Home - Claire Moore - Labor Senator for Queensland

NATIONAL RENTAL AFFORDABILITY SCHEME BILL 2008 NATIONAL RENTAL AFFORDABILITY SCHEME (CONSEQUENTIAL AMENDMENTS)

Senator MOORE (Queensland) (12.48 pm)

There is widespread support for and commonality of enthusiasm about moving forward with the National Rental
Affordability Scheme Bill 2008 and the related bill. I will be reporting, in the same way that many of the previous speakers in this debate have done, about the horror of the situation in our country at the moment around the need for affordable housing-and I am using that word quite deliberately; it is a horror. The figures are before us. We have heard about it in a range of committees-certainly in the inquiry of the Senate Select Committee on Housing Affordability in Australia earlier this year. Whilst it was not a particular point in the terms of reference of that inquiry, the issue of rental housing in our country-that is, the growing need for affordable rental housing and the need for a response-came up over and over in public evidence and submissions to the inquiry in every state of Australia. And it was not just that inquiry. I refer also to the Senate committee inquiry on poverty that was held several years ago, from which we have a longstanding report in this place. A full chapter in the report on poverty in our community was dedicated to the issue of available rental housing across Australia. Horrific stories are on record. I am not going to repeat them because, when we have figures that talk about 1.1 million low- and moderate-income households in housing stress in December 2007 and nearly 7,000 families now spending more than 30 per cent of their limited incomes just to pay rent, we are not talking about mortgages; we are talking about people needing to pay rent for shelter. Behind each of those figures we have stories on record that indicate the ongoing impact on our families and communities, and what consistently has been brought out is that so many other social problems with which our community is struggling can be traced back to the issue of appropriate housing. The bill we have before us is not automatically going to solve all of those issues. It does not purport to do so-in fact, the government has consistently been saying that there needs to be a wide-ranging response to the issue of effective housing within our community-but it is one step towards a response. Through the very short inquiry of the Standing Committee on Community Affairs into the National Rental Affordability Scheme earlier this month, as referred to by Senator Ludlam, we heard a message to everyone that something needs to be done. It had reached the point of urgency and, more important than the need for urgency, there was a degree of hope and enthusiasm that something could be achieved.

The proposal before us has, I think, a number of elements to it, but the one that is most important for me is that this is a cooperative response to an issue. We have a response that includes two levels of government-state and federal-signing up to a long-term process and picking up the essential element, which I believe is the community housing sector. Senator Ludlam has already pointed out the role that this sector has played in our community over many years. This is something that we have heard about through a number of inquiries. What the community housing sector has been effectively doing for many years is operating in a professional, inclusive and community focused way in the area of providing housing. It is now part of a cooperative response looking at how we can move forward in this area. I think that is one small step to ensuring that we will have a structured, forward-thinking process around a community problem which has been bedevilling our community for many years.

The Senate community affairs committee heard from a number of people who have been feeding their information into issues about housing for many years. I want to stress the sense of urgency that came through in the evidence. In our report we quoted from Mr Adam Farrar from the New South Wales Federation of Housing Associations, who said:
The introduction of NRAS responds to an absolutely critical need … we still have a significant undersupply problem, and so supply initiatives are very important, and that is one of the things that is so welcome about NRAS.

He went on to say-and once again I stress the urgency of the process:
I do want to stress that it is absolutely essential that the process that has begun isn't delayed. Our members have been very active in taking up the opportunity, but that does mean entering into agreements, going out and identifying opportunities, to acquire land, to acquire new properties to bring into the marketplace, and they are very concerned that those opportunities will be lost if there is any greater delay.

For a number of years now we have been focusing on leading up to a solution. We have had the National Housing Affordability Summit. When this government were in the electoral process, just over 12 months ago, one of the key planks of our election promises was that we would move forward not just in the area of providing permanent housing but also in looking at the very real need in the area of rental housing. So the National Rental Affordability Scheme fulfils one of our election promises. Perhaps 'fulfil' is the wrong verb because fulfilling in itself is not what this particular piece of legislation will achieve. It is a step towards a response to the need.

We have had a number of papers out in the community and a large-scale consultation process-which has been not just going out and telling people what is going to occur but, more importantly, engaging those people in suggesting what responses should be taken. Core elements of the policy that is before us have come through that consultation. They have not been determined in isolation. They have not been imposed. They are responsive to the needs that were identified and to the clear demand that the response not be reliant on just one sector taking up their responsibilities. This is significant enough and widespread enough-and it is certainly across all elements of Australian states-that it must engage at least state and federal governments and the community housing organisations but must also, over the longer term, draw more and more people into looking at the solution.

As we have already heard today, one of the key sticking points-and the element that took up the most discussion during the committee's inquiry-was the issue of charitable status. It is genuinely regrettable that it took so long to have a response come forward and that that took up so much of the important time for discussion. Nonetheless, we do have an immediate response in that this legislation provides first-round certainty for people as they engage in the process. But it also highlights the particular difficulties in our community around issues of investment and the status of charitable organisations. That has been for many years a genuine obstacle to these incredibly knowledgeable, experienced and intellectually strong organisations taking part in elements around economic development-that is, because of the concerns about exactly how they will be handled under the taxation processes. That was highlighted very clearly in the submissions that came before our committee. The response that we have had from the Treasurer indicates that the issue has been acknowledged and will, I think, be part of the ongoing process of looking at the whole area of taxation in our community. In fact, that is where it should be. It should not be tacked on the outside or be some sort of side issue; it should be a core element of how we as a community look at how people operate within our taxation system.

