Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I inform the Senate that at 8.30 am today 28 proposals were received in accordance with standing order 75. The question of which proposal would be submitted to the Senate was determined by lot. As a result, I inform the Senate that the following letter from Senator McKim proposing a matter of urgency was chosen:

There is a housing crisis in Australia and the Morrison Government is refusing to fix it.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Scott Ryan (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I understand that informal arrangements have been made to allocate specific times to each of the speakers in today's debate. With the concurrence of the senate, I will ask the clerks to set the clocks accordingly. Senator Faruqi?

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

There is a housing crisis in Australia and the Morrison Government is refusing to fix it.

There is a housing crisis in Australia and the Morrison government is refusing to fix it. In fact, there is a very deliberate strategy by the coalition to appear to be doing something about the housing crisis, while ignoring the very policy settings that have brought us to this point.

In the middle of the pandemic the government announced grants and schemes that would even further exacerbate the housing crisis. Instead of making real change, you lot keep coming up with harebrained schemes, like the granite benchtop renovation grants. The grants were for home renovations that could cost between $150,000 to $750,000. What a joke! And this is all happening while there are people living without heating in public housing around the country and there are people who have been waiting for months to get urgent repairs to their homes. Is this housing crisis a joke to you all?

What an affront that is to people who can't make the rent or save a deposit and those who are sleeping rough. But you don't really care about them. All you care about are the billionaires and the corporations—your mates.

The so-called Family Home Guarantee that you have established is just a government debt trap and a loan guarantee for the big banks. It seems the minister wakes up in the morning, possibly after wining and dining with the slick lobbyists from the big lenders, and comes up with these rubbish schemes that benefit no-one but the very top end of town. Housing policy in this country has seen some of the most craven collapses to your mates.

Much has been written about the mess that is housing. One recent article asked, 'There is a housing crisis in Australia, so how is the coalition going to fix it?' The answer is that they are not. They are not going to fix it. They are not interested in fixing it. The coalition are too close to their donors, their mates, in the big banks, the big developers and investors, those who made out like bandits during the pandemic. COVID-19 has not stopped the homelessness or housing affordability crisis. As we emerge from the pandemic, we should be doing everything we can to make sure that everyone has a roof over their head.

Unfair tax rules like negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount make it easier for someone to buy their fifth investment property than a first home to live in. This has to be dismantled so people looking for a first home can actually afford it. There has been radio silence on negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount from the Liberals, and Labor have completely backflipped on it. These concessions to the wealthy are the reason we are in this housing crisis. The Greens want to wind back negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount so we can put downward pressure on house prices.

The average property price in Sydney has now hit $1.3 million. People who have been able to enter the housing market have been staring down the barrel of a massive mortgage which they will be paying off for decades, while most can't even think of buying a property in Sydney. In parts of regional New South Wales the vacancy rate has fallen below one per cent. Crisis accommodation is at capacity and rental vacancies are virtually nonexistent. There are reports of families living in tents and vans while sending their kids off to stay with relatives. The rates of homelessness have pushed domestic violence and homelessness groups in New South Wales to say that we are on the brink of a humanitarian crisis.

We have such a severe shortage of social housing in this country that over 100,000 people were counted as sleeping rough in the last census. These people are invisible to the privileged members of the coalition. These people, time and time again, are completely left behind by the government, who have decided to pass the buck on social housing to states and territories. We need massive investment from the federal government to build a million new sustainable public and community homes so people can have a secure and permanent base to call home. Everyone has a right to a safe and secure home. The government is responsible for making sure that this happens, so do your bloody job!

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great pleasure to rise and discuss homelessness and housing affordability because my party, the Liberal Party, has for more than 75 years been a champion of homeownership. To see that you have only to go back to our party's founder, Robert Menzies, who in the lead-up to the creation of the Liberal Party was, in the early 1940s, talking vigorously about the value of homeownership. The value of homeownership transcends money because people who have a home have a greater stake in society. I think that's something that we can all agree on. At the end of the Menzies era, homeownership sat at about 70 per cent, which is a high number when you consider homeownership figures around the world. So it's always been part of the fabric of the Liberal Party's DNA that we support homeownership. Of course we do. That is something that we have been pursuing in more recent years, including during the Morrison government's tenure. We have established NHFIC, the organisation designed to drive social housing and community housing. And I should say at this juncture that everyone's got an important job. Every worker is an essential worker, but there have been instances where people who are working in the services, whether as police or ambos, have not been able to access the housing market in inner-city Melbourne and Sydney. One of the things NHFIC has been doing is establishing community housing.

