LISA MILLAR:
Well, the government's Help To Buy scheme, which offers buyers a chance to purchase a property with as little as a 2 per cent. It will be introduced to Parliament as legislation later this week. Minister for Housing Julie Collins joins us from Canberra. Good morning, Minister. Welcome to the program.
JULIE COLLINS:
Good morning, Lisa. And to your viewers.
MILLAR:
Yeah, you've talked us through this scheme before, but let's remind people, because there's going to be about, what, 40,000 possible eligible buyers who might come under its umbrella.
COLLINS:
That's right. This is targeted at helping low and middle income Australians get into a home. So, for Australians that haven't been able to get into a home, this will be life changing. This is about supporting them with a 2 per cent deposit and about the government having an equity stake in their home, so their mortgages will be lower and their repayments will be lower. What we're talking about is a 30 per cent government equity up to for existing homes and up to 40 per cent for new homes. And we're talking about 10,000 places each year for four years. What we don't want to do is put more pressure on house prices, but we do want to help more Australians into their own home, which is what this is about.
MILLAR:
Right, so the legislation goes to Federal Parliament. The States have still got to do their own thing, don't they, to then enable the program to be made national.
COLLINS:
That's right, Lisa. We've been working with the states and territories and with the lending institutions right across the country to make sure we get this right. It has taken us more time than we had hoped, but we think we've got all the parameters right. We now need each state to pass legislation. They have indicated they'll do that as soon as possible early next year. We want to get the scheme up and running as fast as we can, but we do need to take time to make sure we get it right, which is what we have done. We look forward to supporting more Australians into homeownership. We've obviously already done that with our Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee and the Home Guarantee Scheme. We've now supported 86,000 people into home ownership through that Scheme in the time we've been in government. So, we look forward to this Scheme being successful and getting it up and off the ground. It will be life changing for so many low and middle income earners right across the country. We're really pleased to be able to introduce it into the Parliament this week.
MILLAR:
Long way to go, though, before you start chipping away at the housing crisis on people who are buying or trying to get in, people who are renting. It remains a crisis, doesn't it, Minister?
COLLINS:
Well, we clearly know that far too many Australians are doing it tough, trying to find somewhere safe that's affordable to call home, whether they be renting, whether they have a mortgage. And we know that ultimately, the answer to that is supply, which is why we've got the new national target of homes right across the country. And this is homes of every type, of the 1.2 million homes target. That's why we've got money on the table to incentivise the states to do planning and zoning reforms, to get more homes on the ground, more quickly. That's why we've got the Housing Australia Future Fund that's now through the Parliament and up and running, we anticipate that will build 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes in the first five years of the fund. That's why we've got the Social Housing Accelerator, another 4000 social homes, some of which we expect to be able to take in new tenants from late next year. So, we're working hard right across, whether it be homelessness services, social and affordable housing or home ownership to support more Australians, because we know so many are doing it tough.
MILLAR:
Minister, I just want to sort of take you up on a couple of those things, because we've had our colleague Alan Kohler on the program this week. He's written a terrific essay for the Quarterly where he really burrows into these numbers. And, yes, while 1.2 million you described as a target, most people suggest the chance of getting there within five years is actually pretty slim, that it's aspirational. And you toss around a lot of those numbers, but when you drill down and you go back over the years and you look at all the inquiries, as Alan has done in his essay, and you look at how many promises have been made about meeting these aspirational targets, hasn't happened.
COLLINS:
Lisa, we understand that this has been concerning for some time and when you look at the numbers of dwellings per 1000 people, we've been well below the OECD average for some time. We need to turn that around, which is why we're working with the Housing Accord, which is why we have the Housing Australia Future Fund, which is why we have all these programs. But we're also working on an overarching ten-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan. We're working with the construction sector, we're working with community housing providers, we're working with private builders. What we want to do is make sure that we're all heading in the same direction, but we need states, territories and local government on board as well. And states and territories have been working with us and they are all lifting we need to all be heading in the same direction to turn this around. We're not going to be able to turn this around overnight. There is no silver bullet. But we're working hard right across the spectrum. As I said, from homelessness to social and affordable housing to private homeownership.
MILLAR:
What about changing the tax system when it comes to it? The Prime Minister was asked yesterday in Question Time about possible changes to tax on the family home. He kind of mocked the question that came from the Opposition, but he actually didn't rule it out. Could we see some changes to the way the family home is taxed?
COLLINS:
Well, we've been pretty clear prior to the election, we're not making any changes in terms of negative gearing or anything like that. We ruled that out.
MILLAR:
Yeah, but what about on the family home? That's different.
COLLINS:
Well, I don't know what scaremongering the Liberal Party is up to. What I'm up to is focusing on getting more Australians into our home, which is what we're doing with Help to Buy with the Home Guarantee Scheme. I mean, we are clearly focused on making sure that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home. As I said, I don't know what the target of the Liberal Party scare campaign is all about or what they're focused on.
MILLAR:
This is kind of what the Prime Minister said yesterday. He sort of turned it back on the opposition. There's not going to be any changes, whether it's the age pension asset test or taxes on the family home. Can you just rule it out to make it?
COLLINS:
We're not looking at those things, Lisa, what we're focused on is getting Australians into their own home, which is why we're introducing this Scheme. We want more Australians to have a safe, affordable place to call home. We want to support more Australians into homeownership. This is the great Australian dream we're trying to bring back for Australians who have been locked out for ages into getting their own home. We've already got 86,000 people through the Home Guarantee Scheme getting into their first home or a home after more than a decade of being out of the system. I mean, we are trying to turn this around. As I said, it's not easy to turn around quickly. It will take some time and we're working at every avenue. We're trying to get more build-to-rent up, we're trying to get more supply on the ground. We're working with the states and territories to do the reforms necessary. We're trying to look after renters with renters rights. We've increased the Commonwealth Rent Assistance, the largest increase in more than 30 years. Our focus is totally on getting more Australians into their own home. Right across the board.
MILLAR:
We've been talking about cost of living issues again this morning as well, and this goes into it, doesn't it? But a lot of pressure building, perhaps on the Treasurer with his mid year budget review next month, to be able to offer something more targeted for those Australians who are suffering. And there are a lot of them right now, they say that they are feeling way worse off than they were three years ago. As a senior Minister, would you like to see more action coming from your Treasurer, from your government to try and help people?
COLLINS:
Look, we know that Australians are doing it tough. We know that this is a really difficult climate. We also know that the best thing we can do as a government is put downward pressure on inflation. We're doing that and we've got a $23 billion package where we are supporting people with cost of living in a way that doesn't impact inflation or puts downward pressure on inflation. We need to be careful that we calibrate this carefully. We also, of course, have the first Budget surplus in more than 15 years, which is also important in putting downward pressure on inflation. Inflation is the issue that is hurting people at the moment that is causing a lot of these issues, which is why we're doing things in a targeted way. Things like cheaper medicines, things like cheaper childcare, things like Fee Free TAFE, things like more affordable housing. Because what we want to do is actually support Australians in a way that we can, but we don't want to add to inflation and we need to be careful that we put the inflation genie back in the bottle.
MILLAR:
Housing Minister Julie Collins. Thanks for your time this morning.
COLLINS:
Thank you.