QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE: TAKE NOTE OF ANSWERS

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (15:32): I move: That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science (Senator Ayres) to a question without notice I asked today relating to housing. In my question, I particularly focused on the five per cent deposit scheme and the Housing Australia Future Fund.

I asked Minister Ayres about Labor's faulty five per cent deposit scheme and about how it has delivered for some people who have got very high incomes, how it has delivered for people who have flipped their purchase into an investment property very fast—1,500 people in that category—and how Labor think they can solve the housing crisis with just 56 net new social housing stock in the last year.

That is a tiny, tiny contribution in the face of a crisis that is huge and historic. I asked about how Labor's HAFF is failing to deliver at anywhere near the scale we need to help the hundreds of thousands of Australians who, every day, are living in extreme housing stress. Even if the HAFF were to deliver on its 40,000 homes promise by 2029—which is, as I'll get to, a very, very long shot—it would house just six per cent of the 640,000 people in need of that social housing.

This crisis is historic, and it deserves an historic response. It deserves an appropriate expenditure into public and community housing. If we can spend the billions that we are on submarines and if we can forgo the billions we are forgoing in gas tax, then we can afford to turn our attention to the biggest contribution to the cost-of-living crisis that is affecting Australians in every capital city, in every small town and in every regional settlement.

This crisis has been decades in the making, and both sides of the major party floor in front of me have to take responsibility for the failure to invest over the last 30 years. At present, I'm chairing a select committee inquiry into housing inequity between generations. We have heard from people all over the country—from Perth to Melbourne, from Canberra to Sydney, and from Brisbane to Adelaide—and the evidence is heart-wrenching.

I have to say, it is really hard to listen day after day to young people, to their parents, to the providers of homelessness services and to people dealing with rent increases. Last week in Perth and regional Perth, in Secret Harbour south of Perth, they were paying rents of $770 a week with a vacancy rate of zero. In Broome, it's $1,000 a week with a vacancy rate of zero.

People who cannot find a house find themselves now looking at their car, looking at the bridge—looking at all kinds of unsafe compromises and unsafe conditions to try and get some kind of place to sleep. And, in every single hearing, we have heard about those skyrocketing rents. We've heard about those outdated rental laws that are way, way out of date in terms of the proportion of Australians—nearly a third—who are now in long-term rental accommodation.

There are rapidly increasing uncapped rents and underfunded homelessness services, which are really heartbreaking to hear about. And yet, this government's policies are not touching the sides. The Labor Party promised to attack the crisis, and it hasn't done it.

The crisis is now on Labor. We are four years in. It is time to see a massive injection of direct investment in public housing.

It is time to see action on rents. It is time to see an expenditure which is way more significant than we have seen so far in the Housing Australia Future Fund. Millennials are the first Australian generation to be worse off than their parents.

Well, shame on us. Shame on this parliament and many of us in this chamber, who are going to see a generation worse off and affordability worse off for people. I want to say that the Housing Australia Future Fund is a particular issue here, where we see an investment that is nowhere near the scale needed for this crisis.

Even if the HAFF is fully implemented, it will meet just six per cent of those 640,000 people who are looking for support in this crisis. But take a look at the recent ANAO report. It is appalling reading.

It is telling us there is a very serious and significant risk this program will not reach its targets. It is way behind, and it is failing in this crisis to put the houses we need on the ground—just 1,432 homes halfway through the years of its projected existence as a program, meeting just four per cent, so far, of its target of 40,000. It's a failure, and Labor is letting us down.

Question agreed to.