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Heads in the Sand as Immigration Fuels the Housing Crisis

I asked Senator Tim Ayres, Assistant Minister for Trade, why the Albanese Labor government has allowed one million people to arrive in this country in just one year. Those one million arrivals is made up of around half migration and half student visas. Every single person need a bed and a roof over their head. There’s also an additional 200,000 arrivals with other visas. That’s a total of 1.2 million people, making a population flood the size of Adelaide in just 12 months.

The housing and rental crisis is completely government made. If your rent has gone up, you can’t afford a house, you can’t even find a place to live like those in regional Queensland towns living in caravans, tents, in parks, in cars and under bridges, remember this Labor government brought in over 1,000,000 people into this country in just one year.

With this bill, the Albanese government is claiming that it will build a few thousand houses to ‘fix the problem’. Supply chains for materials are still damaged from the government’s COVID response. Those shattered supply chains are further hobbled under Australia following the United Nations’ 2050 policy driving up energy costs.

The Greens want more houses built, but they won’t let us use timber. In fact, they have a bill on notice to end logging of sustainable forestry. Timber is a renewable resource yet we can’t harvest the wood for the frames. What about steel frames then? The two main ingredients for steel are coal and iron ore,which are Australia’s two major mining commodities, yet the Greens want to end all mining in Australia.

The Greens SAY they want to build more houses, yet if Australia implemented all their policies we’d have no wood, no steel and only expensive and unreliable sources of energy to build these houses.

A cut to immigration would allow our housing and essential services time to catch up.

As you will hear, Senator Ayres completely failed to address my concerns.

Transcripts

Minister, I’m a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia. In that capacity, I note that this bill is completely unnecessary. It’s not needed. Here’s why: if the government cut Australia’s immigration intake by just 10 per cent of the current one million arrivals, it would save the building of many more houses than Labor claims this fund will build. The housing crisis will lessen. Instead, we are here dealing with dirty deals done dirt cheap. The deals are cheap for the Greens, yet taxpayers will be paying billions. As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia, I note that the people of Australia are disgusted to look at this parliament and see the rotten horse-trading and deal-making going on. The Greens hold themselves up on their moral high horse and virtue-signal to the world that they are the pure ones while telling everyone what to do. In reality, they’re down in the mud doing dirty deals like the rest of them.

What deal do we have to look at today? The government is going to build and own houses—not the people of Australia but the government. This is full-blown communism delivered express to your door. As the infamous Klaus Schwab of the World Economic Forum has repeatedly told the world already, ‘You will own nothing, and you will be happy.’ The goal of the Greens and Labor is to come into this chamber to preach to the world that they’re helping Australians—helping you. The Greens’ rent caps have already led directly to faster rent increases, because landlords understandably want to get ahead of the rent caps. The Greens are already hurting renters. The housing crisis is a problem that government created entirely.

The government is now claiming to have the solution. That’s a fraud, Minister. The Albanese Labor government has allowed one million people to arrive in this country in just one year. That’s 460,000 in net migration and 540,000 students visas. Every one of those needs a bed and a roof over their head. That’s not to mention the additional 200,000 other visas. That’s 1.2 million. A population flood the size of Adelaide has hit this country in 12 months. That’s the cause of the housing and rental crisis. It’s completely government made. If your rent has gone up, you can’t afford a house or you can’t even find a place to live, like the people in regional Queensland towns living in caravans, tents, parks and cars and under bridges. Just remember this: the Albanese Labor government brought one million people into this country in one year.

With this bill, the Albanese government is claiming that it will build a few thousand houses and fix the problem. Who will build them? Supply chains for materials are still damaged due to the government’s COVID reaction and mismanagement, which shattered supply chains. The energy crisis has been inflicted due to the government adopting the UN 2050 net zero policy and driving up energy costs. Australia’s tradies already build houses at the fourth-fastest rate in the OECD. There’s a question that has to be answered: can we more quickly build even more houses? Trying to flood this industry that is already at capacity with huge amounts of taxpayer money is only going to make the funnel spill over. That will mean millions and potentially billions of your taxes wasted. Let’s not forget the government’s figures. They think they can build a house in Australia for $83,000. What kind of house is that? They must be smoking some powerful stuff over in the ministry for housing. It doesn’t matter how many billions this government wants to spend; we will never be able to build enough houses to catch up with the current rate of immigration. That is a clear fact. It’s basic arithmetic. It’s practical.

Next: what do the Greens want us to use to build these houses? They won’t let us use timber. There is a bill on the Notice Paper right now that the Greens introduced to end sustainable forest logging. Timber is the only resource that’s truly renewable, yet the Greens have a bill saying we can’t harvest the wood used in house frames while claiming with this bill that they want to build more houses. I guess that is okay. We can just build houses with steel frames, right? Not according to the Greens. Too many ingredients in making steel are coal and iron ore, Australia’s two major mining commodities. The Greens want to end mining in Australia, so we would have nothing with which to make the steel. So the Greens say they want to build more houses—virtue signalling—yet if Australia implemented their policies we would have no steel, no wood with which to build houses. And if our coal, iron ore and timber industries survived the Greens blight, prices of house timber and steel will be far higher thanks to the Greens restrictions. The hypocrisy is so damn thick we could cut it with a knife.

