Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Klaus Schwab tells us, 'You will own nothing and be happy.' He is with the World Economic Forum. I wonder why he says that. 'You'll own nothing and you'll be happy.' This Labor legislation—the Help to Buy Bill 2023 and the Help to Buy (Consequential Amendments) Bill 2023—offers a real glimpse of this hideous future and how socialism will be imposed in Australia disguised as a helping hand by a benevolent government. So much for the great Australian dream, which has now been reduced to only partly owning your own home. The economic security, peace of mind and sanctity of homeownership are things that this Labor government and their Marxist confederates in the Greens would happily deny to the Australian people.

Labor cannot be trusted on housing. Two years ago, it promised to fix the housing crisis. Labor promised $32 billion of taxpayers' money to build 1.2 million new homes by 2030. In two years, not a single home has been built. How could there be when there is virtually no-one left able to build them? For all the millions of people Labor has brought to Australia—more than the entire population of Adelaide—only 51,000 were still workers and only 1,800 were qualified tradies. That was in the 2022-23 figures. Of 730,000 people brought in, only approximately 51,600 were skilled workers and, of that, only 1,800 were qualified tradies. So where is the investment in the Australian tradies? Where was Labor's support for One Nation's apprenticeship scheme? There wasn't any. There hasn't been any. During the 2½ years you've been in office, you've done absolutely nothing about it. It is no wonder there are no new homes being built. I hate to tell the Australian people, but they will not be built very soon either.

Labor's signature policy is the so-called Housing Australia Future Fund, borrowing and investing $10 billion and building 30,000 affordable homes in five years from the returns—that is, if they get returns. It works out at less than $84,000 per home, about $400,000 less than what a new home actually costs to build these days. Again, not a single home has been built. Labor make announcements as if announcements alone fix the housing crisis. Labor make these announcements while ignoring their own policies that drive the housing crisis.

The worst of these is record immigration. Two years ago, Australia already had a shortfall of at least 650,000 homes. Labor has since allowed more than 1½ million people to come to Australia, all of them needing homes that could be occupied by an Australian already living and working here, let alone allowing in the refugees or releasing those held as illegals in the detention centres, who also require housing. It does not make any sense at all but, then again, neither does this Labor government. This is the same government that moved the former Minister for Home Affairs into the Housing portfolio—putting a fox in charge of the henhouse. She and the former immigration minister were hopeless in their portfolios, so for her to go to the Housing portfolio is ridiculous.

The housing crisis is primarily an issue of supply and demand. High immigration increases demand when we should be reducing it. Lack of new housing restricts supply when we should be increasing it. High demand and low supply drive up house prices and rents. Labor is not building homes to address low housing supply. Labor is not lowering immigration to reduce housing demand. Labor is making this housing crisis worse. No number of worthless, empty Labor announcements will make the truth go away.

The Greens are even worse when it comes to housing. They want the state to own it all—all of it—and Australians to own none of it. It is straight out of the Marxist playbook. Their call for a rent freeze will, without any doubt, force landlords out of the market and reduce the availability of rental properties even further. Their call to get rid of capital gains discounts and negative gearing will suppress property investment and also reduce the availability of rental properties. The Greens do not understand that we must incentivise property investment to increase rental availability and reduce rental prices. We have to kick Labor and the Greens out if we are going to have a chance to fix this housing crisis.

We have to implement One Nation's housing policy. One Nation will lower immigration to reduce housing demand. One Nation will ban foreign ownership of residential property to increase housing supply for Australians. New Zealand and Canada have done it, and even the coalition here has adopted this part of our policy. One Nation will relax restrictions on renting spare rooms and granny flats to improve housing availability, and One Nation will enable superannuation funds to invest some of an individual's super as equity in the individual's home to improve housing affordability. Under this policy, Australians will own everything and be truly happy. They will be happy not because some crackpot socialist tells them they will be but because they will be secure in their own homes. One Nation will always stand against the encroachment of socialism being propagated by Labor and the Greens. We will stand against this useless legislation, which does nothing to address the causes of the housing crisis and does everything to impose socialism on Australia. One Nation will fight for Australians.

As my colleague Senator Malcolm Roberts indicated about the NDIS—and this is what I've been told—when new builds come into play, you will have to build them as NDIS friendly. I can back this up because I went to one of those companies that build these demountable houses. I said, 'Is this what you've got available?' and they said, 'Yes, but now we have to take it down because the building codes have all changed and we actually have to build bigger doorways and comply with a certain element of building now.' So what we're doing now is adding to the cost of a new build for people to have these requirements in the housing market which they will never properly need. We have to be realistic about it because that cost is going to be an extra $50,000 or $60,000 per build in Australia. Australians cannot afford it. It needs to be addressed if that is truly the case. Just because there are some people in this country—and my heart goes out to them—who are disabled for whatever reason, you do not impose on the rest of the country that they have to build a house for their own special needs or the special needs of someone else who might visit or, one day, might buy it. The fact is we are imposing these restrictions on people.

