Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024

Senator GROGAN (South Australia—Deputy Government Whip in the Senate) (09:02): I start by thinking about what was happening this morning when Senator Bragg woke up. He probably woke up in a warm, quiet environment, under a multiple-thread-count sheet, reached out his hand and grabbed— Senator Scarr: Where's this going? Senator GROGAN: Hold your horses and you'll find out!

Senator Scarr: I'm starting to blush! Senator GROGAN: I think that says more about you than it does about me! He reaches out his hand to his fully charged, state-of-the-art iPhone.

He thinks about what he's going to have for his breakfast. Maybe the fresh eggs in his fridge? Maybe that nice bacon he got from the deli?

Senator Scarr: He's a vegan. Senator GROGAN: If he's a vegan, he won't be eating that bacon, will he? Then he goes to the laundry and gets his crisply ironed, white shirt and starts to prepare for his day in a calm and ordered fashion, knowing that everything's in order and the only thing he has to worry about is why he put this bill, the Housing Investment Probity Bill 2024, forward in this house.

Down road, in a car park, Josie wakes up in her car. It's cold. It's damp.

She's pretty stressed. She wriggles out of her sleeping bag and looks at the only thing that's left on the seat of the car for her to eat: some dry crackers. She shakes out her wrinkled clothes, looks across at her flat phone and wonders what on earth she is going to do today.

She is stressed. Josie doesn't care who is going to build the housing of the future. Josie just wants it built so that she can find somewhere to live.

She doesn't hate unions, she doesn't hate the CFMEU and she doesn't hate Cbus, but she does hate not being able to find a home. What we're seeing here is just another attempt, in another year, to do nothing to address the housing crisis that we have in this country. While we on this side, the Labor government, are focused on building more homes and tackling the housing crisis, the opposition are coming into this, the second week of the 48th Parliament, with more and more of this ideological rubbish.

Senator Bragg and his party are the same people who stood in this chamber, blocking every single housing solution that we brought in here. They blocked Labor's Help to Buy program, stopping 40,000 Australians from owning their own homes; they blocked our build-to-rent laws, stopping 80,000 renters; and they blocked the Housing Australia Future Fund, a $10 billion program that is directly supporting the delivery of tens of thousands of social and affordable homes, the kinds of homes that Josie needs so that she doesn't have to sleep in her car.

So you've got to ask the question: is this bill really about housing, or is it about the opposition's ideological stand against unions, or is it about the opposition's pathological hatred of the CFMEU, or is it about the opposition's distaste for working people having a say in their own future— Senator Sheldon: It's all of the above. Senator GROGAN: or—as rightly pointed out by my colleague Senator Sheldon—is it all of the above?

Let's just be clear about part of the situation here. Superannuation funds, including Cbus, are actually strongly regulated. They are required to comply with strict governance standards, and they are required to act in the best financial interest of their members.

APRA engages with superannuation funds on their governance arrangements and ensures that their boards meet the necessary standards. A longstanding feature of the superannuation system is equal representation, so you have equal numbers of employers and employees—not one or the other but both, so both interests can be served. All superannuation fund trustee boards have to assure themselves that their directors meet the necessary standards.

This is regulated; this is monitored. What's being put forward by those opposite is just an attack. It's not real.

It's not helpful. What we are seeing when we look at the Housing Australia Future Fund is a fund that is administered by Housing Australia. It's an independent body, so the notion of capture between the superannuation funds and the unions is, as I say, just the ideological hatred that we see from the opposition.

It clouds their vision, it clouds their view, it clouds their understanding of the situation, and it clouds their ability to actually do anything about it, so they continue to sit there and block any progress on housing in this country, and that's a disgrace—an absolute disgrace. We know that there are solutions. We know that there is a long-term fix.

We've been working on it frantically for the last three years, looking at the situation in front of us and actually taking the time. Where do we not have enough housing? Why is that?

