David Pocock (ACT, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Economics Legislation Committee recently tabled the committee report into my private senator's bill the National Housing and Homelessness Plan Bill 2024 (No. 2), and it's pretty instructive reading as to how things work in this place. Here is a bill that had 80 of the 81 submissions support it, and we have the report, which has 44 pages outlining why this is a good idea, with supporting evidence from submitters and witnesses. Then, on page 45, there is the most feeble attempt from the government to say, 'No, this isn't a good idea; we shouldn't do it.' This aims to actually build on the work that the government say that they're committed to. In Australia, in a housing crisis, we have no housing plan. How is that so, and how, as a parliament, can we not say this is something we should actually legislate? The government of the day should have a requirement to actually have a plan for something as fundamental as housing.

In my dissenting report, I outline that I find:

It is extraordinary that we do not have one—

a housing plan—

and even more extraordinary that the Albanese Government, in the Chair's report on this inquiry, suggests legislating such a plan is unnecessary contrary to the weight of evidence tendered in submissions and evidence to the committee.

The major parties seem determined to keep living up to what Donald Horne wrote 60 years ago:

Australia is a lucky country run mainly by second-rate people who share its luck. It lives on other people's ideas, and, although its ordinary people are adaptable, most of its leaders so lack curiosity about the events that surround them that they are often taken by surprise.

How are we surprised about the housing crisis if we haven't had a plan, and why aren't we developing one? I'd urge the government: surely what a grown-up government looks like includes actually having a plan for these things.

It's been interesting to hear the government talk about duties of care. We've heard them talk about a digital duty of care and a duty of care on social media platforms. But, when it comes to a duty of care on climate, they don't like it. They do not believe that they have a duty of care to young people in future generations on climate, and they have said so in their report on my private senator's bill that would do exactly that—put a duty of care on the government of the day to look after young people in future generations. We had 403 submissions to that inquiry; only one was against it. The government want to talk about all these duties of care, but when it comes to our future on this planet—on this place that we call home—they don't want a bar of it. They don't believe that they have a duty of care to young people and future generations. They won't listen to climate scientists and Australians who see the risks, who want bolder climate action, but they'll ram through legislation at the behest of Santos and other fossil fuel companies who are banking on climate inaction.

In the last two sitting weeks of the year, probably the term, I have a question for the parliament: Are we really going to allow Peter V'Landys, the gambling industry and vested interests to trash Peta Murphy's legacy? How are we allowing this to happen after all of the great work— (Time expired)

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We shall now proceed to two-minute statements.