Most important whenever we are talking about effective social policy is the strength of the review process. Throughout the debate that has been going on for the last few months about how this scheme will operate there has been a strong, consistent commitment from the government to an independent review of how the whole program is working over a two-year process. That will allow a number of stages of the scheme to be implemented. It will give people an opportunity to see exactly how it is operating. It will also give the independent reviewers the opportunity to see the impact of this legislation across our whole community. There is a genuine belief that there is not a one-size-fits-all model that can be imposed in any part of this community process.

We must have an acknowledgement that there are serious issues of public housing and a shortage of available housing everywhere in Australia. In fact, one thing we looked at during the Senate housing committee hearings and in the recent discussions around this process was whether there is a place anywhere in this country where there is a surplus of housing. So far we have not identified anywhere. Across all parts of my state, Queensland-and it has been exacerbated recently with the storm damage that has occurred-there continue to be immediate shortages. Other senators in this debate have pointed out the difference between the obvious need to provide effective housing and what is available at this moment. There needs to be a flexible response. I note Senator Ludlam earlier spoke of an 'adaptive' process. I quite like that adjective. I had not heard it before. I might start using it quite regularly. We must not be too tightly constrained into any particular process; we must engage people across the industry. I know that the various construction and investment groups and the retail housing organisations have all been part of the debate around where we will be able to go.

We also need to engage the people within the state and federal governments with what is going on and also engage with the community. Down the track another player that will be increasingly engaged in our responses across the board in the area of housing will be the massive local government network. Whilst they do not have an immediate role in this piece of legislation, I think it would be inappropriate to talk about any issue to do with housing in this country unless we ensured that we had people from the three levels of government being engaged and active in the process to see exactly where they could fit it.

Once again, if we continue to segment, divide and marginalise the people who are involved, we will get back to a competitive process, which does not meet the needs that have been clearly pointed out through discussions at the summit and through discussions with the various people who gave evidence to our committee, who consistently looked at some form of hope that this piece of legislation was going to provide, not just the subsidy. The investment of $623 million over the first four years to create 50,000 affordable rental properties is a significant investment but, considering the issues we are facing and the demand that we have, it is very clear that it is not going to meet the full demand. Given that this is going to be the first step in a staged process, it was particularly encouraging to hear the real commitment and sense of hope from the people who came before our committee. Professor Julian Disney, who has been active in this debate not just over the last two or three years but over many years, spoke on the issues of homelessness and the difficulty in translating between being able to rent or being able to buy. And there is also real acknowledgement that for a large number of our community long-term, lifelong rental is a reality. It is something that needs to be acknowledged and not seen as a lesser, or a somehow punitive or negative aspect of housing. One of the things that came forward in our committee on housing affordability earlier this year was evidence from a number of people who felt that over many years in this country there has been almost a labelling of people who are reliant on rental housing. That has led to a sense of them not being part of the whole process of living in our Australian community. One thing that the National Rental Affordability Scheme brings forward is an acknowledgement that there are many people in our community who will be renting. It is a genuine process of obtaining real shelter and it is something that they have a right to-effective, affordable and available housing in their own communities.

I take the point that Senator Payne raised earlier in the debate, which is that there needs to be consistent planning of where these projects are to be activated and that, once again, we are not in any sense creating marginalised areas where people are forced to live. This is a process of engagement and of effective community building, and we should be very wary of any concerns or fears that these developments would be available only in fringe areas. Again, that would need to be part of any ongoing review of the process. We know that there is a real expectation in the community that the government will move forward with the promises made during the election about addressing the issues of housing in this country. We know that there is an expectation among the community that their voices will be heard. We see the National Rental Affordability Scheme Bill as a step towards a response to the need that has been clearly put before us over a long period. We know that there are issues around how the scheme will be implemented that can only be addressed and reviewed as the scheme is put into place. That is why it is so important that the review is constantly in front of us as we move forward.

We cannot delay. I think there is a real opportunity in the process because, as I said, when you see the commitment that has been expressed by people from all levels-people within governments, people within the housing community and people within the social research area, who have been working on the issues in our community for many years-there is a challenge to which the government must respond. We must now implement the scheme, ensure that people's expectations are balanced as we work through it and ensure that we genuinely respond to the voices that have said this is an issue we cannot ignore. I think that the various issues that have been brought forward, both in the committee reporting stage and in the various discussions that have been going on, have worth. There is a real need for those issues to be considered when we are moving forward with the legislation.

I am reminded, when I think about the people who came before our committee, that it is time for action. We have talked about this for a long time and while we were sitting in our committee hearings we knew that across the community there were numerous families struggling with how they were going to find affordable rental accommodation for themselves for the next period of time. It is always a particularly difficult time as we lead up to Christmas, as any of the social welfare agencies will tell you.
One of the key issues that we hear about is effective accommodation. The statistics show us that rental prices have been soaring in every capital city and in most regional places as well. This scheme is not restricted to various locations. There is a real opportunity for this scheme to be operational in many regional centres as well as in major centres. I think that it is something that we have a responsibility to work with into the future.

As we move forward the other important thing must be to continue the engagement with the people who are the most affected by the process. We have set up various consultative bodies to ensure that that will happen. Certainly, having the scheme involve government and the community sector is a positive point and an opportunity for us to work together. But as we move forward it is most important that, through this scheme, we also encourage those people who have ideas and who are involved in the process to continue to contribute to our social policy.

As Julian Disney said during our inquiry, and as a number of people have said in the debate so far, 'This is a step towards achieving a solution.' How effectively we succeed will rely on how open we are to working with people who are prepared to continue to give advice, to give information and to ensure that the issue of homelessness does not fall off the agenda-that it is not seen as a one-off step but acknowledged as one step towards achieving good public policy in an area that has been suffering for way too long.