Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

Instead of those opposite coming in here and spouting a whole heap of rhetoric, maybe we should actually have a look at what the problem before us is and why the coalition is not prepared to support this particular bill. And that is because it is a really bad bill. It does not do what those opposite profess it's going to do. I would draw to the attention of the minister who just made a contribution that, in relation to stoking demand, it probably would be worthwhile realising that the legislation that is currently before this place is a demand-side policy by your government, and, by the very nature of it being demand-side, your policy is likely to generate increased inflationary impact on the market as well. So you can't have it both ways.

On the delay that is being put forward at the moment, I think you should probably take note that everybody in this chamber, apart from yourselves and one other, has seen that this bill is seriously flawed. It's seriously flawed for a number of reasons. First of all, there is no detail in this bill that can give anybody in Australia any comfort as to understanding the kinds of questions that they should reasonably be asking about this particular proposal that is before them. They don't know who they're able to borrow from. They don't know the rules around what happens in the changes of the threshold. They don't know what the rules are in terms of when you change how much you earn. If you increase your salary, then what happens to your investment—the one that you own with Mr Albanese and Ms O'Neil?

As there are so many questions that are left unanswered by this bill, maybe you should use the time that you are being afforded now—if this motion that's been put forward by the party at the end of the chamber gets up—to answer some of these questions for Australians, because I think it is entirely reasonable that Australians expect to know what the details of legislation are when it's put in here. But, time and time and time again, you keep putting legislation in here, saying: 'Nothing to see here. Don't worry about it. We'll fix it later. Just trust us.' Well, guess what? We don't trust you.

The other thing that is worth mentioning is that this particular shared-equity scheme is available in most states around Australia, and, in many instances, it is not fully subscribed. But what you've failed to tell the people is that you actually need enabling legislation in the states and territories. Has any of it been passed? I'd be very surprised. The minister might like to tell us how many pieces of legislation have been put through the parliaments of the states and territories to enable this to happen.

The other thing is that we have got a situation where the thresholds that have been put in place are just not going to enable this to even work. We know what the average housing prices are in the capital cities around Australia. Then we've got a series of thresholds that have been built into this legislation that mean that, even if you wanted to access this particular scheme, you wouldn't be able to meet the thresholds, so you wouldn't be able to get access to it anyway.

So don't come in here and complain about the fact that your policy, your legislation, isn't getting through. Why don't you come in here and actually do something about fixing the concerns that have been expressed, not just in this chamber but by many people and many organisations? Even the New South Wales Premier, who is of the same persuasion as the government, has indicated that he does not see how on earth you're going to be able to meet your housing targets. So, instead of coming in here and providing a piece of legislation that is simply destined to fail, why don't you use your time and your resources of the massive great departments that sit behind you and actually fix the problems with this legislation? Everybody wants to see Australians being able to get access to homeownership, but not by a dog of a piece of legislation like what you are proposing here.