I've had the pleasure of meeting with some of these organisations throughout Sydney, where NHFIC has invested public money to ensure that people who are working in the services are able to access houses in the inner city. Over the few years that NHFIC has already been in operation it has delivered $2.5 billion in approved loans, for 4,600 new dwellings and 8,300 existing dwellings. That is a tangible example of a program established under the Morrison government that has been driving higher levels of social and community housing, thereby building on that Menzian legacy of our overriding generational commitment to homeownership, because without homeownership people have a lower level of buy-in to our society.

One of the interesting parts of this debate is that the Labor Party is obsessed with superannuation, for various political and economic reasons. It's great to come in here and be lectured by the Greens about how apparently we are corrupt. But the most corrupting element that has been a feature of Australian economic policy over the past 30 years has been superannuation, because the superannuation funds and the unions have bought the Labor Party's policy advocacy lock, stock and barrel. It is true that homeownership has reduced significantly over the past 30 years. What also happened 30 years ago? The superannuation schemes started. There is no doubt that, among low-income workers, people have to choose between the super guarantee and a deposit for a first home. I have had people write to me saying that basically because of their super contribution they won't be able to pull together a deposit for a first home. That is a depressing consequence of super.

And not everything needs to be boiled down to talking points, written by a central office. The reality is that super is actually quite a good idea. There is no question that self-provision is a good idea, especially if we face undesirable demography. Next week we'll see the Intergenerational report. When that is released on Monday, it will give us a snapshot of Australia's future. Again, that will highlight the need for Australia to save more. Those of us on our side of the house are not hostile to super, but we would like to see it work better. The laws that were passed last week will finally put in place a system that will ensure that super will work for the workers, as opposed to working for the unions and the banks.

But super could do more to drive homeownership. Throughout the course of this period in office, the Liberal Party has deployed some changes to the super scheme that will allow super to be used for a first home. In the last budget we expanded the First Home Super Saver Scheme so that people can pull out up to $50,000 from their super to use for a first home. That is an entirely reasonable proposition. But it is a proposition that is available to people who are putting in discretionary contributions, above and beyond the super guarantee. Most Australians don't have the means to do that.

So I still think there is merit in our looking, in the longer term, at circumstances in which people could use their super guarantee contributions to purchase a first home. I think it is mean to deny people access to their own money for the purposes of homeownership, and that is something I hope we return to in the future.

Of course, the super funds have their own plan here. The super funds have been lobbying down here in Canberra and they want to get special tax treatment so they can acquire or get access to what they call 'build to rent' dwellings. Effectively, this is where they would own the buildings and then rent them out to the super fund members—thereby, the funds own the building. The members pay the funds to rent their flats or apartments or houses to the super funds. That embeds a loss of homeownership for all time, because the super funds own it. They are motivated by profit, not by any altruistic purpose.

In order to drive more homeownership, we have as well introduced measures to allow people to downsize, so people can sell their family home and put that money into super. Equally, we have increased the CGT discount. On the question of taxes, I've never seen a higher tax burden create more homes. At the last election, Labor had a policy that would have reduced the CGT discount and, thereby, increase the tax burden on houses. As we pointed out during the election campaign, increasing housing taxes will mean you have fewer houses—so Labor appears now to have run away from that policy. Let's see what they do in the coming election. My sense is that they will adopt a small target strategy. That may be politically advantageous but, as we know, with Labor there's always a hidden high tax somewhere.

Ultimately, the choice here is pretty simple. We will always pursue targeted policies to try to drive homeownership, because that is what we've done since the Menzies era. Over the last year, as a result of our policies—through NHFIC, in particular—you have seen the highest level of homeownership for first home buyers since 2009. More than 155,000 people who are first home buyers have entered the market in the year to March 2021, according to the ABS. Our policies are driving a high level of homeownership, and it is a social, moral and economic good for us to be driving homeownership.

At the end of the Menzies era you had 70 per cent of people in homes. That is a high figure and a figure we should try and maintain, over the long run, because people who have a home, people who live in a home, have a greater stake in society. There is more value to a home than the words that were uttered in The Castle. A home is a place to build a family and there will always be a great value in that, which is why we have pursued a multitude of measures. That's why we've established NHFIC. That's why we've tried to drive community and social housing. We want to see people who are coppers and ambos and nurses get access to inner city housing. It is an important part of the social fabric.

