Mr BUCHHOLZ (Wright) (17:11): The Help to Buy Bill 2023 is definitely a bill that impassions the spirits of both sides of the House. Madam Deputy Speaker, you have heard from speaker after speaker in this place from the coalition about our enthusiasm for Australians to own their own homes. It is in our DNA. It is etched in the genesis of our political party, through Sir Robert Menzies himself. You’ve heard that time and time again from different speakers who have prosecuted their contributions here today.
So, rather than continue along the lines of previous speakers, I thought I would take a slightly different tack with this debate and talk about my own personal experience with entering the housing market. Then I want to talk, through the prism of Queensland, about some of the issues that we have up there and contrast the policies that we have as a coalition with those of the government. I will reiterate through this speech how our policies when we were in government helped no fewer than 300,000 homeowners into the market.
During this speech, I will touch on the fact that the Help to Buy policy, which we’re debating now, is contingent on states approving and adopting a similar model in their own jurisdictions. This legislation is not autonomous throughout the country. It needs other legislative instruments to attach itself to, and that becomes problematic because, as you’ve heard from previous speakers, those legislative instruments that may be in different states are underutilised, so, if there are spaces available for participants and states to take up, they’re not adopting them. They’re not flavoursome. It is the equivalent of thinking that the way we’re going to get record sales in a car yard is to promote the ugliest and most unroadworthy vehicle in the fleet and that that’s somehow going to turn our sales fortunes around. This is what this speaks to.
My wife and I bought our first home in a small town called Blackwater in Central Queensland. It’s not a big town, but do you know what? It’s what we could afford. I think I was 22 or something when we bought it, and we paid $55,000 for it. It was a high-set three-bedroom HardiePlank, brick based, with a two-car double lock-up tilter garage door. It backed onto the golf course. It had polished floors, a basic kitchen and an internal stairwell. There was a rumpus room downstairs. It was a reasonable home. At that point in time, I had trouble raising the deposit for a $55,000 home.
As I continue on this story, I don’t want people to take away from this that I’m saying the secret to homeownership is to head to the regional areas, but I do want to shine a light on those regional areas that would embrace families and that the median house prices in regional areas are often much lower than they are in our capital city CBDs, when you do your analysis. It’s not as if you’re asking Blackwater people to go and live in a community where the median wage is low. This is a mining town. There are three to four coal mines owned by multinationals and private companies in which the median wage is north of $150,000 for the entire township. When you’ve got two revenues coming into a house, a double-income household, you can save.
Before I came in to deliver this speech, I went on realestate.com.au and had a quick look at what price you could buy house in Blackwater for these days. For houses with a similar description to the house that I bought, you can still pick one up for $220,000, which would be the median. Some are higher, up to $300,000, but they’re not overly expensive. Homeownership is within the grasp of people, but the equation of getting there has become—and the expectations. It’s spoken about in RSLs and with Rotary and Lions community groups in my electorate, who say to me: ‘The expectations on the next generations are much greater than what we had when we first bought our home. Our first home may not have had a concrete driveway, may not have had curtains and certainly may not have had carpets in it.’ But the homes today, when we calculate the median home price, are often based on the assumption that they have four bedrooms, two bathrooms and double car lock-up, and are lowset brick, fully fenced, turfed and air-conditioned with every possible extra that generations before may have taken some time to get to.
In Queensland, we have a situation where we need 48,000 houses built a year. Currently the market is at full noise reaching 34,000. So we’re 14,000 houses short at the moment, and what this debate on the Help to Buy bill allows us to do is address the demand and supply push. We’ll be opposing this, and all the speakers on the coalition have made that point abundantly clear. We’ll be opposing this bill because we just can’t work out how it addresses the supply side of the argument. When I talk to builders, the ones that haven’t gone broke recently—and Madam Speaker, as you would well know, if you turn the television on and watch the news cycle, it’s with awkward regularity that we’re seeing building companies collapse, under this government. It is with awkward regularity that we’re seeing local builders go broke, under this government. It’s just shameful that we’re seeing this spike in builders leaving the industry since Labor came to power.
Mr Wallace: Going broke.
