PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Housing Minister Julie Collins joins me this morning. Minister, welcome.
JULIE COLLINS:
Thank you, Patricia, and to your listeners today.
KARVELAS:
You’ve said the bill can’t be delayed any longer, but it’s been sent off to a committee. What’s wrong with the committee having a look at its merits and things that might need to change?
COLLINS:
Yeah. What we know is that uncertainty –
KARVELAS:
Ok, Julie Collins, I’m calling it early. We’re going to call you back. We can’t hear you properly, and I think if you can’t hear your guest that really has a big impact on people listening right now in their cars or at home. Frustrating for you. We will fix it, because we’re all about fixing things. Thank you for your patience. I think we’ve got Julie Collins back. Just confirming with my team, we do. Julie Collins, I think we’ve got you back. Why not have a committee look at it?
COLLINS:
Look, what we want to do is get this done. We’ve already been consulting. We announced it in the previous budget. Any delays will actually stop the pipeline of construction and the certainty for the sector. What we want to do is get more affordable homes and more homes of every type on the ground as quickly as we can. And that’s what these Build-to-Rent changes are about. I mean, we have consulted extensively on this. What we know is that it will add at least 150,000 new dwellings to Australia over the next decade if we get this legislation through. And frankly, what we’ve seen from the Greens and the Liberals is continual teaming up to delay housing – housing of every type. They did it with the Housing Australia Future Fund. They delayed social and affordable housing there. They’re doing it with this when it comes to rentals and affordable rentals. And, of course, with our Help to Buy shared equity scheme – they’re also teaming up to try and stop that. When indeed, the Liberal party say they want to support more people into home ownership and the Greens political party say that they support shared equity schemes. I mean, this has clearly become political. This is clearly about votes for both sides and about blocking more homes on the ground. If they actually cared about people getting into homes, both of these parties would actually be supporting legislation that gets homes on the ground.
KARVELAS:
Ok. How many of the 150,000 or more rental homes this scheme is set to deliver would be affordable? Could it be as few as 15,000 over a decade?
COLLINS:
Well, we’re saying they have to have a minimum of 10 per cent to be eligible for the tax concessions that we’re talking about for each development. But the point here is that we need rentals and homes of every type, Patricia. We don’t need just more affordable. We need more market as well. We need homes of every type. We need more homes to buy, more homes to rent and more social and affordable homes. We need more transitional accommodation. And what our government is doing as part of our $32 billion Homes for Australia plan is we’re doing all of the above. So, we are doing more transitional accommodation. We are doing more social and affordable homes. This is just one way. It’s not the only thing we’re doing when it comes to affordable homes.
KARVELAS:
It’s not the only way. But why is it only 10 per cent? Why can’t you go higher?
COLLINS:
Well, as I said, we have consulted extensively with the sector and the industry –
KARVELAS:
Well, that’s not –
COLLINS:
These need to be viable. These need to be viable for people to get them up on the ground –
KARVELAS:
Okay, so what’s the reason?
COLLINS:
Well, because we have consulted with the sector about what proportion of them being affordable would make the developments viable. We need to make sure that people are going to actually build these homes. You know, by increasing it to the level that the Greens are talking about will mean that they won’t go ahead, they won’t be viable and they’re not going to happen. So, we want to see more homes of every type, Patricia –
KARVELAS:
I get it, Minister, but let me just interrupt to ask this. Is 10 per cent really the highest you can go for these affordable versions of the properties without it falling over? Is that what you’re saying, there’s no possibility of going higher?
COLLINS:
Well, look, that’s what our consultations and our discussions with the sector have done. And as I’ve said, this is not the only thing we’re doing for affordable homes. I mean, we’re going to build 20,000 affordable rentals through the Housing Australia, through the Housing Accord and the Housing Australia Future Fund – again, which both the Greens and the Liberals delayed by 6 months. And we could have homes on the ground under construction today if they hadn’t delayed it. My point here is that they continually delay and block housing – housing of every type – by coming together and having this unholy alliance between the Liberals and the Greens in the Senate, because they’re more interested in votes than they are about people.
KARVELAS:
In order to be considered affordable, units in the development have to be rented at 75 per cent of the market rate or less. Who benefits from rents that high, because that’s still really high.
COLLINS:
Well, it depends on where these rental properties are. And I think, as I’ve said, you know, getting homes of every type on the ground is important. What we know is around 30 per cent of Australians rent. The benefit of having some of the institutional investment in some of these developments is that they also offer more security and long‑term rentals rather than people having to move frequently when they rent. We also know the demographics of who is renting is changing. But what we need to see is we need more homes of every type, as I continually keep saying, Patricia. We don’t have enough homes in Australia. We haven’t had enough homes for a long time. We need to build more homes of every type.
