DOCUMENTS
Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (10:48): I rise to take note of Minister Ayres's answer on behalf of the Minister for Housing. Until the Senate agrees that OPD Nos 27 and 119 have been complied with, Minister Ayres is going to have to keep showing up at the start of every sitting week and attempting to explain why. The minister says we are confused.
Well, we are not confused. You have not complied, Minister, with what was sought, and we are clear eyed. In a housing crisis, the Senate deserves information.
We've been here many times before asking for this information. We still don't have it. Senator Bragg's OPD No. 27 asked for two things.
It asked for any advice provided by the Treasury to the Minister for Housing since 1 January 2025 in relation to the HAFF for the construction of 100,000 new homes for first home buyers. Second, it asked for any advice provided by the Treasury to the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing since 1 January 2025 in relation to the government's plan to enable first homebuyers to purchase a home with a five per cent deposit.
This information was first requested in July last year, and what did the Senate receive? Two emails. That's it.
One of these emails was just a list of options for names for the government's commitment to build 100,000 homes. That is not advice. The Senate has further agreed to nine further motions concerning the minister's failure to comply with the orders, rejecting a public interest immunity claim and requiring the minister to attend the Senate to explain the failure to comply with the order on five separate occasions.
This is just not good enough. We are in a very serious housing crisis. I am holding hearings around the country with other senators, looking at the inequity that this housing crisis presents intergenerationally.
It is not enough for Labor to make the crisis worse and fail to provide us with the documents we need. It is failing. Labor is failing to build enough houses.
The HAFF has built just 1,432 homes since it was enacted. It's too slow. It's too complicated, and it is not big enough for what we need.
No matter how many photo opportunities the minister has with every person who moves into a HAFF home—which we support, and we're happy those people get into a HAFF home—it is nowhere near what we need. Even if the HAFF manages to build 55,000 new houses as a result of the implementation of the HAFF, it'll be too slow, too small, and it won't touch the sides of the housing crisis.
We've got 640,000 Australians looking for social and affordable homes out there. The HAFF will meet eight per cent of that need. It is nowhere near what we need in this crisis.
That is not to mention the 31 per cent of Australians who are out there trying to rent—trying to find a rental in a regional town or in any city in our country at present. Rents are up two and a half times faster than wages. People are struggling.
We have heard from so many people in our inquiry who are struggling to find a rental, then struggling to pay for groceries when they have to meet the average rent in a city like this of $600 or $700 a week. People cannot meet the rapid increases in rents that are coming about as a result of the failure to act on our housing crisis. People are being pitched in their thousands into homelessness.
There's been a 10 per cent increase in homelessness on Labor's watch. That is a housing crisis that deserves the full attention of this Senate. It deserves the full attention of the minister—bringing us the information we request—and we will insist that the minister comes here until he brings forward the information we seek.
It doesn't have to be like this. We know how to address a housing crisis. We did it in the postwar years, and we've done it historically.
Many countries around the world are not facing the same kind of housing crisis we are facing. They are building public houses. They are insisting on rent regulation.
They are making sure that homelessness services are wrapped around people so that they don't find an increase in the number of people who are sleeping in our streets, in their cars and couch surfing. There are many, many women pitched out of their homes because of domestic and family violence, and they are finding themselves homeless. Labor knows how to fix the crisis.
It lacks the commitment to do it, and it won't even do the Senate the respect it deserves by bringing forward information to fully inform our consideration of this crisis. Shame on you, Minister. You need to come forward with this information, and, further, your government needs to take a much larger effort to deal with the housing crisis that is affecting millions of Australians and millions of young people.
There are many people looking for their first home to purchase in this massive housing crisis. It's time to act. It's time to bring us the information we are seeking.