Another thing that needs to be addressed with housing is—apart from the foreign investment that we have, which is driving up demand and driving up the price of houses and so the banks loan more money to the Australian people so they make more money out of interest repayments—that we also have to have a good look at the GST that people pay on new houses, which is somewhere between, on a new build, 40 and 45 per cent. That's how much it costs when building a new house. That is just over the top. No wonder Australians can't afford it. The cost of housing in relation to a person's wage in this country is just out of the realm.

So for Labor to sit there and have the same old rhetoric, especially from Senator Ayres, is pathetic. It's just laughable the way he sits there and says, 'You are against the youth owning a home.' Because they can't answer your questions with decent logic, they say, 'Let's go and blame the other side.' That's because I voted against this stupid dog of a bill which won't work and I don't want to see taxpayers' money wasted or see a socialist government having ownership in their homes. That is exactly what they are doing—'You'll own nothing and be happy because the government is going to own your home.' Honestly, people: think about it. On what renovations you do and what you put in that house do you think that the government is going to back you up? Their policies change all the time. Whoever is in government, you can't rely on this mob whatsoever. Whoever is in government here, if you think that that is going to see you through to the end of the day and you will have pure ownership of your own property, think twice about it. I wouldn't trust them as far as I could bloody kick them, this bloody mob here. I think they are absolutely useless and hopeless in their policy. That's why no-one voted for them today. They were sitting next to the crossbench by themselves with one crossbencher that actually supports them on this policy, because we can all see through it.

It's actually a dog of a bill. It hasn't been well thought out. They haven't done any of that. They abuse and throw snide remarks across the chamber as if none of us care about the youth. Guess what? I have four people out there who would dearly love to own their own homes. Are you saying I don't care about them, that I don't care about my nieces and nephews and the people who are with me? No. I am looking after their best interests, unlike you. You make these false promises and offer the world, but you can't back it up. That's the problem with this Labor government. You are only chasing votes and you'll throw the money where you think it's going to do best to encourage these people to back you all the way. For two years you've had the money there and you haven't built one home. Why? I ask through the chair. I ask the question of Senator Ayres. Why has not one house been built but $35 million has been spent on administration fees? That tells you that bureaucrats are running it. They wouldn't have a clue about policy. They are not grassroots. They don't understand what the hell is happening out there. They don't understand that people dearly want to own their own homes.

The fact is that the real issue here is the high immigration of people that they bring into this country—1½ million in this country. That's the problem, because they all have to have a house or somewhere to live. You keep bringing them out. The damage has been done. You can say now that you're going to reduce the numbers, but it's too damned late. That's another ruse by you and your government—to say you're going to reduce the numbers—and it's not going to make a damned bit of difference.

So now you're going to throw more money at it. That's all you do—make these false promises, like reducing electricity by $275 a year. Well, tell the poor people out there who've got increased electricity prices. What's that done for them? Absolutely nothing. I've never seen such a hopeless government, with ministers that are so incompetent, as this government is. Absolutely hopeless! You have not put thought into it.

To be a member of parliament, you have to have a vision for the future. You shouldn't lie to the Australian people. You shouldn't give them false promises that you can't see through, because you are purely buying their vote. That's all you're doing now and up until the next election; you're just trying to get the confidence of the people by saying, 'We're going to do this,' and 'We're going to give you that.' You've given them absolutely nothing but false hope, false lies—that's all this government has done. And you're going to continue down that path.

But I am proud of the people in this chamber—the coalition, the crossbench and the Greens—who have not backed your policy. We may disagree on certain parts of this policy, but the whole fact is that we have seen through this. To the people who are watching this, all the people in the chamber, up in the gallery: you must understand that most of this whole chamber has voted against this bill because it is not right for the Australian people; it is all based on lies and false promises that they will never deliver to the Australian people, and it's a waste of taxpayers' dollars.

When you show some real strength in this country by knocking back the immigration numbers that are coming into this country and taking up the housing that belongs to Australians; when you work with the councils and state governments to release more land for the building of homes; when you put money into some of these council areas or into these smaller communities so that they can actually have the water supply and sewerage infrastructure they need, because they're the ones who are struggling and can't provide the infrastructure that they need to open up land for more housing; when you put out more apprenticeship schemes to encourage Australians to get up off their backsides and start working, instead of paying them the welfare payment for doing nothing, then we might be able to address the real problems that are affecting Australians. It's about getting workers, here, in Australia, working to provide the housing and the infrastructure.

And, of course, your forestry—that's another thing. You're shutting down the plantations to build your wind turbines. We're not going to have the timber that we need, that we rely on to build the housing as well.

You are so far behind the eight ball. You're absolutely hopeless. I will not support this bill, based on the fact that it's a dog of a bill; it won't do anything. And it's not because I don't care about the Australian people. It's because you haven't got it right.