Thursday, 3 April 2025

Bills

Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025

Second reading

Debate resumed on motion of Harriet Shing:

That the bill be now read a second time.

David DAVIS (Southern Metropolitan) (10:12): I am pleased to make a contribution to the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025. This legislation aims to adopt specific provisions from the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy Act 2024 and to facilitate the referral of legislative powers from the state to the Commonwealth for potential amendments. It also includes consequential amendments to several acts that govern housing assistance. The primary objective, though, is the adoption of Commonwealth provisions and the referral of legislative powers enabling the so-called Help to Buy Act at a Commonwealth level to proceed.

I understand that the policy aim is to provide 40,000 homes to scheme participants over four years nationally, and that would be 10,000 in Victoria’s share over a four-year period, which has been calculated on a per capita basis. The eligibility directions for the scheme are frankly only still in draft form, but at a high level there seems to be a price cap in Victorian capital and regional centres of $850,000, a price cap elsewhere of $650,000, a single income threshold for a financial year of $90,000 and a joint income threshold for a financial year of $120,000. The plan under the scheme is that the applicant would provide around 2 per cent of the purchase price, the applicant will reside in the property as a principal place of residence and the applicant does not hold a property interest elsewhere that disqualifies them. So the intention is this would be a first home.

There have been a number of points that have been made in this. The federal Liberal Party have expressed some opposition to the Help to Buy policy – as articulated by Michael Sukkar, the shadow minister for housing – and have indicated they will repeal the Help to Buy scheme if they are elected. The federal opposition’s concerns are rooted in several particular criticisms. One is the delay and ineffectiveness. The opposition has criticised the federal government for failing to meet its election commitment to launch Help to Buy by 1 January 2023, so the scheme in true Labor style is late and troubled. On the existing alternatives and lack of demand, the opposition has pointed out that various state governments already offer shared equity schemes, which are not attracting sufficient interest. Michael Sukkar has said the introduction of a new federal scheme is unnecessary, and it represents a duplication or a waste.

There are concerns over eligibility and financial risks. The federal opposition has raised a number of concerns about the lack of clarity in the bill about eligibility criteria, income caps and financial responsibilities of participants in the shared equity arrangement. There has also been from the federal opposition a greater call for transparency and accountability. Michael Sukkar has stated that essential questions such as who is eligible and how property improvements are managed and what the property price caps are were still unclear.

There is also the comparison to the coalition initiatives, as pointed out by the federal opposition. It has contrasted the Help to Buy scheme with successful initiatives implemented by the previous coalition government, such as the home guarantee scheme and the first home super saver scheme. The federal opposition’s perspective on Help to Buy is one of a certain scepticism and opposition, emphasising the need for clarity, accountability and reconsideration of existing housing policies.

On the provisions in this bill, there is an adoption mechanism at clause 4, an amendment reference at clause 6, a termination clause at clause 7 and a repeal clause at clause 17. The opposition here has a number of concerns. We see the divergent federal major party positions as a potential spanner in the works, and it would be better if this bill was held over until we know the result of the federal election. Consequently, we will move a reasoned amendment to that effect. I move:

That all the words after ‘That’ be omitted and replaced with ‘the bill be withdrawn and not reintroduced until the outcome of the federal election is determined, noting the contrasting position of the two major federal political parties on this policy.’

The scheme parameters are still not finalised, and we think that that is a legitimate point. The relatively slow take-up by other states is an important point. As far as I can see, and I stand to be corrected – the minister might want to indicate if there is some update on this – the former Queensland Labor government enacted the referral process in relation to Help to Buy, and that took place in mid-2024. As far as I can see, I am not aware of other states having done the same, but I stand to be corrected on that point. The lack of consultation here is also significant. Industry has not had the opportunity to provide the feedback. Through James Newbury, the Shadow Treasurer, we have certainly talked to many of the development and planning and property groups, who are in varying ways concerned about parts of this bill. We think it is premature given that we are literally in the midst of a federal election. It is not clear. Whilst we have moved the reasoned amendment, we will not necessarily oppose the bill, but we will put on record those concerns.

