Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

Nothing new I've heard in the suspension debate will convince anyone other than the blockers working together to stop a vote on the Help to Buy Bill, none of you. Senator Hanson, with all due respect, shared-equity schemes have worked and do work across Australia and have for a long time. The idea is that you help people into homeownership and then, down the track, they are able to buy out the other partner. It works. What it means is people don't have to save as long and as hard for deposits and other money before they can actually get into owning a home.

Part of why we are having this debate is because we want the rest of the country to see the Greens political party, the National Party, the Liberal Party, One Nation and Clive Palmer all working together to make sure that we don't get a national shared-equity housing program up and running. These are the same people that delayed the Housing Australia Future Fund for almost a year and then have the nerve this week to come out and say, 'Well, it's taken too long to get these housing programs funded through the scheme that we actually delayed for more than a year in the chamber.' The hypocrisy is on show for everybody. We are pleased to be the ones arguing for more investment in housing, to get more people to own their own home but, at the same time, supporting renters; at the same time, pushing for more supply, working with state and territories.

The approach the Albanese government has taken is one which comes at this housing challenge from every direction. We don't seek to make it someone else's responsibility or accept that only one program will help. We don't accept that ransacking your super will do anything other than inflate housing prices, and most of the opposition, I think, accept that. They accept that if people ransack their super, housing prices will be inflated, and it won't build one extra house. We have to come at this from a variety of ways.

What we've seen today is this extraordinary procedural dance, the use of quorum to prevent a vote being taken and a filibuster that went for nine hours yesterday so that we didn't get to a vote, all because of the Greens political party and the opposition. They are uncomfortable that they are together, but they are still going to be together anyway because they want to wreck and stop a sensible housing program which the states and territories have agreed to. They have agreed through national cabinet that it is a proposal that they support. That's what's happening today. All this hand-wringing, sobbing and pain that everybody is feeling for everyone out there—excuse us for not taking it seriously. I mean, honestly, Senator Faruqi, your argument is that because it doesn't help enough people, we shouldn't do it.