Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Help to Buy Bill 2023. This bill is how a lot of policies in this country work: the Liberals and Nationals, either intentionally or by their own recklessness and incompetence, create a crisis—in this case, the housing crisis. As the CEO of Homelessness Australia, Kate Colvin, has said: 'There's no disputing that the previous federal government left an absolute mess in the housing system.' So the Liberals create a crisis; the Australian people vote them out; Labor comes in with a sensible, evidence based solution to the crisis; and the Greens, rather than working constructively with the government to deliver in the best interests of the country, decide to hold up the solutions so they can put out media releases complaining that nothing is getting fixed.

Now, we have a situation where it's almost a year since this bill, Help to Buy, was introduced to parliament, and we are still debating it rather than getting on with this policy, because we are blocked, on the one hand, by the Liberals and Nationals, who created this crisis to begin with and who say no to everything, and the Greens party, who say they care about solving the crisis but who, the problem is, care even more about campaigning about the crisis. The Liberal and National parties and the Greens party are two sides of the same coin. All are putting their own political interests before the national interest. It is a disgrace, when you have people living in their cars, living in tents, living on the street, for political parties to put their own grandstanding before providing more homes.

Labor's Help to Buy Scheme is very simple. If we pass this bill, it will support up to 40,000 Australian households to purchase a home of their own. The federal government will invest in up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes and 30 per cent for existing homes. So you will only need to get a mortgage for 60 or 70 per cent of the purchase price, which means the amount you need to save for a deposit is considerably lower. This bill is a lifeline for those who do not have wealthy parents to ask for a leg-up, for a deposit. The bill also means that, because your mortgage is considerably smaller, your repayments are considerably smaller. So not only does it make the home more affordable to save for; it makes it more affordable to pay off. This bill makes housing attainable for tens of thousands of Australian families who otherwise might never own their own home.

There are caps on income and property value, to ensure that this scheme is really targeted at those who need it most. It's a principle you would think everyone could get behind—and you'd be right to think it, because the Greens party even supported a shared equity scheme in their own political platform taken to the last election. The Greens political platform says: 'The Greens will establish a shared ownership scheme to help people currently locked out of the market to own their first home.' It's right there in black and white. The Greens tell the Australian people they support a shared equity scheme to deal with the housing crisis, but, when it gets to the Senate, they hold it up so they can complain that there is nothing being done!

But it's not only the Greens who are fighting against themselves over this bill. Their partners in crime are the Liberal Party, who can't agree about their position on this bill either. Former New South Wales Liberal premier Dominic Perrottet was a big fan of Labor's shared equity scheme. In fact, he was such a big fan that he copied it in his own 2022 state budget. Premier Perrottet said at the time:

I understand the federal Liberal Party opposed Prime Minister Albanese's scheme [but] I think it makes sense … providing equity support for first-time buyers …

And he went on to say:

Key workers, single parents and older singles will be able to have the security of home ownership with a lower upfront deposit, a smaller loan, lower repayments, no lenders mortgage insurance and no interest on the Government's equity share …

There are, of course, shared equity schemes in place in a number of states, including Victoria, South Australia and Tasmania. In Tasmania, the Liberal government recently expanded their shared equity program because it was so popular. The Tasmanian Liberal housing minister has said their shared equity scheme:

… has shown itself to be an incredibly popular program that is supporting Tasmanians to enter private home ownership …

I know Mr Dutton thinks that Liberals down south are a bunch of dirty lefties. That's why he's just completed a hostile factional takeover of the New South Wales branch. But what do his own Queensland colleagues say? The Queensland LNP leader turned around and had some comments about a shared equity program just three months ago. He said: 'Programs that allow equity are something that is firmly in our focus, and I want to work with Canberra to make sure that the numbers that we're talking about are far higher.'

It's not just state Liberal leaders who support shared equity schemes. Let's look at what recent federal Liberal leaders have had to say about them as well. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull has supported this approach for over 20 years. In 2003, he said:

… by allowing homeowners to use equity as well as debt finance, homeowners will benefit from a lower cost of home ownership …

As we know, the current Liberal leader, Mr Dutton, ran a very long and nasty campaign to undermine and sack Mr Turnbull. Unfortunately for him, his own caucus colleagues said they would rather have Scott Morrison as leader than Mr Dutton. I won't reflect on what this tells us about how the opposition leader's own colleagues view him, but what did former prime minister Morrison say about shared equity schemes? In 2017, as Treasurer, Mr Morrison said the Victorian shared equity scheme was 'very interesting'. I think: good on them for having a good crack at this.

This is all pretty astonishing. You've got the Greens party voting against a policy that was taken to the last election on their own platform, and you've got the Liberal Party voting against a policy that is supported by their two most recent federal leaders and most, if not all, of their state leaders. That really tells you all you need to know. There's no real debate to be had about whether this bill would help people to own their own homes. We know the policy works, because there are already very successful versions of it in a number of states. The Liberals and the Greens—the Tories and the tree Tories—would rather just see housing remain unaffordable so that they can complain about it. It's one of the most disgraceful things I've seen in this place.