The Greens policies are antihuman. One Nation’s policy includes many solutions to the government-created housing crisis, taken together holistically because the problem is many factored. Among these immediate solutions to the housing crisis is that we must cut immigration immediately, reduce our arrivals to zero net immigration, meaning only allow the same number of people into the country as the number that leave so departures cancel out arrivals. As Australians know, this country is already bursting at the seams. A cut to immigration would allow our housing stock, our essential services—hospitals, our schools—and other services time to catch up. If we don’t stop immigration or cut immigration, life is going to get far, far worse for Australians, and it is already getting bad with the cost of living being the No. 1 problem on people’s minds. To continue this unprecedented immigration intake in the face of the housing and cost-of-living crisis is an act of criminal negligence against the Australian people.

Minister, why is the government allowing one million students and permanent migrants into the country in just 12 months? How many houses does the government expect the million student and permanent migrant arrivals will need? How many houses does the government expect to build in 12 months? How many houses will the government’s allocation of taxpayer funds build?

Senator Ayres (Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing): There was, in fact, a question at the end there. The government does not support the policy prescription that you’ve offered on migration. While you can hear echoes of the proposition that you’ve just put in relation to migration in some of what is best described as circular comments of the Leader of the Opposition on migration and
housing, in fact, migration will be an important part and has been an important part of the housing industry in Australia since World War II. In fact, if you spend time on any building site in Australia, what you will find are migrants, permanent and temporary—mostly permanent—who in fact make up a very large part of the labour force building homes, building apartment blocks, building shopping centres all over Australia.

The government’s migration settings will be made over time and will be made in the national interest. I hear your argument with your colleagues down here in the Greens’ political party. The government has always made it very clear: where there are constructive suggestions from anyone on the crossbench we will work with people—senators and members—across the parliament in the national interest where there are sensible amendments proposed to reach agreement on legislation in its passage through this parliament.

There is nothing like the disappointment of a crossbench senator who doesn’t feel like they’ve got their way in the process, but I’ve heard the complaints from crossbench senators over the short time I have been here. I’ll just assure you, and all of the crossbench senators, that the government’s approach has been consistent in terms of this legislation and will be consistent in the future. Where there are opportunities for constructive discussion about government legislation then we will engage in that.

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The Recession That Shall Not Be Named

Australia has entered a per capita recession although total GDP is still going up thanks to the government’s favourite Ponzi scheme — immigration. How is Australia going to provide homes and basic services for the one million new arrivals this year? Homes don’t get built that fast and we are already in a deficit of one million homes before these new arrivals.

I know from listening to constituents that life is getting harder with food, household bills including electricity and gas, housing and health care the biggest issues.

This government doesn’t care about everyday Australians – they only care about their globalist population and energy agenda, no matter how many Australians it hurts.

Immigration artificially inflates the economy as the money these people bring with them is spent, then the taxpayers are left with a massive bill for the housing, transport, schools, hospitals, police, fire stations and all the other government-funded infrastructure that is required for so many new arrivals.

Bringing in so many people in such a short period of time puts pressure on the price of food and housing in particular.

The solution is simple; it just takes honesty and guts. (1) abandon unaffordable United Nations 2050 Net Zero pipedreams that are driving up energy costs and with that, the price of everything else. (2) cut immigration to net zero (one person in for each person that leaves, equal to about 150,000 per annum) until our essential services and housing ability catches up with the existing Australian population.

Look after those already here before adding more. It’s common sense.

Transcript

As a servant to the people of Queensland and Australia who listens to constituents, I know life is getting worse for you and that this government doesn’t care. Australia has entered a per capita recession. The total GDP is still going up on paper. Technically, the government can say that we aren’t in a recession, yet on average the gross domestic product per Australian went backwards. That’s a per capita recession. You are not imagining it; life is getting far worse on average for the entire country. This is not news to anyone who has recently paid a grocery docket or a power bill or tuned in to hear Philip Lowe—whether or not the Reserve Bank is going to make their lives even harder this month. It is news to the Albanese government, though, because they are more interested in telling everyone to vote for the Voice than in doing something to fix the cost of living.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics has confirmed what we already knew: on average, life is only getting tougher, far tougher for Australians. The major cause of Australia’s per capita recession is the UN 2050 net-zero policies that are putting a chokehold on our country. This fact is one of many that exposes the lie that wind and solar are cheapest sources of electricity. With more wind, solar and batteries on the grid than ever in history, power prices have never been higher. This is mirrored around the world in countries adopting solar and wind.

The record expensive power bills bite more than once, not only when Australians hand over more money than ever to their electricity and gas companies. Power prices feed into nearly every level and part of our lives. Without cheap power, manufacturers can’t produce the products we want and need at a reasonable price; farmers can’t afford to pump the water that irrigates crops and keeps cattle alive; shops can’t afford to keep the lights on and the doors open. So you don’t just pay the price of the climate net-zero pipedream once when your power bill; you pay for it again and again and again in every other bill as well.

It’s irrefutable; life is getting worse for Australians, who are all having to make tougher and tougher choices around the dinner table. There has never been more proof Australians can’t afford the UN 2050 net-zero pipedream. This is leading to huge cracks in our economy. Everyday businesses are becoming insolvent. The trend for retail spending—usually good indicator of whether households are feeling the pinch—is negative. The average cost of housing as a proportion disposal income is at 20.1 per cent, up from almost 16.5 per cent only a few years ago. The lowest-fifth of earners who hold a mortgage are spending on average nearly two-thirds of their disposal income on their loan—two-thirds of their disposal income on a house loan. All this means in real terms that our economy is getting worse for Australians yet that isn’t showing up on the total GDP, which records the amount of activity in the economy. This is where the government are using their favourite Ponzi scheme, mass immigration, to cover the cracks.