Homeownership is heading in the right direction under us. Labor Party solutions are just to have more super for their mates in the unions. Unfortunately, the super guarantee increase will eat the wages increase that is built into the budget, over the forward estimates, but Labor don't care about that. They would rather see all the money go to the super funds, ultimately, through to the unions and, subsequently, through to the Labor Party so they can use it for campaigning purposes. It is a regrettable situation. But there will be more homes under us.

Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I too rise to make a contribution on this urgency motion. There is a housing crisis in Australia and the Morrison government is refusing to fix it. We had that very clearly articulated by the good senator who's leaving the chamber now. He has no idea, no understanding, how difficult it is in the Australian community to get into the housing market, to afford to pay rent. What we heard from his contribution was, once again, that it's all the fault of the Labor Party, all the fault of the unions and superannuation.

We should be encouraging people to save for their retirement. That's what superannuation's all about. But it's in their DNA. They've got to blame the unions. They've got to knock superannuation. In reality, in my home state of Tasmania, it is critical that we put some attention on resolving the housing crisis, because what we have seen in recent years is homeownership in Tasmania being out of the reach of ordinary Tasmanians. There has been a 40 per cent increase in rent in my home city of Launceston in the last few years; that's a lot of money. We see firsthand the effects of what happens when people don't have a secure roof over their heads and aren't able to house their families. We know the devastation that that causes to families and individuals. But, in the past year, the Tasmanian property prices outside of Hobart have risen a staggering 18 per cent. I've been shocked at how quickly houses are being gobbled up and sold in Launceston and in Hobart.

There is also a real struggle for people trying to get into the rental market. We know that, if a person is paying more than 30 per cent of their income in rent, they are at a much higher risk of ending up being homeless. I've seen it by going out with support organisations who help feed and accommodate people who are doing it tough. It is extremely difficult. We know that the growing cohort of homeless people are older women who haven't necessarily had the opportunity to put money away in their superannuation. Their relationships break down and they find themselves without a family home. We know the demographics that are there every single day. If you open your eyes when you are driving around the cities and the streets of where you live, people are now on the street, living in their cars, couch surfing, moving from one friend's or one family's accommodation to the other.

We can do something about this, and Labor has a plan to address housing affordability in this country and to expand access to social housing, because every Australian deserves to have a roof over their head. But have we had any of those issues addressed in the contributions thus far from the government? No, we haven't. If elected, a Labor government will have a housing future fund that will build 30,000 social houses in the first five years. But we shouldn't have to wait for an election because those on that side of the chamber could already take a leaf out of our book and actually address social housing in this country.

They could also scrap the cap on the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme. We have been repeatedly calling for the government to take action there. What we should be doing is taking whatever steps—working with the states, removing stamp duty—so people can get into their first home. Those people on that side of the chamber have been in government for eight long years, and, under their watch, being able to rent or buy a home in this country is becoming increasingly more expensive and out of reach for people. Labor won't stop raising these issues and speaking up for people who find themselves on the streets and homeless. Let's be frank: anyone can find themselves in that circumstance. We do need to also provide training to ensure that we have the capacity to build the homes of the future, and we need to ensure that there's land released through the state governments to ensure that there is social housing so that housing affordability becomes a real achievable goal for all Australians.

Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Housing is a human right and it should not be treated like a commodity. Just like the rest of the nation, Queensland is in a housing and homelessness crisis. Over the last few months, I've met with organisations right around the state, like the North Queensland Domestic Violence Resource Service in Townsville, the Women's Centre FNQ in Cairns and the Cairns Homelessness Services Hub. Every single support service I met with told me the same story: they are doing everything they can, but there is no crisis housing, there is no transitional housing and there is no long-term public or private housing to send people to.

These services are relying on miniscule budgets to put people up in hotel accommodation. Budgets that were meant to last for a whole year are running out by the end of February. There are 47,000 people on the social housing waiting list in Queensland, and almost 9,000 of them are children. The average wait time is two years, but many people wait far longer than that. While they wait, they move from insecure accommodation to insecure accommodation, or they stay in abusive relationships because they've got nowhere else to go, or they sleep in cars, or they risk losing work and regular attendance at school or university, because they cannot find a home.

It's even harder for people with disability who are looking for homes that they can safely access. For First Nations people or people from CALD communities, for whom navigating a complex social housing system is overwhelming, it's harder again. A woman in Yarrabah rang my office about an hour ago saying that she's been on the social housing waiting list for 23 years. She now has three kids who need a roof over their heads, too. I spoke to a woman on the Sunshine Coast who's living on the age pension. She was facing eviction into homelessness after her rent was increased by $80 a week by a profiteering landlord looking to cash in on the influx of people moving up from Melbourne and Sydney to avoid lockdowns. There are no other suitable, affordable homes for her on the market. Her experience is similar to that of so many other older women, which is why older women are the fastest-growing demographic of homeless folk in this nation.

