Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025
Senator HUME (Victoria) (09:47): I rise to speak in support of the Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025. This bill is fundamentally about three very basic things. It's about transparency, it's about oversight, and it's about protecting the Australian economy from reckless government policy.
More importantly, it's about reducing that risk of excessive executive overreach. The objective of the bill is straightforward. It provides an important parliamentary oversight on all the directions made under section 12(1) of the Housing Australia Act, but, specifically, it relates to those directions that constitute the Housing Australia Investment Mandate.
(Quorum formed) This includes the Home Guarantee Scheme and the Housing Australia future facility. But the real impetus of this bill lies in the fundamental alteration in the expansion of the Home Guarantee Scheme, which came into effect earlier this month. That expansion has now meant that there are no income caps on the Home Guarantee Scheme participants, there are no caps on the Home Guarantee Scheme places, and the scheme can now be used to purchase more expensive property.
Labor's expanded policy has fundamentally altered the original design and intent of the Home Guarantee Scheme, which the coalition established as a highly targeted scheme for low-income earners who struggled specifically with low or no deposits. These individuals still had great credit ratings, and they were approved by banks, but they just couldn't get that deposit together.
So this was the first rung on the ladder. It limited the number of participants and it limited the number of houses that were available to be purchased by capping the cost of those houses. Essentially, this program now is a free-for-all.
Under the existing law, these material changes to the directions that are governing the mandate can now be enacted not by a policy that needs to go through the chamber but instead by a simple instrument that's issued by the minister. Crucially, this instrument is not disallowable by the parliament, a fundamental tenet of good governance and good government. The process is not in the spirit of transparent and democratic government.
Regulation is there to fill in detail. It's not there to implement substantive changes that impact the functioning of the Australian economy. But that's what this bill will prevent.
It will prevent that massive executive overreach. It seeks to protect Australians from the whims of a government that are making significant decisions without meaningful consultation and without parliamentary oversight, which is exactly what this chamber is here to do. The government's hesitance to properly consult and their broad use of delegated legislation align with evidence suggesting that this is one of the least transparent governments in Australian history, and it seems to be increasingly so.
(Quorum formed)Well, isn't it extraordinary that, the moment I start talking about transparency and a lack of it from this government, games that do exactly that start being played? What has just happened, twice, is that Labor have shut down private senators' time. We're not talking about what they want to talk about, so they have shut it down, twice, for no reason.
Can I point out that one senator was actually in the chamber when quorum was called and ran outside! I know you're new, but you can't do that. You can't duck outside the chamber after quorum has been called.
The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator Marielle Smith ): Senator, you can address your comments through the chair, thank you. Senator HUME: Chair, I will tell you that senators cannot duck outside after quorum has been called, and perhaps that was something you should have pulled up—Acting Deputy President. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Excuse me, Senator?
Senator HUME: Perhaps, Acting Deputy President, you should have pulled up the senator who ran outside when quorum was called. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Order! Senator, are you raising— Senator HUME: This is a lack of transparency that is becoming the hallmark— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hume, resume your seat.
You do not have the call. Senator Hume, if you are seeking to make a point of order on me calling quorum, you may do so. Senator Hume, is this a point of order, or is this part of your debate?
Senator HUME: I would like to continue with my contribution on our private senators' time. I know that this is not Labor's favourite time of the day, but we are going to make sure that Labor has a lot of not-very-favourite times of the day because, as long as you behave this way, as long as you are hiding in the shadows, as long as you play games—well, unfortunately, you might think that you can crunch the opposition whenever you choose to do so, but you don't own the chamber.
There are in fact more of us around the ends than there are over there. You can hide. You can refuse to produce documents.
You can try and create legislation that has no oversight and no ability for scrutiny, but it will not stand. You who stood so gallantly prior to an election and said, 'We will be the most transparent government that this country has ever seen'—that didn't last long, did it? It didn't last long.
Senator Pocock pointed out that only 33 per cent, one in three, of your orders for the production of documents have come through—one in three. Aren't you ashamed? Aren't you embarrassed?
You should be embarrassed. This bill that we're talking about today is to improve transparency. It's to improve accountability.
It's to improve governance. These are issues that you said are important to you. Yet somehow, when it's convenient for Labor, those principles are simply set aside.
They're set aside, and the behaviour we've seen in the chamber today has demonstrated that. For the sake of the Hansard transcript, I think it's probably worth noting that, just today, we have seen Labor respond to, in the most petulant and sulky way, a requirement of this chamber that they provide documents, and we have said around this chamber that we have the numbers to make sure that they do.
If they don't, we will extend question time. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator O'Sullivan ): Senator Grogan. Senator Grogan: I thought this debate was about housing.
Senator Henderson: What’s the point of order? Senator Grogan: Relevance is the point of order. Senator HUME: Really?
Senator Grogan: Yes, really. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: What's your point of order? Please make it succinctly.
Senator Grogan: The point of order is on relevance. The senator is talking about a whole range of other things, but I'm not hearing much about housing. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: I've only just stepped into the chair.