But if I put it in a broader context, having talked about the machinery and the specifics and the issues of the bill, we do need more housing supply. One of the key issues is taxation. The state government has piled more and more and more and more taxes, charges and levies on home owners and the property sector, to the extent now that somewhere between 40 and 50 per cent of most new homes costs are tax. That is the make-up of the payment. Somewhere around 40 per cent is a tax component, levies and charges – layer upon layer upon layer via the various state charges. And the government is wanting to put on more. Later today we will debate a bill on the fire services levy, and that will put another layer of new tax on every property in the state – some greater than others but all of them very significant.

The PRESIDENT: Mr Davis, just keep in mind the anticipation rule when talking about a bill that you have stated we will be debating later today. So I just put that on your radar to not offend the anticipation rule.

David DAVIS: No, I will not. I am making a general comment that it is just one of the many taxes. The fire services levy is currently on homes, but the fire services levy would be changed and increased if this bill were to go through. That would add to the many taxes and charges and levies that are a part of the cost structure of our homes.

There is also a question of supply of land. The state government in Victoria has not brought on sufficient supply. The truth is the government has been in power for almost 11 years now. It is a very long time, and in that time period the supply of new land has dried up. The lack of availability of new land has led to increased prices, so young families, particularly those buying on greenfield sites at the edge of the city, are paying more and more and more for homes, and that makes them less affordable. It makes it more difficult for a young family with the cost-of-living crisis to be able to get into a home. State government would be well advised to bring forward many of these new land releases. There are PSPs, to use the jargon, precinct structure plans, that are sitting there. The shadow cabinet late last year was down in the City of Casey, and we heard about a PSP that has been languishing for more than six years. This PSP would bring on not just significant residential land but industrial land as well and other components. But the state government is slow and cumbersome with its processes, and that means there is less availability, and that means the price climbs.

The state government of course likes to point at councils and say it is councils that are slow. Well, I can tell you on that precinct structure plan in Casey it is not the council that is slow, it is the state government that is the one that is adding the red tape, adding the slowness, adding the delay and thereby adding to the cost of that land. Again, holding costs are significant, and large parcels of this type are being clobbered. The state government has put on new tax after new tax after new tax. We now know there have been almost 60 new and expanded taxes since the government changed almost 11 years ago. That is a huge swathe of new taxes. With some of these massive increases in land tax, the lowering of the threshold and the changing of the rates there has been a huge increase in land tax take. The stamp duty take has gone up. Again, a young couple trying to buy a home is absolutely hit for six with those stamp duty charges – huge, huge, huge charges.

I want to put on the record the layering and layering and layering of taxes and charges under the Labor government over 11 years. The layering and layering of more and more and more taxes is actually absolutely crushing young families. For the federal Labor Party and the state Labor Party to argue that they are in some way fixing the deep structural problems with this bill is missing the point that it is the supply of land and it is the layers and layers of tax and the layers and layers of regulation that are hitting young families so hard. You only need to think of some of the large parcels of government land that lie around our city. I was talking, as I occasionally do, about some of these parcels with a group of people the other day. We were talking about that large Maribyrnong site, the old ammunition site –

Jacinta Ermacora interjected.

David DAVIS: That is my point, Ms Ermacora. I was going to make the point it is federal land. What I would say very strongly is I would call on the federal government of whatever colour to actually clean it up and bring the land forward. I think it was land gifted by the state to the federal government some time shortly after Federation. Then it came back and it is polluted, and it has not been cleaned up properly. You would ask yourself the question: we have got a shortage of land and a shortage of land supply. If it was a private landowner – Ms Ermacora would not disagree with me – who had left land in a degraded condition, people would throw the book at them, and rightly so. The EPA would throw the book at them, and they would demand that they clean it up, and rightly so. But when it is the federal government – and I am not pointing in any colour here, Labor or Liberal. I am making a more general point that that federal government land has not been forward in the way it should have. It should have been cleaned up; it should have been brought forward. It is many, many, many hectares of land, and thousands of young Victorians could live there if someone would clean it up and bring the land forward.

That is just one case, but there are many of these, and others in the chamber could well go on a hunt to spot some of this land that is held by the federal government. Some of it is held by state government, and some of it is held by local governments. There are old industrial sites that can be repurposed and brought forward as well. So there are lots of options. All of these have got to be done with the proper process. We have got to have good structure plans in place for these so that we create good spaces and places for families and communities. That is what we should be doing: bringing forward new land in a constructive, clever way.