Mr BUCHHOLZ: Going broke—as the member for Fisher would well know, being a former builder and a barrister in the industry. He knows only too well. But the point I was going to make about the supply side is that, when I talk to builders and developers, the first thing they talk to me about is the extraordinary costs that have increased over the years, sometimes three hundredfold, when it comes to developing land so that construction can happen on it. Construction costs as a result of Labor’s inflation since they came to office have had unmitigable consequences in the building sector, particularly in situations where people sign up to contracts. Prices shift, the builder’s locked into it and they go broke because there’s no way they can deliver the product at the price that was agreed to. The landowner often loses their deposit. There are no winners in that situation.
As I said in my opening comments, I want to acknowledge what we have done and what the member for Deakin, the former minister, who choreographed some of the most amazing policies, has done, which is stick no less than 300,000 people into homes with the policies that he and our government helped choreograph. The coalition supported almost 60,000 first home buyers and single-parent families into homeownership through the Home Guarantee Scheme, consisting of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, the First Home Guarantee and the Family Home Guarantee, with deposits of as little as two per cent and five per cent. Those are real savings that help people get into homes. By all accounts, the Home Guarantee Scheme is now supporting one in three homebuyers in this country. The coalition needs to be acknowledged for that legacy that has been left behind. It’s an amazing product.
We protected the residential construction industry with more than 137,000 HomeBuilder applications that generated no less than $120 billion worth of economic activity. We provided $2.9 billion of low-cost loans to community housing providers to support 15,000 social and affordable dwellings, saving $470 million in interest payments to be reinvested in more affordable housing. We unlocked just on 7,000 social, affordable and market dwellings through the coalition’s $1 billion infrastructure facility, making housing supply more responsive to demand. We established the First Home Super Saver Scheme, helping 27,600 first home buyers accelerate their deposit savings through their super. That was a great product as well.
Since 1 January 2020 the Home Guarantee Scheme, consisting of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme, the New Home Guarantee and the Family Home Guarantee, has assisted almost 60,000 first home buyers and single-parent families get into their homes with a deposit of as little as five per cent or two per cent. It was a 2019 election commitment that was delivered. Fifty-two per cent of the 60,000 guarantees have been taken up by women, which is great news. It’s well above the market average, which was 41 per cent of women entering into homeownership. We provided an environment where, under that scheme, it was 52 per cent. One in five guarantees issued went to essential workers—people who work on our front lines. Thirty-five per cent of them were nurses and 34 per cent were teachers. Eighty-five per cent of Family Home Guarantees were used by single mums. Our policies worked.
The First Home Super Saver Scheme addressed the deposit hurdles. It’s the most challenging aspect of getting onto the property ladder, which is why first home buyers can accelerate their deposit savings through super with an increased release of up to $50,000, up from $30,000. This means that the average couple would be $20,838 better off under the coalition’s First Home Super Saver Scheme than if they used a standard savings account. There are a number of different programs that we implemented that have had a profound difference.
Often you will hear people make comments that they can’t tell the difference between the policies of Labor or the Greens or the coalition and that they’re all the same. Can I point them to no less than this particular piece of legislation? There could not be a more stark contrast in our political DNA and in our political footprints. When you have a look at the Greens, particularly in Brisbane, there’s not a building application in that area that they will not oppose. They walk into this place and they’ll fight for projects like this, but quietly, in their electorates, they’ll be running their social media campaigns opposing developments and opposing low-cost affordable housing in their electorates. It’s absolute NIMBYism—nothing in my backyard. ‘We don’t want extra people putting pressure on our services and infrastructure.’ It’s a disgrace.
We commend Labor for bringing this piece of legislation to the House. You need to commend them for having a crack, but I just can’t see how this legislation, without having those legislative instruments in the states, will have the bite that it’s supposed to.
Our policies worked. Our policies are proven. Our policies have got no less than 300,000 homeowners into the Australian dream, and it’s only our side in government, with prudent management, with proven leaders sitting in this chamber at the moment, that will lead our country to higher homeownership. Those on the other side of this chamber talk the talk, but I can guarantee you they can’t walk the walk.