I do worry about the infighting in the Greens party on housing. It seems they can't agree on their own position. They support shared equity schemes, but then they also oppose them. Their platform calls for the building of one million new homes, but their housing spokesperson spends most of his time campaigning against new developments near his own house. In the last two years alone, the Greens housing spokesperson has opposed a plan to build 855 mixed-purpose dwellings at the disused Bulimba Barracks site. He's campaigned against a 220-home aged-care facility in Holland Park.

It's not just the Greens member for Griffith who opposes any new homes being built near his own house. In Sydney the Greens are opposing the Minns Labor government's plan to build new affordable homes near train stations. The Greens member for Balmain says that building up to 185,000 new homes would be 'unlikely to have a meaningful impact' and would, rather, 'further threaten our tree canopy targets'. At the very same time it was reported last year that one of the Greens New South Wales senators planned to bulldoze thousands of trees in order to subdivide their Port Macquarie investment property into three luxury rentals. Can you believe it? The Greens oppose affordable homes near train stations because of tree canopy targets, but they have no problem with bulldozing trees to subdivide their own investment properties. And it goes on and on. The Greens member for Brisbane opposes an empty sand and gravel factory in Teneriffe being turned into residential apartments because it would impact 'the unique character of the neighbourhood.' It is remarkable. The Greens want to build one million homes—just as long as they aren't anywhere near their own homes.

Then you've got the Greens housing spokesperson repeatedly using the word 'landlord' as a slur during question time. I wonder if he throws that around during Greens caucus meetings, because I'm sure that that would get awkward pretty quickly, considering the Sydney Morning Herald reported last year that seven Greens MPs and their spouses own 14 investment properties. So the Greens are a party of landlords pretending they're tough on landlords. Can the Greens housing spokesperson explain how that works? Can he explain how he simultaneously supports and opposes a shared equity scheme? Can he explain how he simultaneously wants to build one million new homes but opposes any homes being built in his seat?

Now, of course, it's not only the Greens party that is hellbent on decreasing the supply of affordable homes. The Liberal Party in my state of New South Wales has a very fine track record of driving the housing crisis. During its 12 long years in office, the state Liberal-National government sold off 7,600 public housing properties across the state. That's billions of dollars worth of social housing that could have come in handy during the housing crisis. But, other than privatising and selling off social and affordable homes, what ideas do Liberals and Nationals actually have for housing? Well, it turns out they have one idea. They want to raid your superannuation fund to pump up the housing market. The Liberals and Nationals' antisuper policy achieves two things. Firstly, it makes you poorer in retirement and, secondly, it makes housing even more unaffordable.

Some of the critics of the Liberals' housing policy have been absolutely scathing. One said:

… pumping more money into the housing market by letting people access their superannuation savings … would probably lead to further increases in the cost of housing.

Guess who that was? The former Liberal finance minister Mathias Cormann. Another critic said:

Young people need their super for retirement, not to try to take pressure off an urban housing bubble …

That was the deputy leader of the Liberal Party. Another said:

… a thoroughly bad idea … It's not what the superannuation system is designed to achieve.

That was former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull. Another bloke said:

I think [Malcolm Turnbull] got it right … it's not good policy and I agree with him … you don't want to fuel prices.

Guess who that was? That was the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, back in 2017. So if the opposition leader, Peter Dutton, thinks it's a terrible policy and the opposition deputy leader, Sussan Ley, thinks it's a terrible policy then for what reason are we here?

You only need to look at who and what's driving this policy. It's Senator Bragg, who spent his working life before coming to this place as policy director for the Financial Services Council and the big business Business Council of Australia. The big banks and financial companies put him in the Senate, and now he's delivering them some return on investment, with constant attacks on industry super. Senator Bragg's paymasters, the banks, don't earn any interest when your savings are growing in industry super funds, but if that money is in high-interest, high-fee mortgage accounts then you're talking about even bigger profits for the big banks. That's what these policies are all about—a wealth transfer from your super funds to the profits and dividends of the big banks. You don't need to take my word for it, because that's precisely the point the opposition leader himself made in 2017.

While the Greens are opposing developments and the Liberals and Nationals are raiding your super, we're getting on with investing in more housing. Just today, the Minister for Housing announced 13,700 new social and affordable houses out of the Housing Australia Future Fund. That number includes 4,220 social and 9,522 affordable homes, including 1,267 homes for women and children escaping domestic violence and for older women at risk of homelessness. The Liberals and Nationals voted against that fund, and the Greens held it up in this chamber for months. Well, we're getting on with fixing the housing crisis. The Greens party should be ashamed of the politics they're playing with this.

Debate interrupted.