Another young woman was given crisis accommodation during the first COVID lockdown measures in April 2020, but once that was no longer available she had to sleep in her car. My office managed to advocate for her and helped her find appropriate housing through a local provider, but those local providers are overstretched and under-resourced. It shouldn't take individual lobbying for every Queenslander to find a safe, accessible and affordable home. Towns in Queensland are facing a chronic undersupply of public and private housing. This is a national crisis. But the Liberal, National and Labor parties continue to accept massive donations from the property development industry, to the tune of almost $30 million since 2012. So, their policies benefit developers, investors and the banks and those policies stay in place. Under this government, it's cheaper to buy your fifth or sixth home than your first. It is a national disgrace. Everyone deserves a home.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a crucial and important issue to every Australian. I agree with the previous speaker that every Australian deserves to have a house and a home. There are obviously people who are in very unfortunate circumstances from time to time, and it's not always possible for governments to solve every particular problem. But I don't think there's been a Commonwealth government with more housing policies than this one. A raft of assistance is being provided to get people into a home and, most importantly, to allow them to own their own home. They are the programs that we took to the last election and have a mandate to roll out, programs that we put in place during the coronavirus pandemic as a key way of securing Australia's economic recovery. They've been very successful programs.

Clearly, given the nature of this motion and the fact that it comes from the non-government side of this chamber, there are complaints that these programs aren't doing what they want. I think there is a values difference here that needs to be exposed first, before we go further here. We, on this side of the chamber, unashamedly want to help people to own their own home. I listened to the individual examples given by Senator Waters, which are touching and tragic for those involved but ultimately come down to the fact that those individuals—I'm sure for a variety of reasons outside their control—did not own their own home. They were then reliant on landlords, perhaps on body corporates, and that is not a position I'd like to see most Australians in.

I want to see Australians being able to afford their own home so they've got their own security and can take charge of their own lives and not be beholden to a corporation or some property developer. Yet most of the proposals I've heard from the other side while listening to this debate would perpetuate such a dependence. They'd perpetuate dependence on a landlord or on rental payments, rather than give people the security and equity of their own asset, their own home to look after—one that they can't be unfairly kicked out of at any minute.

That is why this government is focused on policies that can help people achieve the goal of owning their own home. As I've said, we have a raft of these policies. I don't know if a government has done more, in recent times at least—perhaps in the immediate postwar period, when there was a real push by the Menzies government to get people into housing. I want to pay credit to the minister responsible here, Minister Michael Sukkar. I know how focused he is on giving people that dream of owning their own home. He is very passionate about a variety of these programs.

Before the last election, we announced the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme. I don't think the opposition announced a housing policy; they certainly did not announce a policy to help people own their own home. The opposition just ignored that. There were no mechanisms provided by the opposition to help people own their own home. But Scott Morrison and Michael Sukkar announced a great policy before the last election to help people get their deposits together to buy their own home. This program is helping support 30,000 first home buyers to enter the market sooner. It will help an additional 20,000 people from 1 July next year. It will also offer a pathway to ownership for single parents, people who obviously would find it very difficult to save a deposit for their own home. But 10,000 single parents will be able to access a government family home guarantee that will help them unlock a loan and a deposit, or a no-deposit loan, to help them buy their own home.

The scheme has been very successful. As I said, it was opened up to 30,000 places, and, by January 2020, already 19,000 first home buyers had accessed the scheme to buy their first home sooner. Another 1,000 are at the preapproval stage to do so. As part of the budget, we're expanding this scheme to establish those 10,000 places for single parents. That will mean they will need a deposit of only two per cent. When my wife and I were struggling to save up for our deposit, we got to about 10 per cent. It was tough, but we had two people to do it. Obviously if you're a single parent it's very difficult, but two per cent is a very reasonable approach, and the government guarantee will help unlock that private sector finance for these people to own their own home, and then they won't be subject to the vagaries of a landlord or of the housing market.

The HomeBuilder scheme has been massively successful as well. It's pretty hard to get a tradie right now, partly because of the work that's been unlocked through the HomeBuilder scheme. That has provided funding for people to build their own home. It was of course a key measure in seeking to keep Australians in work during the coronavirus pandemic, and it has been incredibly successful. It's made sure that our construction industry has continued to go very strongly through a global pandemic, and it is building the housing stock, which will make for more housing supply and ease some pressures.

