Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Trade and Tourism) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That these bills be now read a second time.

I seek leave to have the second reading speeches incorporated into Hansard.

Leave granted.

The speeches read as follows—

HELP TO BUY BILL 2023

The Labor Government committed to establishing a national shared equity scheme to help 40,000 low and middle income Australian households into home ownership.

Today marks a significant step to delivering that promise.

The Help to Buy scheme will be the first national shared equity scheme of its kind. It will be delivered through Housing Australia and will help Australians to overcome both the hurdle of saving for a deposit and servicing a mortgage.

Through Help to Buy, the Commonwealth will cut the cost of buying a home by up to 40 per cent. Participants will only require a minimum 2 per cent deposit and will benefit from lower ongoing mortgage repayments through a smaller home loan.

Eligible participants will be able to access the scheme through participating lenders alongside a standard mortgage. Housing Australia will then provide the Commonwealth's equity contribution through a loan arrangement secured against the property.

Housing Australia will be funded by a special appropriation to enter into Help to Buy arrangements and will return funds to the Commonwealth when the equity is repaid.

The Minister for Housing will provide written directions to Housing Australia on the operation of the scheme, including decision-making criteria for entering into Help to Buy arrangements.

The Bill also contains provisions enabling states to pass legislation for their constituents to participate in the scheme. All states have agreed-in-principle to participate in the scheme.

Help to Buy will be open to help people who have owned homes before and those who haven't. It will help couples, siblings and singles alike. Those who are close to retirement, those just starting out in the workforce and anyone eligible in between.

This is an historic commitment by the Government because we understand what buying a house means to Australians. For most, it is the single biggest investment they'll make in their lifetimes, but it's about more than that. It's giving people the certainty of home ownership, an opportunity to live in their community and the chance to create opportunities for their families.

Delivering on Help to Buy, alongside the Housing Australia Future Fund, the Social Housing Accelerator Payment and the Housing Accord, will mean more Australians will have a safe and affordable place to call home.

HELP TO BUY (CONSEQUENTIAL PROVISIONS) BILL 2023

This Bill makes consequential amendments to support the establishment of the Help to Buy scheme, to clarify how it interacts with the Housing Australia Act 2018 and to reflect the broader remit of Housing Australia.

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

We know that our housing crisis is feeding growing intergenerational inequality and underpins the cost-of-living crisis in this country. Australians have had enough of the lack of housing to buy or rent, the evermore unaffordable prices and the cynical political games that are played with what should be a fundamental human right. They want politicians and decision-makers to step up and start to turn this around.

This week we saw willingness to compromise from colleagues on the crossbench. I want to acknowledge and welcome that. There are no silver bullets in housing policy, but we will never get out of the very deep hole that is this national housing crisis unless we start somewhere. That is what the Help to Buy Bill 2023 is; it's a start. I back the intent of this bill because it will help people who don't have wealthy parents get into housing. While technically a demand-side measure when what we need is more supply, this bill will help some of the most vulnerable people in our community get into homeownership. But the bill can be better, and I'll be moving amendments to reflect that. There is so much evidence to show that access to safe, secure and affordable housing is a key factor in improving health, educational and social outcomes. It can be the break in a vicious cycle—the difference between life and death for people.

I want to see the object of the bill amended to explicitly acknowledge the need to focus on supporting people who would otherwise be permanently excluded from homeownership and accelerate their access. I also want to see the scheme expanded to 30,000 places per year, with at least one-third going to older women, First Nations people, people with disability and other historically disadvantaged cohorts.

If the government believes in this scheme as much as they say they do, it should also be extended beyond the forward estimates, and I'll be moving an amendment to allow for that. Four years is not long enough to fix the housing crisis.

Finally, I'll be moving two amendments to the review of the scheme. The first is to tighten the focus of the evaluation so that it explicitly looks at how effective the scheme has been in supporting people who have been historically disadvantaged, including First Nations people and older women. Secondly, the scheme should be evaluated on how effectively it has been integrated with other first-home-buyer assistance programs across the levels of government.

Like I said earlier, there is no silver bullet for the housing crisis. This measure, a supply side one, will be helpful, no doubt, but we will also need to start putting measures in place now that really address some of the root causes of the crisis that we're in. We need to talk about a broad-based social housing program. The federal government needs to step up and work with states and territories to ensure that they deliver on their commitments when it comes to social and affordable housing. We also need to look at housing assistance and ensure it meets people's needs, whether it is Commonwealth Rent Assistance, or what we can do to replace the thousands of affordable rental properties that will exit the market when the National Rental Affordability Scheme wraps up. Speaking of rentals, coordinating national rental reforms to limit unfair rent increases, enacting minimum standards, and ending no-cause evictions would go a long way to meeting what Australians want and need.