Listen carefully. When you let more immigrants into the country, they have to spend money on the same things we all have to like food, housing, transport, energy. All of this spending counts towards our total gross domestic product. If the total gross domestic product goes down, we enter a recession, which is an embarrassing look for the government. It’s a pretty simple equation for the Albanese government: more immigrants equals more spending, which equals the total gross domestic product going up, and the government can say, ‘We are not in an official recession.’ That’s why they’re doing it, and bugger the cost to individuals. At the same time, life continues to get worse for Australians—smaller amounts of gross domestic product growth and our limited housing services have to be shared with hundreds of thousands of new immigrants. That’s the per capita recession. With more people, demand increases and prices increase even more.

The Albanese Labor government expects to increase our net immigration to 715,000 people over two years. That is the size of the entire Gold Coast-Tweed Heads area or 1½ Canberras arriving in just two years. Every arrival will need a bed. Every arrival will need a roof over their head. Where does the Albanese Labor government expect them to live? To which one of our overfilled schools will children go? To which overflowing hospital will they go when they get sick? The Albanese government does not care about the answers to these questions, as long as they can say, ‘We’re not in technical recession.’ Bugger the cost to people—their lives.

The solutions to the cost-of-living crisis are clear. They will just take some guts and some honesty. Abandon unaffordable climate UN 2050 net-zero pipedreams and cut immigration to zero until our essential services and housing catch up.

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Rent Caps Increases Rents

Renting is a big issue for Australians. Rents are going up and finding a rental home is growing more difficult.

Listening to everyday Australians across regional Queensland in recent weeks, what I heard most about rent controls was how much damage they do.

A rent cap actually damages before it’s introduced.

The Greens announced they’re pursuing rent caps, and the reaction has been immediate. Landlords all over the country are now furiously putting up rents ready for the freeze.

The Greens never think things through.

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The Rental Crisis is Running On Empty

One million Australian homes are sitting vacant. That’s twice what we need to solve the housing crisis. They don’t need to be built they are unoccupied right now.

The government isn’t solving this problem. It pretends it doesn’t exist and doesn’t want to know how to solve it either, because it’s too busy playing at politics.

According to recent data, it’s likely that around 5000 foreign buyers could be buying as much as $5 billion worth of residential property in Australia every year.

With immigration being pushed up again in the wake of COVID, what we have is a supply and demand problem that has a simple solution – net zero immigration, meaning we don’t add to the crisis and actually introduce a ban on foreign ownership.

In a housing crisis the government needs to put Australians first.

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How Many Australian Homes are Foreign Owned?

Australia has a rental crisis and yet we continue to allow foreign entities, including shelf companies, buying and locking up homes.

According to recent publicly available data, NSW Treasury figures as much as $5 billion of residential property is purchased by foreign buyers in one year.

With one in ten homes unoccupied and the rental crisis making Australian families homeless, how dare Minister Farrell sideline my questioning for an opportunity to lobby for a bill which is nothing but a ‘drop in the ocean’ against the Australian housing crisis. A crisis that is caused by unbridled immigration and failure to even inquire as to why so many homes are vacant.

The answer to this crisis couldn’t be more clear: put Australians first!

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Event: Bundaberg – Housing Crisis Forum

The huge increase in immigration to over 400,000 new arrivals in 2023 is the primary cause of the rental crisis gripping our nation, and particularly in regional Queensland (ABC News 3/4/2023).

Queensland is short thousands of homes, with no plans to catch up on building all of the houses we will need in the future.

Join me on Saturday, 24 June 2023 to discuss our plans for a future with better housing and more affordable living.

To assist with seating, please RSVP: https://www.onenation.org.au/housingcrisis

Saturday, 24 June 2023 | 11am to 1pm

Sugarland Tavern
52 Johnston Street
Bundaberg QLD 4670

Google map and directions

Contact: Senator Malcolm Robert’s Office | senator.roberts@aph.gov.au | 07 3221 9099

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When will the ATO stop foreign buyers?

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I highlighted the dilemma facing Aussies who are getting squeezed out of the property market by cashed up foreign buyers.

I was told that purchasers of new properties by foreign investors are monitored through the Australian Tax Office but they were not prevented from purchasing the property.

I told the ATO that this was not good enough and asked when the government would stop selling off the farm to the detriment of Aussies at a time when there is a grave housing shortage in Australia.

Click Here for Transcript | Part 1

Senator Roberts: Thank you for being here this morning. The Foreign Investment Review Board makes recommendations to the government about approving certain large investments in projects in Australia. One concern of Australians is the seemingly large number of Australian residential homes and residential land that is being purchased by foreign investors, to the exclusion of Australian homebuyers—are you aware of that?

Mr Writer: We are certainly aware that there are publicly reported concerns about the acquisition of property by foreign investors, yes.

Senator Roberts: Anecdotal evidence is of land banking, where properties are purchased by foreign interests and then held vacant, in the middle of a housing crisis where thousands of Australians are left homeless.