I want to recognise some of the points that have been made here. Given how successful our economy has been in the last year, given how many expats are coming home to Australia because this is perhaps the best place in the world to be right now—it normally is, but it's very much the best place to be right now, and we've got a lot of people coming home—that is putting a lot of pressure on our housing market. It is seeing massive record price increases, especially in our capital cities but also in regional areas like where I am. Vacancy rates in regional Queensland are very low—under one per cent in most towns—so it is very difficult for those who do not have secure housing. I recognise that.

The provision of social housing to those who can't afford their own home is principally a responsibility of the state governments, but the federal government does support their initiatives. We provide $1.6 billion each year under the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement to improve housing and homeless outcomes and improve social housing. We also provide $5½ billion a year through Commonwealth rent assistance to those who must be in the rental market. We have expanded these measures as well, with $23 million for new and expanded emergency accommodation for women and children escaping family and domestic violence, under the Safe Places Emergency Accommodation initiative. We've also invested $19 million to deliver more than 100 social and affordable homes as part of the Hobart City Deal. We are working in unison with other governments to do what we can to support, with the increase in prices and lower availability of supply that we've seen, but, ultimately, providing more housing options to people—more housing supply—is going to require us to build more houses. That's what we need to do. It's a good thing that we have this economic activity and that we're victims of our success, to some extent, with our successful and burgeoning property markets, but what we need to see is that supply response. We need to see developments occur. We need to see new housing being built. But the red tape that now exists, especially at a local planning level, is so high that it makes it very hard for supply responses to occur.

Right now, we have thousands of Australians wanting to move to regional Queensland. We've been desperately trying to market and sell the benefits of living in country areas for decades, Finally people are wanting to do that, but there's not enough housing available. There's plenty of land. There's good infrastructure—it probably needs a few upgrades, but there are no massive tunnels or any of the things you get in the cities. We can withstand more people in Rockhampton. We can take more people in Townsville and Emerald. But we need to get the housing developments approved, or else people won't come. People will not come to live on the side of the street. And if people move out to the regions, to a new home, that will free up the housing that we already have in the cities, and that will help all of us. I hope that we not only have specific programs to build more housing in this country but that we also tackle the red tape that stops more homes being built and, therefore, more people having a roof over their head.

Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a very interesting contribution by the previous speaker. What he failed to acknowledge in that contribution is that, after eight long years of the Liberals being in government, housing affordability right across the country has gotten worse and worse. There are more homeless Australians than ever before. It's harder to rent than ever before, and it's harder to buy a home than ever before. This crisis is hitting Australians from so many different walks of life. In the last year, Tasmanian property prices, outside Hobart, have risen by a staggering 18 per cent. At the same time, across Australia, 10,000 mums and kids trying to escape domestic violence were turned away from refuges because there wasn't a bed.

There is a pathway forward to begin tackling Australia's housing crisis, despite the Morrison government steadfastly refusing to do anything of substance to fix this increasingly dire and desperate situation, and that is through an Albanese Labor government. A Labor government would make real strides towards tackling our nation's housing crisis. An Albanese Labor government would create jobs, build homes and change lives, through initiatives such as our proposed $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. Over the first five years, Labor's fund will build 20,000 new social housing properties, including 4,000 homes for women and children fleeing domestic violence and for older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness. It will build 10,000 affordable homes for frontline workers, like police, nurses and cleaners. It will directly support 21½ thousand full-time jobs per year, over five years, across the construction industry and the broader economy. Importantly, one in 10 direct workers on site will be apprentices. The fund will provide $200 million for the repair, maintenance and improvement of housing in remote Indigenous communities, where some of the worst housing standards in the world are endured by our First Nations people. It will invest $100 million in crisis and transitional housing for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence, and it will invest $30 million to build housing and fund specialist services for veterans experiencing, or at risk of, homelessness.

This commitment from Labor has been well received. In fact, Labor's policy has received a seemingly endless series of accolades from right across the housing sector. This includes the Australian Council of Social Service, the Community Housing Industry Association, Urban Development Institute of Australia, Homelessness Australia, Everybody's Home, the Property Council, National Shelter, St Vincent de Paul, Master Builders, PowerHousing Australia, Mission Australia and the Real Estate Institute.

