Dave Sharma (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance (Senator Gallagher) and the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by Senators Bragg, Cash and McKenzie today relating to housing, small business and the CFMEU.

We heard, in Senator Bragg's question, about how 42 per cent of mortgage holders struggled to make their loan repayments in August—the highest level of mortgage stress we've seen in Australia since 2019—and we've seen the average owner-occupier mortgage increase to some $634,000—a nine per cent increase from 2023. It's no surprise that homeowners are struggling to make loan repayments. They've endured 12 consecutive interest rate rises. They've been enduring inflation that has stayed higher for longer in Australia than in other developed economies, and, whilst the central banks of other developed economies from the United States to the United Kingdom, Canada and Europe are reducing interest rates, in Australia the Reserve Bank keeps interest rates on hold and has continued to indicate that government spending is too high and that it will not be in a position to see inflation return to its target band and reduce rates until early next year.

This isn't the only cause of the housing crisis. Fundamentally, as well, there is a lack of supply being built, and in large part it's because of the government's own policy settings. Under the government's National Housing Accord, they committed to building 1.2 million homes over the next five years. If you translate that to New South Wales that means 377,000 new homes, or 75,000 new homes per year. But in the year to March 2024 there were only 43,000 new homes commenced in New South Wales versus the target of 75,000. If you compare that to when the coalition was in office, from 2013 to 2018 we were building 67,000 new homes per year on average—pretty close to the target. Why is that? In part it's because labour productivity in the construction sector has gone through the floor; it's declined by 18 per cent over the past decade. In particular, it has collapsed since the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the ABCC, was abolished. Since that time, we've seen construction costs grow at a much higher rate than inflation. We've seen major cost blowouts on large infrastructure projects, where Labor governments—surprise, surprise—at the state and federal level are one of the biggest consumers of construction services, and cost inflation that the CFMEU is building into those contracts is being met by the taxpayer.

Whilst that is happening, we are also seeing smaller construction businesses, predominantly involved in residential home construction, go to the wall. In her questions, Senator Cash referenced the toughest operating environment in recent memory being faced by small businesses. Indeed, insolvencies are at a record high; there were some 11,000 business insolvencies in Australia in financial year 2023-24, and almost a quarter of those—3,000 of those businesses—are in the construction sector, particularly residential construction. Why is that? They've got out-of-control inflation. They've got a sector of construction in infrastructure and public works which is paying higher wages because of the CFMEU's role in bidding up wages, which means smaller construction players predominantly involved in residential housing can no longer meet those wages. As a result, we've seen construction particularly of residential semi-detached dwellings in New South Wales and elsewhere collapse because builders cannot build to a price that will ever be commercially competitive with existing housing stock. Rather than seeing the housing target met or even approached, the rate of construction of new housing in Australia under this government is going backwards.

We heard from Senator McKenzie about these, frankly, frightening comments that Mr Joel Shackleton from the CFMEU has made—death threats against the owner of an Indigenous labour hire firm—and we've had the government's hand-picked administrator of the CFMEU, Mark Irving, say, 'There is nothing to see here'. Senator Wong said thuggery and violence have no place on Australia's work sites, but here is someone who makes it his business to embed thuggery and violence in Australia's work sites and who is being kept at the CFMEU. We've heard that this government has taken stronger action than any previous government in cleaning up the CFMEU. It's quite the reverse. This government has taken money from the CFMEU and run a protection racket for the CFMEU, abolishing the Australian Building and Construction Commission, the only body that controlled the construction industry.