From 1 July 2020 to 30 June 2021, one year, there were 5,310 residential real estate purchase transactions by foreign buyers, with a total value of $4.2 billion. Eighty-six per cent of those were for new dwellings and vacant land. Minister, why does there appear to be no governance or restriction on overseas ownership of residential property in Australia?

Senator Gallagher: There is, and I’m sure officials can take you through it.

Mr Writer: There are restrictions. Generally speaking, foreign investors, in relation to residential real estate, cannot purchase existing properties. There is only one real exception, which is for temporary residents who need somewhere to live. Generally, they will only receive approval for the acquisition of newly built properties, not existing properties. That’s designed to encourage the construction of new residential properties in Australia.

Senator Roberts: So foreigners can’t buy existing property, but they can build new property?

Mr Writer: That’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Who gives the approval?

Mr Writer: In general, the residential real estate proposals are considered by the ATO under delegation from the Treasurer.

Senator Roberts: The Australian Taxation Office as designated by the treasurer?

Mr Writer: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Given that many countries do not allow foreign ownership of their residential properties, why does Australia allow foreign investment in residential property with little or no restriction?

Senator Gallagher: We’ve just gone through that there are restrictions. The other thing I would point to is the changes that we’ve put in place to double the penalties applicable to breaches of the foreign investment rules applicable to residential properties, which we implemented on 1 January. We’ve doubled the foreign investment application fees from 29 July 2022. Fees now start at $13,200 for acquisitions of residential property valued at $1 million or less and $26,400 for acquisitions of $2 million or less. The settings under the approval process are designed to increase supply, which is essentially the big challenge we’ve got in the housing market at the moment—we need more supply of housing, and that’s why the settings are targeted to increase that.

Senator Canavan:  Can I ask a quick follow-up, Senator Roberts? I believe our foreign investors can buy established dwellings with approval from the FIRB. Is that correct?

Mr Writer: With approval from the ATO, yes.

Senator Canavan:  How many approvals have you provided over the past year?

Mr Writer: I’d need to go to the ATO about that question, but what I can say is that in 2020-21 the total number of purchases of residential dwellings in Australia was 588,176. Of those, 4,355 concerned foreign investors.

Senator Canavan:  Sorry, 355 in total?

Dr Kennedy: Yes, 4,355.

Senator Canavan:  Sorry, 4,355.

Mr Writer: Yes. It’s still less than one per cent of the total.

Senator Canavan:  Yes. It’s still quite a lot. That’s of established dwellings?

Mr Writer: No, that’s of all residential dwelling purchases.

Senator Canavan:  Okay, so it includes, potentially, new ones. So you can’t tell me how many approvals.  How many times did you reject somebody who wanted to buy an established dwelling?

Mr Writer: I’d have to take that on notice. The ATO will be here later this afternoon and may be able to answer that.

Senator Canavan:  I thought it was FIRB that does that rejection.

Mr Writer: In relation to residential property, no. The ATO manages that.

Senator Canavan:  Finally, the new penalties the minister mentioned—how many times has a foreigner been penalised for illegally purchasing an established residential dwelling over the past year?

Mr Writer: I couldn’t answer that. The ATO would need to respond to that.

Senator Canavan:  Does it happen? Was there one?

Mr Writer: The ATO certainly took action, I think, last year, and were successful in obtaining a penalty against a foreign investor, yes.

Senator Canavan:  The issue seems to be—notwithstanding your figures—anecdotally, that the foreigners are always turning up at auctions and buying established dwellings. It doesn’t seem to me that hard to get around our rules, to just get someone else to buy it in their name. Does that happen? How do we know? What sort of efforts do you put into making sure people aren’t trying to avoid these restrictions?

Ms Kelley: Again, the ATO is responsible for the compliance in that regard. I would also note that Australian citizens and temporary residents are able to purchase as well, regardless of their background.

Senator Canavan:   Of course, but they could also do so on behalf of others. Is that illegal? Would it be illegal to do so on behalf of someone—

Mr Writer: That would be a scheme to avoid the application of the act. Yes, it would be.

Senator Canavan:   I’m just asking. I know you’re saying the ATO is enforcing it, but presumably you’re the policy area.

Mr Writer: We are.

Senator Canavan:  So how confident are you? You don’t seem to understand the details of the prosecutions that go on. How confident are you that this restriction is actually being implemented?

Mr Writer: We rely on the ATO to do this. It administers and enforces the law in accordance with the Foreign Acquisitions and Takeovers Act and the relevant policies that the successive governments have put in place around this area of activity.

Senator Gallagher: And I think the numbers that were read out before give you an indication that that—

Senator Canavan:  That doesn’t go to my question, because it doesn’t capture people doing it illegally.

Senator Gallagher: No, but you were saying anecdotally, basically, that foreigners are out buying up all the houses, and I think—

Senator Canavan:  You can’t even tell me how many people you prosecuted.

Senator Gallagher: It’s not about prosecution.

Senator Canavan:  If you were taking this issue seriously, you’d know that, Minister.

Senator Gallagher: That doesn’t relate to prosecution, and we can deal with that through the ATO.

Senator Canavan:  My question did.

Senator Gallagher: That deals to the scale.

Senator Canavan:  Clearly people are not obeying the law.

Senator Gallagher: And that question has been answered, and obviously your anecdotal information is incorrect.