Let me quote just a couple of the responses and reactions to Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund commitment. Mr Jack de Groot, the CEO of St Vincent de Paul in New South Wales said:

It will work. We really welcome this announcement of the Housing Australia Future Fund … We have a crisis, we need investment and I think this future fund is about a partnership between federal and state governments, as well as community sector organisations to actually build and then make sure this housing is available for those on low incomes.

Michele Adair, CEO of Housing Trust and chair of the Community Housing Industry Association, said, 'The Housing Trust and the community housing sector, along with all our homelessness peak bodies, are applauding this announcement by Labor federally.' This is just one of the things that Labor has put forward.

Sadly, this government works only in the margins. We've seen that with their Family Home Guarantee program, which was a complete flop until, pressured by the community and Labor, they sought to change the price cap on the guarantee. That was exposed by a reporter at the Launceston Examiner, who had the gumption to expose the fact that there were only two houses in Launceston that would have come under the Liberals' Family Home Guarantee. It's not good enough. (Time expired)

Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australia's housing market is totally and utterly cooked. Rather than a home being considered as a human right—something that everyone should have secure access to—housing has been turned, through the deliberate choices of the neoliberal parties in this place, into a game of speculation. As a result, across the country the cost of a home is much more than it should be. Houses are too expensive and rents, as a consequence, are far, far too high. That's because over decades the market has been rigged in favour of the speculators and the banks, who profit from ever higher levels of household debt and ever higher rents.

None of this is an accident. It has come from a range of things, from tax policy to tenancy laws, from banking regulation to decades of underinvestment in social housing and, of course, the Reserve Bank having printed hundreds of billions of dollars of cash and pumping it into the banking system. The banks, of course, have turned around and lent it out on mortgages, which has driven house prices up. The system is designed to make homes more expensive, which is just what the government likes.

Just last Friday, the Treasurer, Mr Frydenberg, said, 'Overall it's a good thing for the economy when house prices go up as opposed to going down.' Mr Frydenberg, tell that to the over one-third of Australians who do not own their own home and are forced to rent, to rely on relatives or friends or, ultimately, to become homeless. It's worth noting that over the last 20 years house prices have increased at nearly twice the rate that wages have in this country. So, when the Treasurer says that it's a good thing for house prices to go up, what he means is that it's a good thing for investors. But it's not a good thing for new home owners, who have to borrow more than ever or not get into the market, and it's a terrible thing for the one-third of Australians who rent and have to use more and more of their income to pay their landlord's mortgage. That's just the way the Liberals want it, because this government is all for property speculation and all for helping out its mates who benefit from it, be they developers, the banks or their rank and file, who lord over massive property investment portfolios.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You wouldn't know this from Senator Canavan's remarks, but there is, in fact, a housing crisis in regional Australia. In the country towns that the National Party bludges off throughout regional Australia there is a housing crisis of immense proportions. In the past year, rents in regional cities have been increasing at three times the rate of rents in capital cities. Low-income families who previously moved to the regions to avoid high housing costs have been caught. In the Richmond-Tweed region, rents have risen by 17.6 per cent in the last year. In the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven, rents have risen by 13.2 per cent. On the Mid North Coast, rent is up by 12.7 per cent.

The Northern Star reported this week about the effect this is having on ordinary people in the northern rivers, such as a pregnant woman looking for a secure home before she gives birth and an older woman living in a caravan because she can't find a rental. There are no properties in that area available to single parents on JobSeeker—none. Meanwhile, there are record-low vacancy rates across regional New South Wales. Families in the Riverina, South Coast and south-east New South Wales are struggling to find a place to live. They're living in caravans, under bridges, in parks and in tents. Some of them are living in tents with their primary-school-aged children. The answer, of course, is simple. We need more housing stock and we need more public, social and affordable housing across regional New South Wales.

If you look at the areas that have the worst housing stress in the nation and the areas where there is the biggest gap between the people who have housing and property portfolios and the people who can't get housing, they have one thing in common: they are the areas that are represented in this place by the National Party. They are the areas where there is the strongest contest between the National Party, who, as I say, bludge off those areas, and the Labor Party, who seek to represent those areas.

This government has managed to rack up $1 trillion in debt, most of it before the COVID-19 crisis. They've built nothing—nothing in infrastructure and certainly nothing in social housing. Where is the National Party, the self-appointed party of regional Australia, on these questions? What has been occupying their attention over the course of the last week? Well, of course, over the course of the last couple of years the National Party has disappeared up its own fundament in an orgy of self-interest, recriminations and back-biting and a passion for their own naked self-interest.

