QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (14:21): My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Housing, Senator Ayres. We are in a historic housing crisis, and Labor's housing policies are a spectacular failure in the face of the scale of this historic crisis. The five per cent deposit scheme is just one example of that failure.

This scheme was sold to the Australian public as a policy to help first home buyers on low incomes, and instead this policy turbocharged prices of houses at the affordable end of the housing market and encouraged more first home buyer debt. We've now learned that nearly 1,500 homes under this scheme have been flipped into investments. Minister, in the midst of a housing crisis on a historical scale we have not seen before in this country, how can you let property investors milk your faulty five per cent deposit scheme?