Senator Canavan:  No, it’s not, because you don’t even have any evidence about how many prosecutions you’ve made.

Chair: Order!

Senator Canavan:  You’re obviously not taking it seriously.

Chair: Order! I’d like to return to Senator Roberts, who I believe has the call. Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: I thank Senator Canavan for his questions. Minister, doesn’t it mean, though, with the current housing crisis, that the ability for foreigners to buy or to construct a new house crowds Australians out of the market or certainly raises the prices?

Senator Gallagher: Again, no, I wouldn’t accept that. Again, it goes to the numbers that Mr Writer has outlined. But the fact is that the settings are targeted, essentially without exemptions, to new housing supply. It’s focused on generating that new housing supply to be available for people to live in, and part of what we have to deal with in the housing market at the moment is a shortage of supply.

Senator Roberts: According to Mr Writer’s figures, 4,355 were bought by foreigners, out of 5,186. That’s almost 80 per cent.

Senator Gallagher: No. You’ve got that wrong.

Mr Writer: It’s 588,000.

Senator Roberts: I’m sorry. That’s my mistake.

Ms Kelley: It’s 0.74 per cent, to be precise.

Senator Roberts: Quite often, though, foreigners will lock up their houses rather than rent them out. So they’re vacant. They’re not available to Australians.

Mr Writer: I don’t think we can confirm that kind of statement.

Senator Roberts: That’s widely known. You won’t confirm it, because you haven’t got the exact numbers.  I understand that and I appreciate that.

Mr Writer: I don’t think we have any actual evidence of that fact.

Ms Kelley: Part of the ATO’s responsibility is also around the amount of time a property is vacant and ensuring that it’s not left vacant as well. That is part of the compliance regime.

Senator Roberts: That’s the ATO’s responsibility, is it?

Ms Kelley: Yes.

Senator Roberts: So you’re just responsible for the policy?

Ms Kelley: In terms of residential real estate, Treasury has a policy responsibility. The ATO implements the policy.

Senator Roberts: Minister, wouldn’t the widening of the mandate of the FIRB to include residential purchases go a long way to slowing down the sale of residential properties to foreign speculators?

Senator Gallagher: If FIRB were assessing them?

Senator Roberts: If FIRB were extending their authority over all residential property.

Senator Gallagher: It would slow it down—is that what you’re saying?

Senator Roberts: Yes.

Senator Gallagher: I’m not sure how those two things go together. Essentially, we’ve got Treasury with the policy side of the work and the ATO then enforces those arrangements, so I’m not sure how FIRB extending reach into residential property would slow down the sale. As you’ve heard, it’s 0.75 per cent of residential sales.

Senator Roberts: So FIRB would have authority as to whether or not to approve or recommend—they don’t approve anything. They make recommendations.

Senator Gallagher: The ATO currently does. We have an approving entity that does that work—

Senator Roberts: Which basically has no teeth.

Senator Gallagher: I don’t accept that, but, by all means, put those questions to the ATO.

Senator Roberts: Isn’t it time, though, for the government to start buying back the farm and limiting sales of Australian land to Australian purchasers only, like China and several other countries do?

Senator Gallagher: No. That’s not the policy of the government. We have in place an arrangement that allows, under specific circumstances, foreign investors to purchase residential properties in this country. We’ve got those settings—they’re here; we can answer questions about them—but they are the arrangements that are in place.

Senator Roberts: I understand they’re here, but I’m saying why not change them so that only Australians can buy Australian land, not just Australian residential real estate but Australian land?

Senator Gallagher: That’s not the government’s policy. We are an open-facing economy. We are a country that has relied on foreign investment. We believe there need to be suitable controls in place to manage that, and those settings are the ones that we’ve been talking about this morning. That remains the government’s policy.

Chair: Last question, Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: This is not a radical thought, Minister, as many other countries protect their sovereignty by not selling their land to foreign interests. Why is it that Australians can’t buy land in those countries but foreigners from those countries can buy land in our country?

Senator Gallagher: I’m not sure of the countries that you are referring to.

Senator Roberts: China’s one of them. There are a number of countries.

Senator Gallagher: We’re here, and we do have arrangements in place, through FIRB and through the arrangements with the ATO, to put restrictions and limits on the sale of housing or, in FIRB’s case, on foreign investment matters. They are looked at and assessed against the national interest.

Senator Roberts: It’s a one-way street for foreigners. Australians can’t buy property in their countries, but they can buy it in our country.

Click Here for Transcript | Part 2

Acting Chair: Senator Roberts.

Senator Roberts: Thank you for being here tonight. My questions are in two streams: registration information for the Australian Taxation Office and foreign investment in real estate. I’ll get on with the first one.

Senator Gallagher: Senator Roberts, FIRB are no longer here.

Senator Roberts: No, it’s to the ATO. You referred me to the ATO this morning.

Senator Gallagher: That’s right; I did. That was a long time ago.

Senator Roberts: A very long time ago. I understand the registration information for the ATO was displaying incorrectly on the business and company registers. It displays a record named ‘ultimate holding for all company’. This was updated in early March. Can you please explain when this error was brought to your attention and what part you had in correcting that?

Mr Jordan: Is this on the Australian Business Register for the ABN?

Senator Roberts: I think that’s where it was, yes.

Mr Allen: I’m not aware of that issue, but I can take it on notice and come back to you.