What were the things that brought them to this shameful position? Was it their failure to respond to the housing crisis in regional New South Wales? No. It never gets a mention. Was it their complete absence while the mouse plague was tearing apart regional communities? No, we haven't heard boo from them on that question. Was it the failed vaccine rollout in regional Australia? Some of them are vaccine deniers, but there's been nothing from them on that question. Is it the endemic labour market problem in regional Australia? Is it the systematic underpayment of agricultural workers, the gutting of regional TAFEs, the decline of regional apprenticeships or the labour hire rorts that ripped money out of regional communities and sent it to big city shareholders? It was none of these things. Was it a question of the future for agricultural exporters who are losing key markets to our European and United States competitors? No—haven't heard boo about that either. Was it their failure to introduce a biosecurity levy that would properly fund the biosecurity system that our farmers rely upon? No. Was it their failure to support drought affected communities during the longest and deepest drought in recent history? Didn't hear much from them on that question either. Was it their failure to support bushfire affected communities? No. Flood affected communities? Zip.

There is no shortage of reasons why the National Party, in a rare moment of introspection, might reach the conclusion that they are letting down the people of regional Australia. They are a junior part of this coalition government, a doormat for Scott Morrison, with no plan for agriculture, no plan for the agriculture sector, no plan for jobs in country towns, and no plan to deal with the deep inequality that's reflected in the urgency motion before the Senate and make sure that working people in country towns have access to housing. It used to be a basic right in a country town that, no matter what your income, everybody had a home. And public housing in country towns was a great thing. It meant that low-income families could secure a home, but it also meant that moderate-income families and people like schoolteachers had easy access to housing and that there was some equality in country towns. But it's gone. For most people, housing is inaccessible, particularly for young people.

So what was the point of this squabble this week? Was it a road-to-Damascus moment for the National Party—the dregs of the squattocracy, what remains of the Australian bunyip aristocracy? No, it was about the only thing these characters have ever cared about: their own interests, their own jobs—because, after all of this, has the new National Party leadership mentioned any of the serious issues facing rural and regional Australia? It wouldn't occur to them. It's definitely not front of mind. Their press conferences yesterday didn't talk about farmers or housing or wages or health care. It was only about themselves. They talked about the member for New England's personal sense of manifest destiny—his burning, overreaching desire for gratification and personal advancement. Has the phrase 'born to rule' ever more appropriately described a man's approach to public life? Has anyone so perfectly balanced shamelessness with such an astonishingly absent grasp of what his duty is to his electorate and to his constituents?

This man, Mr Joyce, has now risen not once but twice to the position of Deputy Prime Minister. The member for Riverina's leadership never amounted to much, but at least he looked like he cared about the people that he represented. He got a standing ovation from the House of Representatives yesterday. The member for New England's last departure from the office of Deputy Prime Minister was much more ignominious. Mr McCormack might not have done anything about the housing crisis in regional New South Wales, and I don't doubt that if he'd stayed he would have continued to do nothing about it. But at least he theoretically might have had the basic self-awareness to recognise it as a problem.

Instead, what the people of Australia got yesterday was the co-host of the world's worst, most boring, self-aggrandising podcast, the old Weatherboard and Iron. There's somebody in my office who is forced to listen to it from time to time, and I'm not sure, out of Mr Joyce and Senator Canavan, which one of them is 'weatherboard' and which one of them is 'iron'. No doubt this podcast won't be able to continue. It's not really befitting for someone with the high office of Deputy Prime Minister to be running mad, right-wing podcasts. It remains to be seen whether Weatherboard and Iron continues. It has certainly, over its short life, put the 'bored' into 'weatherboard'.

Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A key part of addressing mental ill health is addressing the social determinants of mental ill health. That starts with addressing the issue of housing and taking a housing-first approach to addressing mental ill health. Insecure housing and homelessness have an incredibly negative impact on people's mental health and wellbeing. It is basically impossible to access services and get long-term treatment if you are homeless or in insecure housing. Suitable housing that is secure, affordable, of reasonable quality and of enduring tenure is a particularly important factor in preventing mental ill health and a first step to promoting the long-term recovery of people experiencing mental illness.

Sixteen per cent of people with mental ill health live in unsuitable accommodation, meaning they are homeless, live in overcrowded accommodation or housing of substandard quality or are at risk of eviction. The Productivity Commission's report on mental health found:

One quarter of all people admitted to acute mental health services are homeless prior to admission and most are discharged back into homelessness … Not only is an individual's recovery challenged by unstable accommodation, but follow-up care after discharge is more difficult (which, in turn, can lead to a cycling of people back through hospital EDs).

