, who just aren't interested in engaging.

We've seen the Liberals and the Greens vote against these bills in the other place. It's no surprise from the coalition; it's no to everything. That's their political strategy; that's their game plan at the moment. But what about the Greens voting against it? Their election platform called for a shared-equity model, which is what this is, and they're standing in the way of more help for those who want to enter the housing market. They're standing in the way of the ambition and aspiration of young Australians who want to enter the housing market. Let's not skip over the fact that those opposite—the Liberals and the National Party—had a decade in government to address some of the supply issues that we are dealing with in the housing market. They had a decade. This isn't a problem that comes up overnight. They did nothing to boost supply, yet they come in here now, when plan after plan has been put on the table by our government—a government which actually wants to do something and which actually wants to change something—and they say no. Time after time after time, they say no.

I heard my friend Senator Bragg lamenting earlier in this debate that the policy cupboard of the government is bare. Well, what's in your cupboard, Senator Bragg? What's in the cupboard for the Liberals and Nationals is raiding the superannuation of young Australians. What's in their cupboard is making young Australians choose between their aspiration for homeownership and having decent superannuation and a decent retirement. It's about limiting their ambitions. Well, I don't want to contain the ambitions of young Australians. I think, in a country like Australia, we should be able to say that you can own your own home and you can have a superannuation balance which will help you achieve a safe, secure retirement. I think that's a reasonable aspiration that young Australians should have. That's what the generations before them were able to have.

We have a problem of intergenerational inequity in this country. Limiting the ambition of young Australians and making them choose between homeownership and superannuation—you know full well that, if you rip money out of superannuation from a young person, it's not going to go back. If you start raiding these balances, like they did during the pandemic, it's not going back. So you are making them choose between superannuation and the aspiration to own a home—an aspiration which I think is fair, which their parents had, which their grandparents had and which young Australians should have as well. But they should be able to have superannuation too. It is a false choice. It is a choice that harms young Australians and contains their aspirations. Saul Eslake described it as one of the worst public policy ideas of the 21st century. It is a containment of aspiration, and no-one should fall for it.

Honestly, watch out, young Australians! If that's what's in their cupboard, you don't want to stay in there long. God knows what's going to fall off the top shelf, if that's the best they've got—if the best they have to offer you is robbing you of your super and limiting your aspirations. This is from a party that claims to be the party of ambition and the party of aspiration. They want to limit the aspirations of young Australians, and no-one in this chamber should stand for it.

We know supply issues are putting pressure on the cost of housing. When house prices increase, saving for a deposit becomes an insurmountable roadblock. We know that homeownership is linked to short-, medium- and long-term economic security. That's why our Homes for Australia plan has an ambitious goal—a rightly ambitious goal—of building 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade. This plan means training more tradies. It means funding more apprenticeships. It means growing the workforce. It means kickstarting construction by cutting red tape and providing incentives to state governments to get homes built quickly, because we cannot do this alone. Anyone who tells you that the federal government can do this alone is having you on. This requires the work, cooperation and collaboration of every single layer of government in our country.

We are delivering the biggest investment in social housing in more than a decade to help reduce homelessness. For renters doing it tough, we've increased rent assistance two years in a row and we are working with states and territories to make renting fairer. Considerable work is underway, right across our country, including in my home state of South Australia, to improve renters' rights, to improve the bargaining position between them and their landlords, to make it fairer and to make it more secure for them, because not everyone will own a home—not everyone will choose to own a home, actually; some will choose to rent. But the system needs to be fair and equitable, and renters deserve a strong voice in this chamber and across our states and territories as well.

Just today, the minister announced round 1 of the Housing Australia Future Fund programs. Remember the debate on that bill? How many times did we stand in this chamber while the Greens and the Liberals voted no? They voted to delay. Absurd! Well, today we've announced it will deliver 4,000 social and 9,000 affordable homes, including over a thousand homes for women and children escaping domestic violence and for older women at risk of homelessness. That sounds like a pretty sound policy outcome to me—a policy outcome which never would have been achieved without our bill, a policy outcome which others in this chamber tried to block, tried to delay and voted against.

We need to come together as a chamber in support of action on housing. At the moment, the only party in this place presenting a plan is the government. The parties opposite and the parties to my side come here with a single word on their lips: no. Young Australians should be asking themselves why. Young Australians should be asking themselves, 'What do they have to gain by blocking assistance for those seeking to buy a home and those seeking to rent?' There is a political vested interest here on nothing happening for those opposite. For the Greens, there is an opportunity to engage and there is an opportunity to be part of a solution which will make an impact on the lives of young Australians—an impact on the issue which is sitting heavily on their chests.

Young Australians feel deeply let down when it comes to the housing market. They feel locked out in a way that the generations which came before them did not. Their parents were allowed to have the ambition of a secure retirement and a home. Their grandparents were too. Young Australians deserve to be able to hold that ambition. They deserve a government who backs in that ambition and their aspirations for their future, and they have that government. What they don't have is a Senate chamber willing to put its own politics and nonsense aside and come in and back those young Australians and back reasonable plans in housing which will make a difference to their lives. Instead, here we are again, with the Liberal and National parties, who are seeking to rob young Australians of their aspiration for housing and super and who don't believe they deserve both. The Greens on the other side would rather secure clicks on their social media accounts from young people than vote for a better future for those very young people. That is a depressing state of affairs when it comes to housing policy in this country.

Young Australians deserve better. All Australians deserve better. As a country, we have the opportunity to make a choice. Do young Australians deserve the same opportunity that their parents and grandparents had to own a home? If your answer to that question is yes, then the only thing you should be doing when you walk into these debates is looking deep inside yourself for how you can constructively engage and deliver policies which will make a difference. I know there is political gain for the Liberals, the Nationals and the Greens in watching these things fall over and fall apart, but, when you do that, you rob young Australians of that security in their future and you rob young Australians of that aspiration.

Our government is backing in the aspirations of young Australians. We believe those aspirations should be high. We believe that the millennial generations and those that come after them deserve the same kind of financial security their parents and grandparents had. They deserve to believe they can own a home; it is not asking too much. But they will never get there if the Greens put social media engagement over social impact and if the Liberals and the Nationals sign up to this nonsense idea that they have to choose between owning a home and having a secure retirement through superannuation. That is a false choice.

There is an opportunity to make more progress on housing here in our chamber today. I commend this bill to the Senate. I implore my colleagues to reflect deeply on this and support our bill.