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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

On 16 September, the housing minister, Clare O'Neil, released a statement in conjunction with the Prime Minister outlining that the government was going to direct in some form that the Housing Australia Future Fund, through Housing Australia, would be creating thousands of houses. They've said that this is the first round of Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund and National Housing Accord programs, which will deliver about 13,000 new homes.

On 17 September the next day, the Senate passed an order requiring that the details of the recipients of these funds be published, which is quite a reasonable request from the Senate, given that all we have from the housing minister is a couple of pages on the Treasury website. This is after this Housing Australia Future Fund having been the government's main supply policy, which was announced before the last election and is part of a massive failure on housing. We have seen the number of houses built in Australia collapse from 225,000 just eight years ago down to under 160,000 in this year. All this order of the Senate from almost a month ago requires is who actually is going to receive taxpayer funds and the details of correspondence with institutional investors.

The government says that it doesn't have a plan to create a corporate housing agenda, but all the evidence suggests that the government is very focused on trying to shovel taxpayer funds, subsidies and policy to create a system where major institutions, like foreign fund managers and superannuation funds, are able to build and buy and own in perpetuity the houses of Australians and thereby distort the Australian dream from one which is owned by individuals to one which is owned by major corporations.

One of the organisations that has sought to do business with the Housing Australia Future Fund and the Housing Australia organisation is the Cbus Super fund, which is chaired by Mr Wayne Swan, who is also the President of the Labor Party. I would have thought it would be reasonable that we could get an answer to whether or not that organisation, which is connected with the CFMEU, is going to be one of the recipients either directly or as a consortium which is seeking to build houses with taxpayer support. We don't know. What we do know is this parliament thought it was important enough to put the CFMEU into administration but has not sought to protect taxpayer funds held in the HAFF from being planted by the CFMEU through its associate Cbus. The lack of transparency here is, frankly, astounding.

I wrote to the housing minister, Ms O'Neil, on 23 September, and I have received no response to that letter. I also note there have been a series of letters over this parliament where there have been orders for the production of documents where there have been falsified public interest immunity claims filed with the Senate, which we will prosecute at Senate estimates. On this occasion, in relation to this order, the minister, Ms O'Neil, has written to the finance minister, suggesting, 'There is a need to review the identified documents, consistent with Senate practice, to ensure their content is suitable for public disclosure.' They've already announced they're going to build all these houses with taxpayer funds, so, surely, if they've already made the announcement with a big press release from the Prime Minister, the government should stick to its promise that it was going to be a government of integrity and transparency and provide the information of who exactly is going to get this taxpayer funding. Do those organisations include Cbus or the CFMEU? Do they include all the old mates from the unions? We want to know who's going to get this money, and we want to see the Senate's will acted upon.

What is the point of coming down to Canberra and having these sittings and agreeing to things, with the support of the crossbench—and I thank the crossbench for their support—when the government of the day treats the Senate with absolute contempt and will not comply with its orders? We look forward to prosecuting this in the future, but I will say this is another very disappointing example of a lack of transparency. (Time expired)

Debate adjourned.