Rearrangement

Murray Watt

Let's be very clear about what we just saw happen. What we saw happen was the Greens political party, who say they care about young people, who say they care about housing—look at them scurrying away from what they've just done, voting not just with Peter Dutton and the coalition but with Senator Pauline Hanson and One Nation.

Sarah Henderson

Point of order, I'd ask that the minister not reflect on any senator leaving the chamber please.

Sue Lines

The minister is not reflecting on any senator by name, Senator Henderson. I also, while I've got the attention of the Senate, call for order. Minister, please continue.

Murray Watt

I can understand why all sorts of people in the chamber are very embarrassed right now, because what we saw was an unbelievable alliance: not just the 'no-alition' of the Liberals and the Greens but throw in Senator Hanson and One Nation. We throw in Senator Babet and his great mate Clive Palmer. We have the extreme right of Australian politics and the extreme left of Australian politics pair up—and for what purpose? It's to stop young people being able to buy a home. That's what we just saw here. Labor are trying to deliver on our election promise to assist young renters with buying a home, and what we see is the Liberals, the Nationals, the Greens, One Nation and, of course, Clive Palmer's mate Senator Babet up the back there voting together to stop young people getting to buy a home. It was our election commitment that we took to the election. It was voted for. It was in the Greens' platform, and now they're running away from it, refusing to vote for it. I've heard all the Greens say over the last couple of days, 'Oh, we don't like this, because it only assists a very small percentage of the population with buying a home.' That is the Greens summed up in one sentence: letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. 'Just because we can't help 100 per cent of renters buy a home, we shouldn't allow some people to buy their own home.'

The reality is that we've seen yet again the Greens team up with the coalition and a few other people as well to stop more homes being built and to stop more young people getting a chance to buy a home, and then they have the hide to run around the inner city of all our capital cities, pretending to be the people saying they want housing and they want young people getting their own homes. The only problem with that is that, if you look at what they do when they go back to their home districts, you see it's completely the opposite. Right now, not only are the Greens party here in Canberra voting against Labor legislation and not even letting it to be put to a vote, because they are so embarrassed about the fact that they are stopping new housing, they also, when they go back home, continue to campaign against new housing in their own electorates. We have, for example, the member for Griffith, now known as 'Young Setka', out in the suburb of Woolloongabba in his electorate in the inner city of Brisbane, saying on the one hand to everyone, 'We need more homes,' but he's out there campaigning right now with the Greens party in Queensland against almost 3,000 new social and affordable homes in the suburb of Woolloongabba.

But it's also happening in the Greens-held seat of Brisbane, where the Greens member for Brisbane is opposing an apartment building in his inner-city electorate because its height 'would have a substantive impact on the views of existing nearby residents.' The Greens member for Brisbane says that views from existing apartment blocks are more important than new homes. Then he goes on. The Greens member for Brisbane is opposing a development that would turn an empty sand and gravel factory into 381 residential apartments, because there would be too many car parks. He's also concerned that the height of the buildings 'would impact the unique character of this heritage neighbourhood'. So more homes are great except when Labor wants to build them.

The Greens member for Brisbane is opposing a build-to-rent project in his electorate that would create 349 new apartments. This site is currently an empty lot. It is 200 metres from a major train station and walking distance to the Brisbane CBD. In his letter opposing the development, the member claimed, 'Brisbane residents are fed up with developers claiming they are addressing the housing crisis by increasing supply,' because, God forbid, you wouldn't want to increase housing supply, would you? That would be terrible thing if you were a Greens member for Brisbane, a Liberal, a National, a One Nation member or a Clive Palmer puppet. All of those people are getting together to block more homes, led by people like the member for Brisbane.

Probably my favourite one, though, is the Greens member for Ryan, who is campaigning against a plan to subdivide a chicken farm in the suburb of Mitchelton, a suburb I know well, to build 91 new homes. In December last year, the member wrote to the Brisbane City Council, complaining the project—this is a chicken farm—would 'diminish the natural character of the site,' because it's much more important to have a disused chicken farm than it is to have 91 new homes, which, on the other hand, the Greens say that they want to have.

This is an absolutely disgraceful attack on young people and on people who want to buy their own home, and the guilty parties are right there before us. It's the Liberals and the Nationals, it's One Nation and, most of all, it is the Greens party.

Simon Birmingham

In terms of the vote just taken and the votes underway, we've seen that the Albanese government cannot even execute a strategy to have one of its own bills defeated. It certainly can't manage to get its bill passed, but it's now not even managing to find a strategy or a means to have its bill defeated either. It certainly can't manage to get its bill passed, but it's now not even managing to find a strategy or a means to have its bill defeated either. The Labor government has so lost control of the way in which its legislative agenda operates that it managed to convince just one non-Labor senator to vote with them. Senator Watt just tried to impugn the votes and the motives of the crossbench. He was a bit selective in which ones he chose to name. But the reality, Senator Watt, is that you only managed to convince one crossbencher to vote with you in that last division because you are failing to convince people of the merits of this policy. And, yes, you're failing in different directions in terms of the approaches, but none are convinced that the Albanese government's policies will make a jot of difference. If, of course, hot air and rhetoric were homes, the housing crisis in Australia would be solved thanks to Minister Watt, Minister Wong and the Albanese government, but hot air doesn't count, rhetoric doesn't count and Labor's plans don't count.