KARVELAS:
So, how will we know they’re being rented to eligible tenants? And will they have to pay extra costs to live in these homes, like sort of annual gym fees?
COLLINS:
No. What we’re talking about here is about income limits. They are clearly laid out in the design of the bill. And what we’re talking about is making sure that particularly key and essential workers are able to rent affordably near where they work. You know, I have seen some of these under construction. We went to one with the Prime Minister and the Treasurer in Westmead and with the local members there. You know, this is about getting key workers closer to where they work. And this is the types of buildings that we’re talking about. We’re talking about apartment living. We’re talking about affordable rentals. We’re talking about people being able to live near where they work.
KARVELAS:
So, is that it for you? Are you, you’re not willing at all to negotiate with the Greens to try and get this up?
COLLINS:
Look, we’ve been pretty clear that with this legislation and with Help to Buy, we’ve already consulted extensively. We have already looked at alternatives, and this is the best way forward. You know, we’re happy to have discussions with everybody across the parliament, as always, Patricia, but we’re not open to negotiation. We want to get this done. We want to make sure that we get homes of every type on the ground as quickly as we can. And frankly, drawn‑out delays where people keep putting ambit claims, ridiculous claims of things that actually cannot be achieved on the table is not particularly useful.
KARVELAS:
Ok, but you say that these are ambit claims. But like anything, a negotiation has to be give‑and‑take on both sides. I haven’t yet established what you’re willing to offer to get this up.
COLLINS:
Look, Patricia, as I said, we are always happy to have discussions across the parliament with people, but the Prime Minister has been particularly clear when it comes to Help to Buy, we’re not moving. We have an election mandate on that when it comes to the shared equity scheme. When it comes to the Build-to-Rent, I mean, the Greens are talking about ridiculous things like rent capping again, where all of the experts say that is not going to work. We don’t have the powers to be able to do that. And indeed, they know that this isn’t going to work, and they keep promising people false hope that somehow this is going to be reality and it is not going to be. Some of the states have already ruled it out.
KARVELAS:
How much will the tax concessions be for each affordable home? Is it going to be value for taxpayers? Because there is the claim that this is just property developers who are going to get the advantage here.
COLLINS:
Well, what it actually does is it brings the withholding tax into the same level as other investments that are already there for overseas investors. I mean, hotels and shopping centres – I mean, it’s bringing it down to a similar level there. And obviously what we need is more capital getting into the housing market, and that’s the way it’s designed – to get more capital into the housing market. The cost is about $30 million over 5 years in terms of the tax concessions here. The point is that we have very little of this type of investment here in Australia today. We know that overseas, particularly in the UK, when they changed their systems that it actually increased the level of affordable rentals in the United Kingdom. In northern America, particularly in the USA, this is a particular type of investment and importantly a lot of homes and a lot of key workers live in these homes.
KARVELAS:
Independent Senator David Pocock and Kylea Tink have tabled a private member’s bill requiring the government to maintain a rolling 10‑year housing and homelessness plan, which includes adequate housing. Will you support that idea, even if you don’t support their specific bill, but the idea?
COLLINS:
We obviously have an election commitment to have a national housing and homelessness plan. We have been busy consulting on that. We’ve had, I think, around 2,000 conversations or submissions, discussions with people around a national housing and homelessness plan. We’ve been working with the states and territories here. The important thing here is that as part of a plan, we need everybody heading in the same direction. We do need to have, I think, a direction in terms of housing for this country, But it can only be done if we have all the tiers of government, the construction sector and indeed the community housing sector, all on the same page and all heading in the same direction. That is what we need from a national housing and homelessness plan. That is what we have been working on. And what you’ve seen from us, of course, is significant investments. For the first time in a long time, the states and territories are pleased to have a federal government back at the table when it comes to housing. We’ve now announced $32 billion in new investments since we’ve come to office. So, we’re taking this incredibly seriously. I’m having discussions with Senator Pocock and Kylea Tink, but what we want to do is we want everybody on the same page and everybody working together when it comes to getting more homes on the ground right across the country.
KARVELAS:
David Pocock wants to see housing become a human right. Do you believe housing should be a human right, and what obligation does that put on your government to escalate this?
COLLINS:
Well, under the constitution, obviously the states have primary responsibility for housing. And that’s one of the difficulties, Patricia, and the framework in which we’re working, which is why we need to work with states and territories. You know, they are also all lifting. They are also all investing. And what we’ve been doing with our Housing Ministers meetings is making sure that our effort is coordinated. That’s what the Prime Minister has got through National Cabinet – agreement about how do we lift housing in this country, how do we get more homes on the ground. And all of the states and territories are lifting and the Commonwealth is lifting – as I said, $32 billion in new investments since we’ve come to office.
KARVELAS:
Thank you for joining us this morning, Minister.
COLLINS:
Thanks very much, Patricia.