What are the changes in the demographics? What are the changes in our population? What's the demand?

Where's this going? How are we looking at this to find ourselves the right answer and the right balance between what housing we have now and what housing we need into the future? The pipeline of houses to build, the pipeline of houses to rent and the pipeline for people who are doing it tough and who require more support in our social housing—we have been looking at these, and this is how we came up with Labor's plan for housing for the future, by knowing that we were in a crisis.

I have to ask the question: what exactly is it that the opposition did for 10 years when they were in government and when this crisis was brewing? All the indicators and signs were there that housing was turning into a crisis situation. Our rates of people who were homeless were increasing and our rates of people struggling to find rental accommodation were increasing.

Now, we often hear the excuse that it was all COVID. No, it wasn't. It really wasn't.

Ask any of the housing peak bodies or interest groups and look at their modelling, their structures and what they have looked at, and that's not true. Yes, it had an impact alongside a bunch of other things. But now we need action on the ground to actually look at where our housing situation is going, how much housing we need into the future and how swiftly we can get it on the ground.

There are some fantastic solutions being put forward. Some of our states, particularly my own home state of South Australia, are doing an absolutely spectacular job of moving hurdles out of the way, finding innovative solutions and moving as quickly as possible to put in place the housing that we need into the future. To touch on the pathological hatred of the CFMEU from across the chamber here, I fully support our construction workers.

They deserve a strong union that can represent them and stand up for them, and that's exactly the path that we are on. Yes, an intervention was made because there was some untoward activity going on that could not be accepted. But the pathway is there for the future and for that union to stand up strong and support the workers with no bad behaviour and no untoward activities, but a union doing what unions do—representing their members.

That is what we wish to see into the future and that is what we will see into the future. Because, while we are on these government benches, we will be pushing to deal with this housing crisis and with anything associated with it that comes up. We need to have those opposite get out of the way and stop with this ideological rubbish.

You might think it looks like a good headline, but, seriously, there are people like Josie who are living in their cars, and all you want to do is sit there and block action, block development and block a solution to the situation which is a crisis situation in this country and needs to be dealt with. Housing can't be fixed overnight. We know that.

You can't just snap your fingers and pop up some housing. But you had 10 years and you allowed the situation to crumble and to get worse and worse, and you did nothing. And now you have the cheek to sit there and block everything that we try and do.

It is a disgrace, and you should be deeply ashamed of yourselves. The plan we have for the future is to get people into housing and to make renting more secure. A lot of the rental rules are dealt with by the states.

We have seen state after state come to the party and improve the situation on the ground to make renting a property more secure, so you can live there knowing that is your home. I would, again, like to shout-out our South Australian state government for the changes they have made to rental laws which are making a real difference for people on the ground. But we need to build more housing.

We need to be able to take the money that we have and invest it in the Australians who need the support, who need more options. We cannot continue to have people like Josie sleeping in cars. We cannot continue to have people looking to purchase a house and feeling that they're never going to get there.

We need these structures in place to enable people to have the security of a home, whether it's their own home or a rental. That's what we're all about. That is what we are doing here.

To increase supply is critical. If we build more housing, there are more options for people. People who can purchase, if they're given a hand, can get into those homes.

I know from talking to people that many of them could actually service a mortgage, but they cannot afford to build up the size of a deposit they need for that home. Having that opportunity for a lower investment at the very beginning, with some support from the government, enables them to get into their home, where they can service that mortgage. They can get on their feet and own their own home into the future.

And that's what we want. We want people to be able to own their own home. But, for those who rent, we want them to have a secure rental, to know that they are supported, to know that they are not going to be thrown out on the street with very little notice, to know that they can make that rental their own home.

Labor has a plan to address the housing crisis. We have started and we are working so hard to get that delivered. The constant attacks and the constant blocks by those opposite are deeply unhelpful.

They should just wake up to the fact that people need assistance and need it now, and they should just get out of the way.