After three Albanese government budgets, not a single extra home has been built. After lots of plans, lots of promises and billions of dollars committed, not a single home has been built. Life is certainly not better. The government comes in and brags about the extent to which they have increased Commonwealth rent assistance. They don't acknowledge the fact that they've had to do so because inflation has been so high under the Labor government and has been higher for longer under this government's plans. After these three Albanese Labor budgets, Australia's inflation rate remains far higher than that of comparable economies around the rest of the world.

This very week, markets around the world are preparing for an expected rate cut in the United States, one of many economies where inflation is lower than in Australia and where interest rates are going down—but not under the Albanese Labor government. Inflation is staying higher, and interest rates are staying higher for longer as a result. That means that homeowners are feeling the pressure. They talk about the plans for a certain number of homes that might be built if everything goes according to plan, but what's happening today, right now, is that tens of thousands of Australian homeowners are falling behind in their mortgage payments and feeling the mortgage stress mounting up because of the failed economic policies of those opposite.

We have been clear all along, from the moment the Labor Party announced this policy, that we thought it was a bad policy. The Commonwealth government shouldn't be in the business of co-owning people's homes. The Liberal and National parties, who stand for homeownership and have it as a core value and a core tenant of our beliefs, believe that Australians should own their own homes themselves and not have the Commonwealth government as co-owners in their homes. That's the core and fundamental difference for us. We want to make sure that housing and infrastructure plans match up with population plans and not have, as this government has seen, record population pressures come in, exacerbating the housing crisis and pressures that are there. We want to make sure that the construction industry is as competitive and efficient as possible and not pile on new layers of industrial relations laws, red tape, green tape, taxes and other things that are driving up the cost of housing. How do you think you are going to fix a housing crisis when it costs more to build a house and when it takes longer to build a house? This is the effect of Labor's policies.

We believe you should get the fundamentals right and not say the solution is some pie-in-the-sky plan for the government to co-own your house with you and to spend billions of dollars on that approach. That is why we fundamentally oppose the games the government is playing. What we see here is that their tactics are failing to convince anybody, even from different perspectives, of the merits of their plans. After three Labor budgets, we're not seeing inflation fixed, we're not seeing interest rates going down and we're certainly not seeing more houses being built.

Mehreen Faruqi

Well, here we are: another day; another political stunt from the Labor Party. The Labor Party knows—

You can laugh, but there are millions of people out there suffering because you won't act on the housing and rental crisis the way it needs to be acted on. You come in here and you don't have the numbers for anything because the Senate has decided that your bill will actually make things worse for 99.8 per cent of the 5½ million renters that live in this country. You come in here and try and bulldoze the will of the Senate.

As we said yesterday, the Prime Minister wants us all to get out of his way, but we are not getting out of his way to pass a bill that will make things much worse and will increase housing prices. You come in here and try and spread misinformation and mistruths about the Greens and our policies. Well, we're not going to let you get away that easily. Read our Greens policies. They are very different to what your bill says. We are here to negotiate with the government. We have told you this for more than a year. Our door is open.

But rather than trying to negotiate with the Greens to make things better for the millions of people who are suffering and struggling under the housing and rental crisis—the people for whom it's become impossible to put food on the table, to pay their bills, to go to the dentist and to visit a doctor; the young people who are one rent away from being evicted—rather than coming to the table with the Greens to negotiate something much better, which is capping rent and freezing rent increases, as well as phasing out the negative gearing and capital gains tax discounts which have turbocharged house prices for years and years now, and rather than talking to the Greens about a public developer, what you do is come in here and try and ram your bill through, throwing political stunts and tantrums. For what? To get this Mickey Mouse bill through, which might help 0.2 per cent of renters while making life harder for the 99.8 per cent of people renting in this country. We are not going to let you do that.

We have just circulated a motion which asks you to delay this bill for a couple of months and come and talk to the Greens. All that is going to do is make things better. Under your current bill, millions of people will lose out. That is going to be the outcome of the bill that you're trying to ram through. Come to the table with the Greens. Stop these political shenanigans. Be serious about this.

You have talked about the housing crisis as if it is a serious issue, and it is the most serious issue in this country. When we knock on doors every weekend, that is the first thing we hear about. People are so worried about their rents and about the unlimited increases in rents that landlords can now impose on them without any restrictions. Every single day, we are hearing about how people are struggling and suffering, but you are so stubborn that you somehow want to attack the Greens, whatever your reasons might be for that.

Stop being like children. Come to the table. Stop throwing these tantrums every day. Talk to us. We are willing and ready to negotiate with you—what more do you want?—but you have completely disregarded any of the Greens asks that we have put on the table. The vast majority of people are saying they want a freeze on rent increases. Communities are telling us this. We are listening to them. That's why we are fighting in here, like people are fighting out there, to do something and act on this housing crisis as if it were a serious thing.

The ball is in your court now. Come and talk to the Greens. We have two more months, if we get this motion through, but then—

Andrew McLachlan

Thank you, Senator Faruqi. Senator Hanson.

Long debate text truncated.