Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025

Senator BRAGG (New South Wales) (09:01): I rise to speak to the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025. The purpose of this bill is to enact a system where there is going to be democratic accountability over the Housing Australia legislation, because, as it stands, the minister is able to make material changes to Housing Australia programs, including the Home Guarantee Scheme, without any reference to this parliament.

We have a major problem in this country with the delegation of authority to ministers. In too many cases, ministers make the law without there being any reference to the elected assembly otherwise known as the Parliament of Australia. In this particular case, the Home Guarantee Scheme has been materially changed—I would say completely debased—and those material changes to this scheme were made by a minister after a secret consultation, without any ability for the parliament to consider them and without any ability for the parliament to disallow them.

In this particular case, we see a targeted scheme for government mortgage insurance going from a product which was available to lower income earners now being made available to any prospective first home owner—no income cap, no cap on places. The result we've seen since 1 October, when these changes were made operative, is a big upshot in entry-level house prices.

Let's assume that we have a government that is trying its best for the people. Let's assume that they are well intentioned. They are trying to help prospective first home owners because they share the dream of homeownership.

Let's assume that. The problem is that, by uncapping the places and removing all means testing, people who do not need government assistance are participating in the scheme, and that is flooding entry-level housing at a point in time which is driving an uptick in prices, and what we're seeing is the biggest growth, the sharpest uptick, in entry-level first-home dwellings in Australia in living memory.

What does that mean for people? It means it's harder to buy their first house—even harder with a 95 per cent mortgage. I make these points for context because I believe that, if these changes had been subject to some form of parliamentary oversight or committee or were subject to the potential for disallowance, then the government would have moderated them.

The government would not have proceeded with a reckless scheme like this—no means testing, no place caps. In fact, it's quite clear to me that those changes made by an instrument of the Minister for Housing would have been disallowed—they would have been—by this chamber by virtue of reference to the statements made by the coalition, statements made by the Independent crossbench and statements made by the Australian Greens.

Those changes that were made by the minister would have been disallowed. But they won't be disallowed, because the government has made the changes in accordance with legislation, and they are not to be disallowed. They cannot be disallowed.

This is a real example, here in Australia in October 2025, of the risk of overdelegation and destruction of democratic oversight from the legislative process. It was a very bad idea to have created this bill as it was then, as a former coalition government did. It was a big mistake, and the former coalition government should not have put through legislation which gave the minister unlimited, godlike powers.

That was a big mistake. I make the point as a coalition member that legislation should not give a minister unfettered and unchecked power. This government has a record of its own.

Only a few weeks ago, they wanted to give the Reserve Bank unlimited, unchecked, unfettered power over payments. Now, payments policy might not sound particularly sexy, but I would say to you that it's going to be one of the biggest levers of public policy in the future. A payments idea or a payments concept could disrupt your supermarkets.

It could disrupt your retail environment overnight. It could come from any other jurisdiction, and this government wanted to vest that power in the central bank, without any capacity for democratic oversight or review. Who voted for the RBA?

No-one. What happens if the RBA makes a bad instrument? Do you walk down to Martin Place, burst through their renovation that's taken a hundred years and cost billions of dollars and say, 'I want to see the governor'?

I don't think so. This is not the way that we would have done payments reform. We would have vested those powers in the Treasurer because, no matter how bad the minister of the day is, they've got to take representations in some form.

They've got to at least engage with their department. This government was happy to give the RBA unfettered power. In this case, the coalition worked with the Australian Greens and the crossbench to ensure that, when the RBA does make payments rules, they will be subject to disallowance.

That is a very good thing, and do you know what that is going to do? It's going to make the RBA think very carefully, and it might do some more consultation. It might think very carefully about how it might deploy the surcharging proposal that is so heavily favoured by the Prime Minister.

That would have been the case with the Home Guarantee Scheme changes. If there had been disallowance capacity, the government would have moderated the proposal. They would have retained some form of means testing, and they may have maintained some sort of place cap.

Instead, we have this free for all, which is pushing up prices. I make the point that it's not just the coalition, the Greens and the Independents in this place that are making a point about the loss of parliamentary oversight and how damaging that can be for the legislative process. It's also the Australian Law Reform Commission, the parliamentary committee on delegated legislation and the Centre for Public Integrity.

It was also the position of the Prime Minister, who said in 2019: We don't need a culture of secrecy. We need a culture of disclosure … Reform freedom of information laws so that they can't be flouted as they have been by this government. That is germane to these points.

The government that is obsessed with creating legislation where there is no parliamentary oversight or review is the same government that wants to gut the FOI laws. After having presided over the worst compliance record of freedom of information rules since the Keating government and after having flouted the Senate orders for production of documents, they now want to gut FOI rules.

How low can you go? You want to be less transparent than a government where the Prime Minister had secret ministries. How low can you go?

It is unbelievable to me the depths that this government can sink to. I say to the government, as it cries a river of tears about the extension of question time because it wants to have more Dorothy Dixers from its backbench to ask stupid questions that they already know the answer to, that the government doesn't control the Senate. They can go away and threaten the coalition members of the House of Representatives with committee positions— Senator Cox: All six of them.

Senator BRAGG: I take the interjection. The government can go away and use its bullyboy union tactics and threaten members of the House with committee positions and their own salaries, but you know what? We are not in the business of standing up or placing vested interests or our own individual interests above that of the communities that we serve.

That is not the way we roll here, and the reality is that this government has governed the country for 3½ years to the advantage of vested interests only. That is the problem the Australian people have now. The government isn't interested in fashioning economic policies to solve the economic problems of the day.

They are only interested in feathering the nests of vested interests and the people who run their campaigns and give them donations. That is why I've said for a long time that this is the government for vested interests. It is not the government for Australians.

We look forward, frankly, to the government issuing and executing its threats against members of the coalition who dared to vote with the crossbench to ensure that there were production of documents. Senator Cox: Who dared! Senator BRAGG: Who dared—I take the interjection.

Here we go; we're back to the union tactics again. It's always about the threats. I say that it is one of the greatest outrages that the same government which won't comply with freedom of information rules, which won't produce orders of the Senate, which will not provide democratic accountability on legislation, is now crying a river of tears about the extension of question time.

I'd say to the government: get used to it because you don't control this Senate and you never will. There will be a further extension of these arrangements until such time as the government complies with the orders of the Senate, because, otherwise, what's the point of coming here? The government assumes that the Australian people are stupid—that they're going to pay for us to fly down here, waste all of this money to sit in this parliament and then not get any answers.

The job of the non-government members, in particular, is to hold the executive to account, to make sure that taxpayers are getting value for money and to make sure that programs aren't maladministered. Frankly, when I was a member of the government in the Senate, I did the same thing. You can't just go along with the executive and be a rubber stamp.

That's my advice through you, Deputy President, to the members of the government, particularly the backbenchers. Don't be used by the executive. You should actually represent the people who sent you here, rather than just be a plaything of the executive government and the unions.

I commend this bill to the Senate because we need more accountability in this country. We shouldn't have massive delegation of authority and parliamentary power to a minister without any checks and balances. We do not live in medieval England.

We live in 2025 Australia. These godlike powers the government wants to issue itself across the board are an absolute disgrace. The Australian people would expect that we would be reviewing major decisions of government.

The Australian people would expect that the parliament would have a say on how laws are made. The Australian people would expect that the people they pay to come to Canberra get to vote and have input on laws which affect them, and, right now, housing would be amongst the biggest issues in Australia. If you're an entry-level first home buyer and you want to know why house prices are going up, then you can ask this government.

The answer is: because of the Home Guarantee Scheme, which was debased by this government.