We have seen, for example, the state government try to foist high-rise, high-density development on middle and inner suburbs and to do that in a draconian and frankly undemocratic way – that is what the government is doing. You would have to say that is the wrong approach too. In many cases that will also not deliver what is needed for young families. They need prices on these properties that they can afford. So that means state government bringing forward new land at a greater volume. It means them cutting some of the taxes and charges on that land. It means them smoothing the regulatory way forward so that the holding costs are not so great.

As I was saying, the massive layering of taxes and charges is a real problem. The windfall gains tax is a state government tax, a new tax, one of the nearly 60 new and expanded taxes brought in over the last almost 11 years. That windfall gains tax is a stinker, an absolute stinker. It is actually forcing many developers out of the sector. Many properties are now just languishing. They are unable to go forward. There is still a lack of clarity about the application of this tax, but what is clear is if you have had a planning change, you are going to be hammered with new taxes and charges – the windfall gains tax. No-one is saying that a developer who has uplift should pay nothing, but it needs to be kept in check. It needs to be kept at a more modest level where it does not feed through into the final costs and make the final cost of the land so great that it prices out young families. That is what this government is doing. That is what the state Labor government is doing. It is pricing out young families, and it is pretty horrific when you think about it. They try to say, ‘It’s all those councils over there who won’t allow enough planning applications through.’ I thought some of the contributions in the debate yesterday were quite thoughtful about the numbers of planning permits that are issued. This is where a planning permit is issued by the council but not taken up, and a very significant percentage of planning permits are not progressed. That is because of the taxes and charges and the difficulty of getting a project to finally stack up financially. If you have got these projects effectively frozen, or ceased, you are not bringing forward the land supply that is required for those young families.

I think I have made the point here that this bill is likely a pretty weak contribution. We are not going to oppose the bill. We think it would be better if it waited until the federal election, until we know who is in power federally and we know then what is going to happen. But at a deeper level, dealing with the issue of additional housing requires new land supply, it requires better processes and it requires state government to lower some of the charges and taxes that have been put on layer after layer after layer over the last 11 years.

I should say that there is actually some need for improvement in the performance of the department and the minister too. We know that one source of significant delay is the planning scheme amendments that sit on the minister’s desk. I talk to developers not infrequently; you see them around the streets. They give you a download on where the state government is and what they are doing or not doing, and invariably they have a story of woe about a planning scheme amendment that is sitting on the Minister for Planning’s desk – some of them for years. One was talking recently to me about a case study where a particular planning scheme amendment had drifted for seven years, so these are very long time periods. No developer can deal with these delays and hold properties and have the uncertainty. If you want investment in these areas, you want clear, transparent and fair processes. No-one is saying that corners should be cut, but they should be done expeditiously. As I say, part of that is actually getting the minister off her tail to actually make decisions at an early point. Sometimes it is better to tell a developer in the first six or 12 months ‘No, that project will not proceed’ rather than drift along and tell them three or four years down the track that the planning scheme amendment will not be granted. I think there is a lot for the state government to do. They have lost their way. But we will not oppose this particular bill.

Jacinta ERMACORA (Western Victoria) (10:33): I am delighted to speak on this bill, the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025. As usual, we are getting on with doing things in this state, and that is some of the summary that I am going to provide to you in my opportunity to speak here this morning. I am not surprised but pretty sad to hear another proposal not to do something. It is like, ‘Let’s have a policy: let’s not do anything. Let’s not do the Help to Buy scheme. Let’s not do the SRL.’ That is all we hear from those opposite, so I am thrilled to use my time this morning to actually talk about what we are doing in this state of Victoria and in particular on housing.

This bill will enable Victorians to participate in the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy scheme. It is a scheme modelled on our own Victorian Homebuyer Fund, which this Commonwealth initiative will replace. It is a testament to this government’s initiative in setting up our own innovative homebuyer fund. Through that fund homebuyers who have a 5 per cent deposit saved up can apply to have the Victorian government contribute to up to 25 per cent of the purchase price. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander participants only require a 3.5 per cent deposit and are eligible for up to a 35 per cent shared equity contribution. Homebuyers buy back the government’s share in their property over time through refinancing or using savings or upon the sale of the property, and we do not charge interest on our investment in their home.