Senator Roberts: Okay. Could you also answer these questions then please? How did that information come to be displayed on the registers in this way?

Mr Allen: Again, I’ll take that on notice.

Senator Roberts: Yes. And also take on notice what information the ATO supplied to the business registry service or ASIC that caused the registration to be displayed in this way. Can you take that on notice?

Mr Allen: Yes.

Senator Roberts: Was it an error from ASIC or the business registry service or the ATO that caused the information to be displayed in this way?

Mr Allen: I’ll take it on notice.

Senator Roberts: How did BlackRock come to be displayed as the owner of ‘ultimate holding for all company’?

Mr Allen: I’ll take it on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Can you please take on notice to provide a full chronology of this incident, including data and correspondence—who it was sent to, who it was received from and what was addressed in it?

I’m raising it because it suggests that there may be other errors for entries that are not as high profile that are still there. What routine audit of this database do you have in place to detect such errors? After this embarrassment, have you gone looking for more?

Mr Allen: I’ll take that on notice.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. That’s all on that thread. Now I’ll get on to housing. Minister, why does there appear to be little governance or restriction on overseas ownership of existing residential property and newly constructed residential property?

Senator Gallagher: I think we answered this earlier today. Weren’t the issues that were to be referred to the ATO over essentially the approval for foreign investors to buy—

Senator Roberts: I want to put it in context that the ATO understands. Many countries do not allow foreign ownership of their residential property. Why does Australia allow foreign investment in residential property with minimal restriction?

Senator Gallagher: Is that to the ATO?

Senator Roberts: It’s to you, Minister.

Senator Gallagher: As I think I went through this morning, there are restrictions in place. It is something the government—

Senator Roberts: On older properties, but not on newly constructed or first residencies; isn’t that correct?

Senator Gallagher: No. For foreign investors it is targeted at new properties, unless you get an exemption. That’s my understanding. We don’t have that group of officials here—they’ve gone—

Mr Jordan: We have a deputy commissioner of international here.

Senator Gallagher: but that was the evidence this morning.

Mr Jordan: He’s responsible for the registers that we maintain. He will try to answer any questions.

Senator Roberts: So you’re purely a registry?

Mr Thompson: No. As was touched on this morning, in the residential property space the foreign investment regime essentially seeks to promote the growth and development of housing stock. The way it does that is by restricting foreign investment to new builds, development of existing builds or vacant land. There’s only one circumstance in which approval for an established dwelling would be granted under that regime, and that’s for temporary residence. Those properties will need to be divested when that person ceases to be a temporary resident.

Senator Roberts: Established properties cannot be purchased by foreigners?

Mr Thompson: The scenario where an established property would gain approval to be purchased by a foreigner is where they’re a temporary resident.

Senator Gallagher: It’s also when it’s their primary residence, isn’t it?

Mr Thompson: They will be required to live in that—

Senator Roberts: But, other than that, they can’t purchase existing residential properties?

Mr Thompson: That’s correct.

Senator Roberts: Can they build a new property?

Mr Thompson: Broadly speaking, there are three classes of properties that a foreign resident might get approval to purchase. One would be vacant land. One would be redevelopment of an existing property—so you could perhaps subdivide and convert a single dwelling into two dwellings. One would be a new build, yes.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. Doesn’t it still mean that the system is fairly unregulated, since people can come in and develop?

Mr Thompson: There’ll be conditions around our approval, so there’ll be a time period. If you were to seek approval to develop an existing property, there would be time periods around that approval being granted, if it’s not an open-ended approval.

Senator Roberts: Do you know how many properties are being developed or redeveloped every year with foreign ownership?

Mr Thompson: I don’t have that level of detail. We have a register of foreign ownership of residential land that we publish every year. That actually breaks down transactions between vacant land, established dwellings and new dwellings. That would probably be the most disaggregated split I can provide.

Senator Roberts: I’m being asked to wind up. Minister, wouldn’t the widening of the mandate of ATO to include all residential purchases by foreign purchasers go a long way to slowing down the sale of residential properties to foreign speculators?

Senator Gallagher: They do.

Mr Jordan: I think we do. Some are not allowed—

Senator Roberts: Do you register all?

Mr Jordan: and some are allowed, depending on their circumstances. All purchases asked by foreigners to be made are looked at and regulated.

Mr Thompson: I know there was conversation this morning. It is a requirement to seek approval to purchase properties if you’re a foreign resident. We do undertake compliance activity. We do, in some cases, force a divestment of properties. There was a reference made to a civil matter in 2022 where the court imposed penalties of $250,000 on an individual for purchasing four properties without approval.

Senator Roberts: How many existing residential properties have been bought by foreign purchasers in each year over the last five years?

Senator Gallagher: We’d probably take that on notice.

Mr Thompson: Yes. We can take that on notice.

Senator Gallagher: We certainly had some figures that we gave you for the 2020-21 year. But if you want us to go back five years, we’ll take that on notice.

Senator Roberts: What monitoring is in place to keep track of foreign purchases of existing residential properties?

Acting Chair: Can I ask you to see if you can put questions on notice? We need to wind up.

Mr Thompson: I have four years.

Senator Roberts: That’d be good. I can put most questions on notice. How many residential properties, new or existing, are sitting vacant after purchase by foreign purchasers? Do you track things like that?