We also need to talk about tax reform. The major parties don't want to talk about a tax system that means that investors are at an advantage, a system that has created a situation where you turn up to auctions and first home buyers are routinely outbid by property investors. Reforming the capital gains tax discounts and putting some limits and conditionality on things like negative gearing should be on the table if we're serious about fixing the housing crisis, and I hear from Australians that they want us to be serious. They're sick of the tinkering and they want some of the root causes of this crisis dealt with. Senator Lambie and I have the Parliamentary Budget Office to do the modelling on what changes could look like. No doubt, Treasury have also done their own work on this. I urge the Senate to look at it objectively and do the greatest good for the greatest number of people—the Australians we all represent—in this and the other place.

Finally, we need to talk about population. Not in a dog-whistling, 'blame the other' type of way but in a sensible way to ensure the relationships between immigration and population growth, change, and housing affordability and availability are better understood, to ensure that we learn from the past and what has and hasn't worked, and to ensure the supply and demand for housing are in a better balance. It's currently unfair on Australians in a housing crisis and it's unfair on new immigrants. People arrive in Australia with hopes and dreams and find it almost impossible to find somewhere to live, and if they can find somewhere it is simply unaffordable unless you come here with some decent money behind you.

We have to ensure that we have the right sort of housing in the right places so that living in Australia can still be living in a country where it doesn't matter how wealthy your parents are, where people can still believe in the egalitarian ideals that so many Australians have held dear for generations. Any and all of this is going to take some political courage, and I believe it would be easier if there was a legislated national housing and homelessness plan. The Prime Minister has agreed to deliver a plan. I've been calling for one, and I think that we should be legislating this plan. As a Senate, we can at least agree on objectives when it comes to housing.

Yes, the government of the day will have their different means of trying to achieve that end that we agree on, but, for me, something as fundamental as housing should be legislated. We legislate all sorts of targets in this parliament. When it comes to housing, why is it that, at the moment, we don't even have a plan? Labor announced that they had plans to make a plan. They currently are trying to make a plan, I guess, but there is no plan, which is frankly outrageous as we are in the last sitting week of the year of this term of parliament.

The housing system in this country is in trouble—there's no doubt about that; just get on the street and talk to people—but it's not beyond hope. These proposals that we're voting on today have their place. They're part of it, but they're clearly not going to solve the whole thing. So I'd urge the Senate to support these sorts of measures but then really get on with addressing some of the root causes, which, unfortunately, I think we're often not very good at, at times. I look forward to supporting the Help to Buy Bill as one part of helping people—people who can't rely on the bank of mum and dad to get them into the housing market.

Malcolm Roberts (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We have a housing catastrophe due to rampant immigration—excessive, reckless, record immigration. We also have a housing crisis because we don't have enough tradies to build the houses that we need. The Help to Buy Bill 2023 is a bill that won't help anyone. Right now, Queenslanders, in what should be the richest state in the world, are sleeping under bridges and on riverbanks. In one of the world's richest states, working families with children are living in cars, coming home at night to wonder if their kids are still there. Where do they toilet? Where do they shower? It's plain inhuman. Rents are skyrocketing—if a rental can be found. House prices are reaching record highs. This is a housing crisis, one of the worst we've faced. It's an inhuman catastrophe.

Last year, the federal government under Anthony Albanese brought in 517,000 net migrants. This year, after being promised that we would have lower immigration, we are tracking to have another new record—one above last year's. How can you bring in more than a million people in two years? That's hundreds of thousands of houses. How can you build them? We aren't catering for the people already here, and now we're bringing in record numbers—a million in two years. That's 400,000 new houses needed, in addition to the already high demand and the people living homeless at the moment.

The Albanese government, though, wants to look like it's doing something—not do something but look like. Enter this Help to Buy plan. Under this plan, the government wants to own a significant part of your house. If it's an existing place, the government wants to own 30 per cent, and, if it's a new place, 40 per cent, with the government paying for part of it with low-income earners. While a 40 per cent subsidy might sound attractive, it's fatally flawed. If the government just borrows more money for this plan, then one thing is going to happen. When you give 40 per cent more money to people to buy a house, house prices are going to go up. House prices will go up. The bill's core concept and premise is flawed and possibly a lie. We can't subsidise our way out of a house price problem. Subsidies always increase prices and have throughout history. Looking at the bill's details, or lack of details, the problem is worse. I'll look at some of the criteria in a minute.