For the benefit of the chamber, I'll just continue listening. If I concur with what you're saying, I will call the senator to get back to it. Senator HUME: I was talking about housing.
I was talking about the lack of scrutiny that this government wants for their housing policy. This housing policy is so bad that the ANAO, the Auditor-General, has now decided that it requires additional scrutiny. We've seen the Chair of Housing Australia resign under suspicious circumstances.
There were allegations of bullying; now that's gone. We tried to have additional time with Housing Australia at Senate estimates. They were pushed out to the middle of the night—last thing in the middle of the night.
Thank heavens the Senate has the power to compel Housing Australia to come back, and we will see Housing Australia at Senate estimates at a spillover next week. But, my goodness, it has been like pulling teeth to get this government to talk about its housing policy, because it is so ashamed. It's so ashamed of the fact that it hasn't actually built any bloody houses—excuse my language, Acting Deputy President.
It is so ashamed because it hasn't actually built any houses. It's spent $60 billion, yet it hasn't built any houses. That's taxpayer money.
That's money that has been borrowed through the Housing Australia Future Fund and delivered nothing. The Housing Australia Future Fund has been operating for two years. Do you know how many houses it's built?
Doughnuts. Nothing. Zip.
Squat. Zero. Nothing.
It hasn't built a house yet. That's your money they're using. Today, they are hiding from you.
They are not only hiding from you but playing games in the chamber so that they don't have to respond to questions about it. It is private senators' time, not government time. This bill will at least go some way to helping provide transparency, to helping prevent this executive overreach, to ensuring that we have accountability for decisions that are made and the ability for this chamber to do its job and not have games played—the ability for this chamber to scrutinise legislation and not have a minister have a free rein.
I know that power has gone to your heads. You might have the numbers in the chamber over there, but you do not have them here. (Quorum formed) I want to talk about this housing guarantee scheme and I want to talk about the private senator's bill that has been brought in to introduce more scrutiny, more transparency and more accountability, but, unfortunately, I keep getting disrupted.
And the reason I keep getting disrupted—can I be very clear—is that Labor are refusing to produce a document that we requested to see for two years. They're refusing to produce a document which, ironically, is a review into jobs for mates. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hume, please direct your comments through the chair.
Senator HUME: Ironically, it is a review into jobs for mates. Now, they were given this review, and they have said it's under consideration in cabinet. This is a nonsense.
It's been around now for more than two years. It was commissioned by the government themselves as part of their commitment to transparency and accountability. Senator Scarr: It's a bit ironic.
Senator HUME: It is; it's totally ironic, Senator Scarr. Let's face it: this is not a government that wants scrutiny. It is not a government that takes accountability seriously.
It is not a government that wants questions asked; it simply wants to use its numbers wherever it can and use games to get away with whatever it can. What they've got away with in housing is outrageous: $60 billion. That's your money they're spending.
And did you know that this government has built fewer houses each year than the coalition did in nine years? We didn't spend $60 billion to do it either. The home guarantee scheme is an initiative of a coalition government, but it was small, it was targeted and it was done intentionally to help young people that might have great credit risk and be unable to get a deposit together to get to that first rung on the ladder.
But it was so limited that it had no effect on housing prices. Labor have taken the lid off and said, 'This is a free for all,' and now we've got Reserve Bank governors, economists and even Treasury warning that this is a policy that will push housing prices up. But they do not care.
At the same time, we've got the Housing Australia Future Fund, the greatest and most expensive white elephant that this country has ever seen, that has not built a single house—not one. But it borrowed $10 billion of your money to do that. Not only did it not build a house; it actually bought— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Hume, it will assist me to maintain order in the chamber if you could direct your comments through the chair, please.
Senator HUME: Thank you. I actually will. The Albanese government's decision to expand the housing guarantee scheme without any corresponding plan to increase supply is reckless.
More buyers, fewer homes—that means that house prices will skyrocket, and experts are predicting exactly that. In fact, they're saying potentially up to $90,000 increases in Sydney because of Labor's policy—directly because of Labor's policy. Even Treasury admit that this policy will push up housing prices, but they do it anyway.
Changes of this scope and this scale which threaten massive taxpayer liability and demonstrably inflate the price of houses for the very people that this scheme is purported to help must be subject to the oversight of elected officials. That's what we are here to do. We are here to do that.
But, instead, they have circumvented that oversight. You have circumvented that scrutiny. You have hidden from transparency.
You have set aside accountability. The bill that is before us today, a bill that has been put forward by the coalition, by Senator Bragg, will ensure that Australians are protected from that arbitrary government decision-making, that they are protected from executive overreach and that they are protected from the desire for this government—and I'm using their words not mine—to 'crunch' the opposition and 'crunch' the crossbench.
You said you would use your numbers, and you have done so effectively, but you do not own this chamber. We will make sure that this government is held to account for its lack of transparency, its lack of accountability and its scandalous behaviour today. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: The time for this debate has expired.