Since October 2021 the fund has already supported over 13,500 Victorians to become home owners with another 2,300 approved to purchase under the scheme. I would just reiterate: we are actually doing something here about housing in this state, and these numbers are a beautiful example of this program alone. The Commonwealth Help to Buy scheme is expected to support a further 10,000 low- to middle-income Victorians to purchase a home over the next four years. Under the scheme the Commonwealth will pay part of the purchase price of the home. Participants will then have lower repayments from a smaller loan.

It is worth noting some of the key advantages from the Commonwealth scheme. The Commonwealth will provide up to 40 per cent of the purchase price – a higher proportion than the 25 per cent our existing scheme offers. Help to Buy has a lower minimum deposit of 2 per cent compared to 5 per cent for the Victorian scheme. Off the plan and other types of new homes are eligible under the Help to Buy scheme, and this will only help stimulate the supply of new housing. Crucially, participants in the Help to Buy scheme will be able to skip lenders mortgage insurance as the equity contribution and their deposit would decrease the loan–value ratio to 80 per cent or below. Some may worry about the scheme adding to inflation in the property market. However, recent in-depth independent Grattan Institute analysis reiterates the Victorian government’s view that the impact on prices of this capped scheme is likely to be very small.

I have to say that housing is a human right; it is not an economic imperative or an economic variable that has no connection to the lives lived of human beings in this state. I think that it is never an excuse not to provide support for people to house themselves based on any kind of other economic imperative, particularly inflation. While every one of those 10,000 homes will be life-changing for the Victorians who will purchase them, they are a small slice of the overall Victorian housing market.

Supporting Victorians to make housing affordable is an important part of the Allan Labor government’s housing strategy. We do not want to see low- to middle-income Victorians locked out of owning their own home. It is why this government has funded the landmark $6.3 billion Big Housing Build and the Regional Housing Fund, ensuring more social and affordable homes across Victoria. More than 10,000 homes are underway or complete, and more than 5000 Victorians are already moving into their new homes. The $1 billion Regional Housing Fund is delivering at least 1300 homes across regional Victoria and rural Victoria as quickly and efficiently as possible in areas of greatest demand. We have also committed $1.3 billion through the Big Housing Build in regional Victoria to date. Across regional Victoria the Big Housing Build and Regional Housing Fund have seen more than 1800 new homes already completed in rural and regional Victoria. Right now a further 1680 are underway, with thousands more to come. This investment will create more than 11,000 jobs across regional Victoria. The Big Housing Build provides a minimum investment guarantee to 18 regional local government areas that have a significant regional town or city or have high population growth.

We know that demand for social and affordable housing reflects the broader housing market and cost-of-living pressures being experienced across our state and nation at the moment. And we know homes need to be built quickly, which is why more than 100 new homes across Victoria have been delivered through modern methods of construction like prefabrication.

The Victorian government has invested $44 million in Warrnambool under the Big Housing Build. This is my own community in the south-west of Victoria, with a less than 1 per cent rental vacancy rate, so certainly this is a very positive initiative. From that $44 million under the Big Housing Build 23 new homes have already been completed in Warrnambool and 84 new homes are underway, and this investment has created 398 jobs in our city. In addition to the above, a further 15 new homes have been completed as part of other capital programs – an $8.5 million investment with 78 jobs created – and 223 homes are being or have been upgraded in Warrnambool with an investment of $3.5 million.

Through the Big Housing Build the Victorian government committed to a minimum investment guarantee to regional local government areas that have a significant regional town or city or have a high population growth, as I said. This MIG includes Warrnambool, which has a $25 million contribution under that category, and it has exceeded a current contracted investment in Warrnambool of $44 million.

In Glenelg shire, in the west of the state – covering Portland, Heywood and the communities and farming communities in that district – the Victorian government has invested $22.5 million under the Big Housing Build, with 10 new homes completed and 51 new homes underway. This investment has created 201 jobs, so not only is that human right – that important imperative of having home security – being supported by our government in the west of the state, but also it is an absolutely fabulous job creation program.

In addition to the above, a further one new home has been completed and three new homes are underway as part of the capital program, which is a $2 million investment, with 17 jobs created in that municipality, and 57 homes have been or are being upgraded with an investment of $500,000. That is without even covering off in detail on the addition of key worker housing in Warrnambool and the south-west as well, which I do not have time to cover in this contribution.