To address this vicious cycle, the Productivity Commission recommended the following:

As a priority reform, each Government should commit to, monitor and report on, a nationally consistent policy of not discharging people with mental illness from hospitals, correctional facilities and institutional care into a situation of homelessness.

But that means we actually need a supply of affordable housing for people to go into. In my home state of WA, like in the rest of Australia, we have a housing crisis. The rental vacancy rate is at one per cent, which is a 40-year low. In Perth, we have a median rent of 460 bucks a week. How is that affordable? That is not even close to being affordable for anybody who is trying to survive on, for example, income support payments of $44 a day or on a low income. It is very clear that we need to address this housing crisis for everybody in Australia, particularly those who are excluded from the housing market. If this country says it's going to address mental ill health, a key part of that is addressing the housing affordability crisis and making sure nobody with poor mental health has to be homeless and live on the streets. This is a travesty in a country as wealthy as Australia. (Time expired)

Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There is a significant lack of accessible housing in Australia. In the last 10 years, less than five per cent of housing, both public and private, has been built to an accessible standard. This is quite simply unacceptable. Disabled people have a right to live in a safe place and have somewhere to call home, just like everyone else.

There is so little accessible housing in this country right now that there are hundreds of disabled people who are under the age of 65 living in nursing homes. One of the reasons for this is the absence of accessible housing options. At the national meeting of building ministers on 30 April this year, the states and territories agreed to include a minimum accessibility standard for rental housing and apartments in the 2022 National Construction Code. The standard is based on the silver standard of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. This reform to the National Construction Code, which will require all new homes across Australia to be built to a minimum accessibility standard, was brought about by none other than Rebecca Vassarotti, the ACT Greens Minister for Sustainable Building and Construction. This is a major breakthrough, for which the minister should be congratulated.

In Queensland, the Liberal-National opposition housing minister wants to block these important changes, changes that will ensure that more disabled people have an accessible home to live in. That's right. The Liberals right now, in Queensland, want to make it so that there is no need to implement the standards in that state. It's an absolutely unacceptable position taken on behalf of their mates in the construction industry that don't want to do the work. The standards set out in the construction guidelines should be the baseline and not the ceiling, but it is an excellent start for which the minister should be congratulated.

Lidia Thorpe (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's go back to the beginning of colonisation and understand—or try to understand, for those who refuse to accept the true history of this country—that the first people of this country were thrown off their land. They were forced off their land. They were murdered and massacred for their land. They were pushed into what we now call homelessness.

The squatters came in and illegally occupied our lands. What did the squatters receive for illegally taking our homelands? They received wealth. They built their wealth from stolen land that saw the desecration of First Nations people 200 years ago. That's where it began, with colonisation—colonisation being the evil that still exists in this country and that creates so much harm.

Today we have a situation where Aboriginal people are living on the streets, disconnected from their country, their families, their communities. We have a party over here—the Labor Party—that is selling off public housing in Victoria quicker than a fire sale. And we have a Liberal government over here that couldn't care less about the poor people in these communities and that drive past in their million dollar vehicles and see people sleeping on the street. This is a crisis, and we need action. (Time expired)

Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When I was a young adult, there were no people sleeping rough on the streets of our capital cities. My wife and I were able to buy a home in inner city Melbourne on 1½ average incomes. It could be like this still. The huge change in the last 30 years is because of government policies: housing policies that favour the wealthy and leave the less well-off to struggle big time. They treat housing as a get-rich-quick scheme rather than a human right.

Australia is in a housing crisis. We need to make housing more affordable and to build more houses to provide more public and social housing. The Greens' policy is to build a million public, social and community homes. All of this is possible, but this government doesn't want to act. I want to particularly highlight the situation facing the LGBTIQ-plus community. Just today, the LGBTIQ-plus Health Alliance presented data to parliamentarians on health issues facing LGBTIQ-plus people. Homelessness was recognised as a big factor in poor health, because it is hard to be healthy when you are homeless. Almost a quarter of LGBTIQ-plus people have experienced homelessness in their lifetimes, while 11½ per cent have experienced homelessness in the last year. Trans men and trans women were most likely to have reported experience in homelessness, with almost one-in-five trans people experiencing some form of homelessness in the last year. With discrimination and violence being much more likely against trans and non-binary people, homelessness brings even greater risks for them than other people on the streets.

The government has sat on its hands for too long. They refuse to act to change the policies that make their mates and themselves richer. We must do more. The government should stop sitting on their hands and take urgent action or, much more likely, the community should turf them out.

Question agreed to.