Thirdly, let's look at the constitutional basis. This bill is completely outside the federal government's powers. It's highly complex. The government has tabled a late amendment to the bill, attempting to clarify a set of constitutional issues—too complex.

I'll go back to the immigration. In addition to rampant immigration of people coming into the country, prior to COVID, the number of temporary visa holders in the country was around 2.3 million people. As of the end of 24 July, that number is now 2.8 million—more than 10 per cent of our population—all needing a roof and all needing a bed. These are hard numbers and facts.

This is what's causing the housing catastrophe. These are the hard numbers and facts, as I said, yet the government has continued to lie, claiming, 'We're just catching up with immigration.' Really? We haven't just caught up; we've blown the record out of the water, not only for people on resident visas but also for new immigrants coming in. We're nearly half a million people above the record for resident visas. Using the average household size of 2½ people per household implies the need for more than 200,000 houses just to cater for new arrivals. It's actually 400,000. This is what we're seeing in our country.

Then there are the details. For an Australian who enters into a Help to Buy arrangement, where the government owns part of their home, what happens if they renovate their home at their own expense, spending hundreds of thousands of dollars and thousands of hours swinging hammers and pulling up carpet, and, as a result of their renovations, their $500,000 home increases in value to $600,000? I wonder whether the minister knows how much of that Australian's renovation profit the government will take for doing nothing. I wonder whether the minister knows that the income thresholds are set nationally—$90,000 for singles and $120,000 for couples—despite the average house price varying from $504,000 in Darwin to $1.2 million in Sydney. I wonder why the government is not adjusting the income threshold from state to state. What are the price thresholds for houses eligible under this bill, and why haven't these been set in the legislation? Why are we bringing yoga teachers into the country, through immigration, when we need tradies? Yoga teachers are wonderful, but we need tradies to get on with the job here.

The government has appointed three sets of bureaucrats as part of its solution to the housing crisis. That's just adding to the complexity and inefficiency. It's adding to the catastrophe. We need tradies to come into this country. We need people to be vetted properly, to bring in their skills and to contribute. We have so many people in this country out of work, living on welfare, and not contributing. We have an abundance of people with good qualifications who want to come into this country. We can put them to work and fix the housing crisis quickly. These are just some of the issues that I'll be exploring more in the committee stage. I want to put those comments back on the record.

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

I look forward to the committee stage because there are answers to all of those questions. The Labor government committed to establishing a national shared-equity scheme to help 40,000 low- and middle-income Australian households into homeownership. Today marks a significant step to delivering that promise. The Help to Buy scheme will be the first national shared-equity scheme of its kind. It will be delivered through Housing Australia, and it will help Australians to overcome the hurdles of saving for a deposit and servicing a mortgage.

Through Help to Buy, the Commonwealth will cut the cost of buying a home by up to 40 per cent. Participants will only require a minimum two per cent deposit and will benefit from lower ongoing mortgage payments through a smaller home loan. Eligible participants will be able to access the scheme through participating lenders, alongside a standard mortgage. Housing Australia will then provide the Commonwealth's equity contribution through a loan arrangement secured against the property. Housing Australia will be funded by a special appropriation to enter into Help to Buy arrangements and will return funds to the Commonwealth when equity is repaid. The Minister for Housing will provide written directions to Housing Australia on the operation of the scheme, including decision-making criteria for entering into Help to Buy arrangements. The bill also contains provisions enabling states to pass legislation for their constituents to participate in the scheme. All Australian states have agreed in principle to participate in the scheme. Help to Buy will be open to people who have owned homes before and those who haven't.

It will help couples, siblings and singles alike, including those who are close to retirement, those just starting out in the workforce and anyone eligible in between.

This is a historic commitment by the Albanese government because we understand what buying a house means to Australians. For most, it is the single biggest investment that they will make in their lifetime, but it's about much more than that. It's giving people the certainty of homeownership, an opportunity to live in their community and the chance to create opportunities for their families. Delivery on Help to Buy, alongside the Housing Australia Future Fund, the social housing accelerator payment and the National Housing Accord, will mean more Australians will have a safe and affordable place to call home.

Question agreed to.

Bills read a second time.