These investments are helping to ease the pressure on housing availability in south-west Victoria. It is probably easy to assume that because houses are less expensive in some regional communities there is less of a housing crisis, but that is actually not the case. There is significant pressure. Because of the strong economy in this state, the strong job creation in this state and the strong government investment across our state, including in regional Victoria, there are demands for new workers and new jobs in regional Victoria – and in the south-west particularly – and that requires additional housing, kinders, schools et cetera. So all these strategies link together to support our regional communities.

The Help to Buy scheme will make it possible for some of these homes to be purchased by low- to middle-income residents. Under the Commonwealth constitution, Help to Buy cannot operate in a state unless it either refers the relevant state powers or adopts the Commonwealth legislation, and that is why this bill adopts the Commonwealth Help to Buy Act 2024. It means that Help to Buy will be able to operate in Victoria and assist more hardworking Victorians into the housing market. Under the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy scheme Housing Australia will make financial contributions to the purchase of residential properties in exchange for an equity share in those properties, and the amendment reference in this bill is a specific and limited referral of power to the Commonwealth Parliament. It is only for the purpose of the maintenance and operation of the Help to Buy scheme, and without this any future amendments would not apply in Victoria, which would obviously be impractical and could potentially prevent Victorians from accessing future benefits under the scheme.

The bill also makes minor amendments to the Duties Act 2000, the First Home Owner Grant and Home Buyer Schemes Act 2000 and the Land Tax Act 2005 to clarify the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy scheme. It should be treated in the same way as the Victorian Homebuyer Fund under this legislation.

Just in closing, I want to say, as I said at the start, this is a story, this is an example of the Victorian government doing something, not cutting, not moving to not do something. I think it is extremely important that we get on with dealing with the issues that are being confronted by Victorian communities across the state. If those opposite were in power, none of these issues would be dealt with, none of these challenges being faced would be dealt with, and in fact that is why we have got this reasoned amendment this morning, which really is a ‘Let’s not do it, let’s just delay’. It is crazy. That is what we saw when there were four years of coalition government in this state. It was ‘Let’s do nothing’. I was mayor of the City of Warrnambool at the time, and I was called, like all the other mayors across the state, to Melbourne to listen to the coalition Minister for Local Government only a couple of blocks away. The CEO and I travelled 3½ hours from Warrnambool to Melbourne to be told, ‘There’s no money, and we’re not doing anything’. We just wanted our day back. I think this is an example of why it is so important that Victoria has a Labor government and that these investments are being made in communities across our state. I am very, very proud of that and certainly concerned about what those opposite come up with. I will conclude my contribution there.

Ingrid STITT (Western Metropolitan – Minister for Mental Health, Minister for Ageing, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (10:48): I am very happy to rise today in support of the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025. At the outset what I want to say about this bill is that it is actually providing a solution to what is a very complex problem right across our housing system in Australia. The thing is you hear a lot of commentary from those opposite, but I have lost count of the number of times that those opposite have sought to block really innovative solutions to what is a pretty complex problem. The housing crisis in our country –

Members interjecting.

Ingrid STITT: Acting President, I am finding it hard to speak above the interjections of Mr Davis.

The ACTING PRESIDENT (Michael Galea): Minister Stitt to continue without assistance.

Ingrid STITT: Thank you, Acting President. I know this is an issue dear to your heart as well. What I want to say from the outset is that the housing crisis in this country requires governments to work together on real solutions and use every available lever to us collectively to find ways to allow more people to have the security of a roof over their head, and that is not a one-size-fits-all solution. I think sometimes those opposite would just like to let the free market rip, and, frankly that is what has got us where we are now. Not everybody in our society has –

Members interjecting.

Ingrid STITT: Well, 10 years of a conservative government in Canberra has certainly not helped the situation. Not everybody is in a position to be able to rely on the bank of mum and dad or the prospect of massive wealth transfer, which will be occurring for those lucky enough to be born into families that have a very large asset base to rely on for future generations in their families and communities. This scheme, the Help to Buy scheme, the Commonwealth liked so much that they have sought to take it up on a national level. The federal government, to their credit, has looked at the Victorian Homebuyer Fund and thought, ‘Yes, this is a solution that we can apply across Australia to help more people become home owners who frankly would not have the capacity to do that without this kind of support.’ It has already supported over 13,500 Victorians to become home owners, and there are another 2300 approved to purchase under this scheme just here in Victoria.