Mr Thompson: There is a regime that is known as the ‘vacancy theme’. Under that regime, foreign owners are required to notify us if the property is vacant. If they fail to notify us in a given period we deem the property to be vacant and there is a vacancy fee charged for that.

Senator Roberts: Thank you. I will put the rest of my questions on notice.

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Join me this Saturday at Parkwood Village to talk about fixing the Housing, Rental and Congestion Crisis.

See you there!

When: Saturday, 20 May 2023 | 2:30 pm to 4:00 pm.

Where:

The Club – Parkwood Village.
76 / 122 Napper Road,
Parkwood, QLD, 4214.
Australia
Google map and directions

Contact: Office of Senator Malcolm Roberts · senator.roberts@aph.gov.au · (07) 3221 9099

RSVP: https://www.onenation.org.au/fixing-housing-crisis

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I’ll be in Gympie this Saturday from 2pm.

See you there!

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Albanese Government Housing Bill is a Sham

What is Albanese’s solution to the housing crisis? He won’t slow down the 400,000 new immigrants arriving this year. He won’t stop foreign investors snapping up property. He won’t stop short term rentals.

Instead, they will invest a maximum of $2.5 billion over five years into a property market in Australia that is worth over $10 trillion dollars. A drop in a bucket is bigger than the 0.025% this bill represents.

If we want to fix housing in this country we have to cut red tape and stop the 400,000 arrivals this year pushing up rental and house prices, not just create another layer of bureaucracy.

Transcript

As a servant to the many different people who make up our one Queensland community, I say the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 and related bills introduce a seriously flawed concept—many flawed concepts. The Housing Australia Future Fund Bill establishes the Housing Australia Future Fund to make funds available for Housing Australia to make grants and loans in relation to acute housing needs, social housing or affordable housing—more bureaucracy. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023 renames the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation to Housing Australia—more bureaucracy. This is a clear difference between the Liberal and Labor parties. The Liberal Party name their reckless, wasteful market interventions as corporations. The Labor Party give their reckless, wasteful market interventions grander names. ‘Housing Australia’ sounds so big, so comforting and so reassuring, yet it falsely implies the Prime Minister has the housing crisis sorted when he is way off target. He’s making it worse.

Prime Minister Albanese’s solution is not to slow down the obscene level of immigration pouring into cities without homes for people to occupy. His solution is not to address foreign investors buying and locking up new homes so they can be sold as brand-new in a few years time when values increase. His solution is not to address short-term rentals pushing the long-term rentals out of the housing market. No, his solution is an investment fund that will make no noticeable improvement to the housing crisis.

Here’s the data around that. The Australian Bureau of Statistics puts the number of Australian dwellings at 10 million. This bill pretends to add 30,000 new dwellings, or a 0.3 per cent increase. The total value of Australian dwellings is just under $10 trillion. We need as much as $1 trillion worth of new housing by 2030 to meet the needs of everyday Australians, including migrants. This government is offering $2.5 billion. That’s 0.025 per cent.

The government can’t build enough homes to fix this. Only private enterprise can meet Australia’s needs. What created this mess? Red tape, green tape and blue tape created this mess, and high interest rates from a flawed Reserve Bank strategy and inflation from bad government management created the mess. The only thing that will work is getting government out of the way and letting free enterprise fix this mess. Anything else is dishonesty—reckless dishonesty. The Housing Australia Future Fund Bill is dishonest. Not only does this bill not solve the housing problem for people who are already here; it does not solve the housing problems for the millions that will arrive by 2030. Either that Albanese government is deliberately misrepresenting the outcome of the bill or there is more here than the paperwork suggests.

Let’s see what else we have here. The Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023 streamlines the functions of Housing Australia—oddly, by making it bigger—establishes an annual review mechanism for the National Housing Infrastructure Facility and extends the Commonwealth guarantee of the liabilities of Housing Australia to apply to contracts entered into until 30 June 2028. This last one is interesting. In Queensland a number of construction companies have gone broke recently. The main reason is that, thanks to the government, we have high inflation and home builders use fixed-price contracts. The last thing you want in a fixed-price contract is high inflation taking the profit margin and pushing the builder into a loss on every home they build. Who is going to build the homes now that private enterprise can no longer shoulder their fair share of the burden? Well, the government, of course—so it says—or is it? I’m sure Anthony Albanese’s mates in those big union superannuation funds are out there recruiting builders as we speak.

The Acting Deputy President: Order, Senator Roberts! Remember to refer to the Prime Minister by his correct title.

Senator Roberts: Prime Minister Albanese’s mates in those big union superannuation funds are out there recruiting builders as we speak, ready to open their construction division to build and own Australian housing. If the project runs over budget, who cares? It’s taxpayer money. After all, the government is giving a liability guarantee, so just shovel that government money right in there.

The bill will distort the housing construction market. On one hand, suppliers are under pressure to hold costs down to make private-sector construction affordable for everyday Australians to build and own their homes. On the other hand, Housing Australia will be out there paying top dollar to get their materials and labour to deliver the homes to keep their jobs. What could go wrong with that? The Albanese government could have worked with the supply chain and with banks to put in place supply chain security to keep existing builders in business. Instead, it went the Soviet route again, pushed the private sector aside and let the government build it.

