Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to contribute to the debate on the Help to Buy Bill 2023 and the Help to Buy (Consequential Provisions) Bill 2023, and I obviously endorse all of the comments of my Greens colleagues who've spoken before and those who will speak after. This issue is a fundamentally important one. An issue of debate in this place is how we can help those who are doing it pretty tough right now, and, rather than debating a piece of legislation that really gets to the heart of what is going on with the housing market in Australia, we've just heard speech after speech from members of the government whingeing and whining rather than doing and acting.

You'd be forgiven for thinking, given the speech made just previously, that this government has an opportunity to work with anyone. I listened very carefully to the Prime Minister's press conference this morning. Rather than being prepared to work constructively, negotiate responsibly and put in all the effort to try and get agreement across the chamber, what the Prime Minister said was, 'Get out of the way.' That is the type of attitude that is coming right from the top of this government—'Get out of the way'—as if somehow everyone in this democratically elected chamber should just roll over and get out of the way. I'm sorry, Mr Prime Minister, but that's not actually how democracy works, and it's not actually representative of this chamber. The Labor government has 25 votes in this place, out of 76, yet it has the arrogance to just whinge, whine, politick and demand that everybody else get out of the way. I think people who are really struggling to pay their rent right now and are holding their breath at another potential rate rise—certainly not a rate cut any time soon—would like a bit more cooperation and maturity from this government than just telling everybody else to get out of the way.

It is extremely disappointing that today the government have brought on these bills and want to force a vote on bills that they know will lose. They know they don't have the support of the chamber, because they haven't put in the effort. They haven't actually done the hard work of trying to come to a workable solution. They're not interested in negotiating with anyone else. When you have a Prime Minister whose attitude is that the rest of the chamber and the parliament should just get out of the way, that is not the attitude of a leader who wants to get things done and work collaboratively or who is listening to the very real concerns of members of the community right across the country who are struggling right now.

The fact is that I would love to be able to be in this place today talking about a bill, a piece of legislation, that would actually go to dealing with the issues that people are feeling—a bill that would actually deal with the cost of housing in this country and with offering some relief for the millions of Australian renters who can hardly pay the week-in, week-out rent, let alone save for a deposit for their own home. But this piece of legislation is totally inadequate. Rather than the government working with the Greens, the crossbench and others in this chamber to improve and deliver real solutions for people, we have a piece of legislation that is effectively useless. It does nothing to deal with those real issues.

This piece of legislation is like bringing a spoon to a gunfight. It's not even a knife; it's a spoon, being used to serve up some political rhetoric from the government while they refuse to put in the hard yards to compromise and to work collaboratively, when in fact that's actually what the Australian people want. Over and over and over again, we hear this. There's a reason that the Labor Party had their lowest vote on record since World War II at the last election. There's a reason that more and more Australians are not voting for either of the major parties: they're sick of the winner-takes-all attitude that delivers no solutions for people. That's why they want governments to have to work with others, to come up with workable solutions, good solutions, and to listen to the needs and the concerns of people in the community. But no; the Prime Minister just wants everyone to get out of his way. The political posturing, the whinging and the whining without actually putting in any of the effort—Australians can see right through that.

Unfortunately, this piece of legislation is so inadequate that it might help two per cent of people if they're lucky—sorry; 0.2 per cent of people, if they're lucky. That means that 99.8 per cent of Australians, who might some day love to own a home, are being left in the lurch, totally locked out of this. This proposed Help to Buy scheme would help only 10,000 Australians—0.2 per cent—while 5½ million adult renters per year would get nothing out of this. In fact, it could actually make the situation worse, because house prices will continue to climb, locking more and more and more people out of the housing market. People are finding life pretty tough right now, whether you're a renter or you have a mortgage. The cost of living is getting harder. The cost of everything is going up. It's becoming harder and harder for people to keep their heads above water.

I want to say to members of the community, whether you're a renter or a mortgage holder: if you feel that you're doing it really tough right now, you're not alone. Millions of others are feeling the same. That's why we in the Greens are so upset that this government is refusing to do some important things to relieve the pressure on you. It's why it's so frustrating that this government, rather than working for solutions, continues to try and bulldoze its rubbish bills through this place. When you go to the supermarket, everything costs more. Every month, people are worried that their landlord's going to put the rent up again. When you hear the Governor of the Reserve Bank telling people that they might have to sell their homes, that's just a kick in the guts—an absolute kick in the guts—for people.

Michele Bullock, only a couple of weeks ago, said that people would have to start cutting back on their spending, trading down to lower quality goods and services, dipping into their savings and working some extra hours and that, ultimately, they might have to sell their homes to keep their heads above water. This is not leadership. This is capitulation to the crisis and to the system that's not working for people.

There are some key things that in this place, this parliament, if there was a will, if the government was willing to work with us, we could get done. We could put a two-year freeze on rent increases so that people can at least catch their breath. We could get rid of the hugely generous tax incentives for property developers that continue to push housing prices through the roof. The big property developers don't care. They are not feeling it right now. It's young people, mums and dads and everyday working Australians who are struggling to keep their heads above water.

This government doesn't want to deal with that. They're too scared to confront the key causes of this housing crisis, because they don't want to upset their mates in the property industry. The statistics are just gobsmacking. If you are a childcare worker, there's no way you can possibly afford to save enough for a deposit to buy a house these days. In fact, it would take you 31 years to save for a deposit. Even then, if you got a loan today, it would be over 90 per cent of your wage. This is not realistic for people. Yet this piece of legislation does nothing to relieve that pressure or deal with that issue. If you are a sales assistant and work in retail, which so many Australians do—it's the most common profession in this country—you will never be able to afford a house on the current track. You will never be able to do it.

This piece of legislation, this wet lettuce to the housing crisis, does nothing to help you. Rather than the government working with the Greens, the crossbenchers and others in this parliament to deal with this issue, to put some solutions in place that will help people with the skyrocketing cost of rent and the unaffordability of housing, the government is not interested in that. It's all about a headline. It's all about making them feel like they have done something rather than actually doing something.

In South Australia, my home state, Adelaide was named one of the world's most unaffordable housing markets. That's in the world. This piece of legislation does nothing to help that. This legislation does absolutely nothing to help that. If you are a renter in Adelaide, according to monthly data from private analytics company PropTrack, Adelaide has the worst rental availability of any capital in Australia. So, if you're in Adelaide right now and you're feeling like you can't find an affordable rental, it's true; you can't. You're not alone, because so many other South Australians are dealing with the same issue. But I tell you what: this government is not helping you. They are leaving you on your own. This government is failing to help you because of its arrogance and inability to understand that the Australian people want this government to cooperate, to feel the pressures people are under and to put the politics aside and get something done that delivers real relief for people. Rents in Adelaide homes rose by 11 per cent last year. These bills do not help with that. The Albanese government is leaving South Australians in the lurch. It is ignoring them.