DOCUMENTS

Senator BARBARA POCOCK (South Australia) (12:44): I rise to take note of the minister's contribution here this morning. I want to express my disgust at the way in which he has come into this chamber today and just played pure politics when, out there, millions of Australians are struggling with rent they can't afford and with rising mortgage costs and a housing crisis that we have not ever seen before in living memory in the post World War II period.

On every target, Labor is missing its goals, and it's leaving Australians in a cost-of-living and housing crisis of extreme terms. All its modelling and its cabinet's workings are failing the Australian public. We've heard a minister come here today and talk about institutions, about egos, about consistency—nothing about the problem that is facing renters and homebuyers, especially first home buyers.

When we look at the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council's latest report, with its Labor target of 1.2 million homes, which it critiques in terms of whether that target can be met, it makes the point—and we know—that Labor will not meet that target by December 2029. In fact, they're going to go well past that 2029 target. Recent ABS data tells us that the national accord is almost 95,000 houses behind that target.

We know there's a crisis out there, and we are missing every target. We're especially missing targets in relation to building public housing. We used to have a proud 10 per cent of our housing supply stock for public housing.

Now, we are at less than four per cent around the country. In a lot of places, it's much, much lower than that. And we hear Labor come into this place this morning and talk about their assumptions and their offerings, like the five per cent deposit scheme.

The jewel in their crown that they talk about so often is the HAFF target to provide 40,000 new homes, so we're told, by mid-2029. What we know from the accounts provided in the analysis done by the Audit Office is that we are so far short of that target as to be laughable. It would be laughable if it weren't a tragedy.

There have been 1,432 homes added to stock through the HAFF halfway through the program, so far short of its 40,000 target. A program where 1,432 houses have been added to stock—half of them purchased; not even really additional to the stock. So, even if the HAFF were to meet its target of 40,000 homes, it doesn't touch the sides of the crisis we are in, with 640,000 Australians living in severe housing stress every day.

It has been a year since Labor expanded the eligibility of the five per cent deposit scheme, and, since then, the average first home buyer mortgage has surged by $50,000. People have taken out huge loans that have put them at real risk of losing their homes, and they've faced increases in their mortgages and prices that have fallen. The Reserve Bank has warned that those first home buyers with big loans are the most at risk of falling into negative equity.

We have a crisis there that is penetrating so many households where young people and first home buyers are most at risk. So Labor's policy has resulted in these massive increases in mortgage costs which severely affect those first home buyers, who are being bludgeoned with an interest rate policy which is actually a response to inflation caused by rising profits of massive multibillion-dollar organisations, like the banks.

There was $30 billion in profit for the banks in the last financial year, and it's those first home buyers who are paying the price in rising mortgages. This government is letting corporate profit driven inflation run wild. Banks and big supermarkets are making money, making bank, while those first home buyers are cowering under massive increases in their mortgages.

Ordinary Australians are paying the price for a strategy which is causing and contributing to a growing housing crisis. The government needs to find solutions for those first home buyers that don't push them into greater risk of negative equity—and it's time that the big banks made a bigger contribution—which is so profitable and causing so much pain for those with growing and large mortgage debt.

Housing, just like education and health, is an essential service. Labor has dropped the ball, and the minister has compounded the insult to this chamber today by failing to turn up here and give us the background, the information and the policy solutions that Australians want.