The third part of this package is the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023. That streamlining thing I mentioned earlier apparently extends to creating a whole new advisory body called the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council to advise the Commonwealth government on matters related to housing supply and affordability. It’s more bureaucracy. We already have the Productivity Commission and the Australian Bureau of Statistics to provide this economic statistical data. We have a federal department to advise the minister on housing. Now we have a whole new body as well—more bureaucrats. Where is the corresponding reduction in the department’s budget allocation, reflecting a substantially reduced workload? Bigger government is the Labor Party’s answer to everything. History would disagree.

The numbers on this bill do not add up. The Housing Australia Future Fund, HAFF, will receive $10 billion to fund the delivery of 30,000 social and affordable homes and allocate an additional $330 million to acute housing needs over the HAFF’s first five years. Oh, really? I noticed, though, that the budget line item for this bill is $15.2 billion. The explanatory memorandum states the Housing Australia Future Fund ‘would be credited with $10 billion as soon as practicable after establishment.’ Where’s the other $5 billion going? Once invested, the Housing Australia Future Fund would provide up to $500 million per year to support social and affordable housing. That’s a five per cent return on investment, which is nice if you can get it in the current investment market. The Future Fund can’t. Their return on funds invested in the 2022 calendar year was negative 3.7 per cent. The fund would be reduced and no houses built—borrowed money, interest costs, lost money, no homes built. Even at a five per cent return on investment, a $500 million dividend for five years—that’s $2½ billion—divided by the 30,000 homes is $83,300 per home. One may speculate that these are going to be really tiny homes, yet the truth is likely far worse than that.

What would a home built by this Labor government actually look like? Subdivisions will be of the modern design, with narrow streets, because cars are an environmental sin, and we will never have the generation capacity for everyday Australians to use electric cars. Those are for the city elites, in the nomenclature. Eliminating excavation for obsolete parking garages will save money. Residents will instead walk or ride children’s scooters. Shopping will be delivered by drone from BlackRock and Vanguard-owned businesses like Amazon, Coles and Woolworths. Cameras will keep you safe and inside your 15-minute allocated region. Are cameras coming out of the $83,000 for each house or are local governments paying for those?

Home units will be constructed to the four corners of each block, and the landscaping which used to soften these buildings will no longer be allowed, because pointless plants waste water. Canberra’s posh Red Hill suburb, where senior bureaucrats live, gets beauty while everyday Australians get utility. They get cell blocks, really. Ceilings will be lowered, walkways narrowed and walls made thinner to squeeze additional units into low-rise blocks without lifts, with a daily water allowance of 120 litres per person. I remember receiving a presentation on that target back in 2019. A standard bathtub holds 180 litres, so baths are every bit as much the environmental vandals as gas stoves. Don’t laugh, Senator Duniam. Toilets will be half flush only. I don’t get this one. Is there a little electric charge that zaps you if you flush twice? How does that save water? Smart water meters will police water limits and make home and balcony gardens impossible to keep watered. So purchasing food from corporate supermarkets and corporate takeaways will be the only way to eat. Smart electricity meters will police our daily energy allowance and remotely switch off unapproved appliances.

All of these things are the current ideology of modern urban design, stated in writing. Many of these are already evident in council building codes. Smart meters are being deployed as we speak. Once the reality of having to sell a home built to these standards is removed by government ownership, all of these measures will be standard. Even if you apply Hive home ideology, can the cost come down to $83,000 per house? I doubt it. But to use a yardstick of $400,000 or more is to ignore the real intent of the bill. It is a principle we are hearing a lot, lately: you will own nothing and be happy, or else.

After the bill passes, the minister will decide where and how the money will be spent. After the bill passes, we’ll get the details. Disbursements, including grants made under the scheme, will be a budget measure, meaning the Senate can’t disallow them. The legislation does not include the rules around who can and can’t get a grant or disbursement, so this bill is really a $2.5 billion blank cheque. Clause 49 would allow the future fund board to use derivatives for certain purposes. This could include using derivatives as a risk management tool or to achieve indirect exposure to assets that it could not otherwise achieve. That sounds terrifying. I look forward to the minister’s explaining the intention of this section in the committee stage. We have questions for you.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023 ‘establishes the council as an independent statutory advisory body to inform the Commonwealth’s approach to housing policy by delivering independent advice to the government on options to improve housing supply and affordability’. This is more bureaucracy. Does this suggest that the bureaucrats have been giving poor advice to the government? We already have a Commonwealth department of housing. What’s gone wrong with that department that we need this whole new additional body? Or is this just another opportunity for jobs for your mates among union bosses and among the union superannuation industry?

This bill should have been about getting people into their own homes. That requires making life easier for private-sector homebuilders and for private homeownership, which will take demand out of rental accommodation and free up homes at more-realistic prices for those who can only rent. Instead, Prime Minister Albanese is using government construction to push private homebuilders out of the market and entrench renting over owning. There is a lot of additional bureaucracy and a lot of economic and social harm for proportionally little benefit, for almost no benefit.

One Nation opposes this Soviet-style reckless, wasteful market intervention. One Nation proposes getting down to basics: cutting immigration until housing and infrastructure catch up; cutting red tape, green tape and blue UN tape; comprehensively reforming taxation to give Australians a fair go; shrinking government to fit the Constitution; and getting the government the hell out of people’s lives, enabling people to make choices that suit people’s and families’ needs. We do not need more bureaucrats and more waste; we need more houses, real houses. We need a return to basics. Let the tradies of Australia get on with the job.

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