Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Help to Buy scheme is one of the Labor government's central housing policies, and we have seen this week the new Minister for Housing talk about Help to Buy as one of the centrepieces of their offering going forward. I want to bring the chamber's attention to the fact that on 1 May 2022, during the last election campaign, the Albanese opposition, as it was then, put forward the Help to Buy concept as something that it would take to the election, and, if it won the election, it would seek to legislate Help to Buy. Mr Albanese said at the time:

After nine long years in Government, housing affordability has only got worse under the Liberal-National Government.

Of course, it's much worse now, but the point here is that the Help to Buy scheme, after 2½ years of this government, has not even been put to a vote here in this parliament.

I think it is very curious and unreasonable for the housing minister to be going around the traps, including the AFR summit this week, talking about Help to Buy as some great white hope. This is the only policy that the Labor Party has to help first home buyers. It is very clear that, if we are to arrest the decline in first home ownership amongst millennials and gen Zs, the Commonwealth government needs to tilt the scales in favour of first home buyers. This one policy, which is now 2½ years old and yet to be legislated, is apparently the Labor Party's only idea to help first home buyers.

The issue with Help to Buy is that it is a tiny scheme of 10,000 spaces when the country needs to build more like 200,000 houses a year. It is a tiny scheme. It is a pimple on an elephant's bottom, and it is not going to be a serious policy to help Australians get into their first home. It has also been described as a distraction by people like Peter Tulip from the Centre for Independent Studies. The caps are far too low. In recent months, we've seen articles state things like, 'Median-price dwellings are out of reach in every capital city except Melbourne under Labor's Help to Buy scheme,' and that's because Help to Buy, in a place like Sydney, caps out at $950,000, whereas the median house price is $1.4 million. In Brisbane, the cap is $700,000, and the median house price is $920,000. So it is a tiny scheme which has been a distraction and would not be fit for purpose anyway because the caps are so low.

It is a cruel position for the government to take that this is the only offering that they have. I wonder why the government hasn't wanted to bring this on for a vote. We've had a committee inquiry into the bill. We have exercised our right in opposition to explain our problems with the bill. We think it's a bad idea. It is, of course, also very expensive. It would cost around $5 billion to put this scheme in place. I note that other parties, like the Greens, have their own reasons for being concerned about this scheme. Maybe the government should bring it on for a vote. If this is their policy to help first home buyers, then they should bring it on for a vote, otherwise we're going to be left with this ridiculous situation where the government are going to approach the upcoming election with the same policy that they launched at the last election campaign, which they haven't bothered to bring on for a vote.

I wonder whether, in the Albanese government change of ministry, there has been any thought given to the policies being a problem here. Housing would be the biggest issue for under 40s, but we have a new minister with the same old policies: Help to Buy, housing targets they won't meet, the Housing Australia Future Fund which doesn't build any houses and then, the best policy of all, the policy where they give foreign fund managers a tax cut to build houses as part of their perpetual renting plan.

The government have got failures on the supply side and failures on the demand side for first home buyers, and so I wonder whether Ms O'Neil is going to consider whether there is more to doing the job than presenting new marketing. There is no question that the marketing of the Labor Party's housing policy has improved, and that can be measured by how many media interviews have been done and how many slick PowerPoint presentations have been presented to the AFR property summit. But the problem is the policy, so I wonder whether the government will look closely at whether it can find a way to get supply moving or whether it will look at the demand side and look at what can be done to level the playing field for first home buyers.

You never hear the government talk about how hard it is to get a loan. You never hear them talking about lending policy, banking policy. These are all things that are within the preserve of the Commonwealth government. It is true that when people in this place have discussions about housing policy, many of those levers do reside with the states and with local government.

Whatever approach the government takes on housing, it must be very careful that it is finely calibrated and that it is achievable. So why the government is silent on banking policy and lending policy is curious to me. Why the government is so obsessed with this corporate landlord agenda that it has as the focus of its housing policy is not curious to me. As we've canvassed at length today in the Senate, the government is so worried about protecting the interests of big super funds that it will file false public interest immunity claims with this chamber in order to protect the secret lobbying agenda of the Cbus super fund which had sought an exemption from disclosure rules so that it wouldn't have to present it's fees that it incurs when it pays stamp duty to its members.

It is very curious, as we get to the end of this term, what the government's going to do with Help to Buy. I would hope that the government will bring it on for a debate, so we can look at the issues, and for a vote; however, I wonder whether or not the government has another plan to further help the super funds take over the housing stock of Australians. I wonder whether they will pursue their build-to-rent tax exemption—maybe that will come on for a vote?

That is another one where we're very happy to argue the case that it is not in the interests of Australians to have their housing stock owned by foreign fund managers. When we had the Treasury department before the Senate committee on economics, they gave a very clear answer that the tax concession for build to rent would only be available to a foreign fund manager. It wouldn't be available to Labor's best friends in the super funds; they would have to use the Housing Australia Future Fund in order to get a leg up into the property market.

The build-to-rent tax exemption, if it were legislated, would provide a leg up to BlackRock, Vanguard and a range of other fund managers. If it were legislated then I think we would be having the same debate at a future election that they're having in the US now about what can be done to curb corporate housing. The Australian people don't want to be serfs to a corporate landlord like BlackRock or Cbus. They don't want that. I think that the stats that you can see in places like Jacksonville and Atlanta—up to 25 per cent of the houses are owned by corporations, fund managers—are the future we do not want for Australia. But that is what the government has come up with. I think this is a consequence of the government only looking for policy advice from a few favourite vested interests.

As we turn the corner for the last part of this parliament, we have an unlegislated Help to Buy scheme, which apparently is still the key demand-side policy the government have. They have no other ideas. We have an unlegislated tax cut for foreign fund managers, so they can buy corporate housing. We have the Housing Australia Future Fund, which may give access to certain super funds and may pay what has been described by Senator Gallagher as availability payments to major investors like super funds. That is the extent of the achievement after 2½ years. Housing is getting so much worse for younger people, and all the government has done in 2½ years of this parliament is legislate a housing fund, the Housing Australia Future Fund, which builds no houses but provides the avenue for major investors, big super funds, to take over the housing stock of Australia. It is a pretty ugly picture. No wonder Australians are losing confidence in this government, because under-40s, particularly, understand now that this government will never fix the housing crisis.