Without getting into a boring explanation of the constitution, there will be the need to refer some powers to the Commonwealth so that they can take up the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025 and take on the Commonwealth Help to Buy Act 2024. It means that Help to Buy will be able to operate in Victoria through that Commonwealth scheme and assist more hardworking Victorians into the housing market. Under the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy scheme Housing Australia will make financial contributions to the purchase of residential properties in exchange for an equity share in those properties. This is really to be commended as a very innovative solution for a particular part of our community. The amendment referenced in the bill is a specific and time-limited referral of power to the Commonwealth Parliament. It is only for the purpose of the maintenance and operation of the Help to Buy scheme.

In terms of the Help to Buy scheme, as I said, it is an exciting opportunity for the rest of Australia to access a shared equity product, as has been available to Victorians under the Victorian Homebuyer Fund. The Commonwealth will offer an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes and up to 30 per cent for existing homes. Eligible Victorians will only need a 2 per cent deposit to enter the scheme. What a game changer that is for so many working Australians that do not have the means to come up with many, many tens of thousands of dollars in the form of a deposit to break into the housing market.

I just want to make a comment about the rising inequality that we see not just in Australia but globally and the fact that when I was younger and when I was looking to get into the housing market –

David Davis interjected.

Ingrid STITT: Just a few years ago, Mr Davis – it was not beyond my means as a person on an average wage and it was not beyond the means of our family to pull together a deposit, and house prices were much more reasonable back then. I was able to buy my first home in the inner west, and you would just dream about the size of that mortgage these days. Now we have a situation where working Australians who might be in a profession that is reasonably paid but not highly paid are looking down the barrel of mortgages that they probably will not be able to acquit in their lifetime. It is just so hard for young people now to be able to work out how they will make this work, particularly for lower- and middle-income Victorians. This is why it is so disappointing that every time there is an innovative solution delivered by Victoria or indeed by the federal government we have the naysayers just blocking. They want to complain about the situation and they want to rail against how many constituents in their seats talk to them about the housing crisis, but every time an innovative solution is put up, they want to block it.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

Ingrid STITT: They have got no solutions of their own, Mr Batchelor. That is exactly right.

The Commonwealth has also increased the caps from $120,000 to $160,000 for joint applicants and single parents and from $90,000 to $100,000 for individual applicants. On property price caps, the Commonwealth has increased these from $850,000 to $950,000 in Melbourne and Geelong, offering Victorian first home buyers much more choice when it comes to finding their dream home. The program directions will sit alongside the Help to Buy Act and will assist Housing Australia with the delivery of the scheme. The intergovernmental agreement establishes procedures relating to enactment of state legislation, the enactment of the Commonwealth bill and any subsequent amendments to the Commonwealth act.

This is a good news story. This is something absolutely tangible. I have actually spoken to a couple of people that I did not even realise had accessed this scheme in Victoria, people that I know from my local community, who absolutely rave about it. One of them was a nurse, who had only been nursing for a couple of years but through this scheme was actually able to get into the housing market. It has absolutely changed their life. Why would you want to oppose that kind of outcome for hardworking Victorians?

In terms of just some general comments, the focus of our government is on finding these solutions and pulling every lever available to us to not only increase the availability of housing stock but diversify the availability of that housing stock. It is also thinking outside of the square a little bit about how we can assist particular people in our community who have different needs and different means. We are committed to addressing housing needs right across Victoria. This bill is about buying homes, not necessarily building homes. I would contend that we have all of the different efforts in terms of the different schemes available to Victorians, to not just break into the housing market but to have diversified housing stock availability, as well as looking at innovative ways to help assist people who are in the rental market and of course the incredible effort that is going on to increase our social housing stock. You cannot do any of these things in isolation. It is an ecosystem. We have to make that effort right across the housing system.

Of course shared equity schemes are only one way. They are one side of the housing affordability coin. We also need to build more homes and build that supply. The Big Housing Build is such a huge part of that effort. It will deliver a 10 per cent uplift in the total number of social housing stock in Victoria, delivering 12,000 social housing homes. What a fantastic way to ensure that those that might be struggling in our community have the dignity of a roof over their head. I mean, this is really the most important infrastructure that we can deliver for Victorians: the dignity of a roof over their head. Since the announcement of the Big Build in November 2020 more than 10,100 homes have been completed or are underway and more than 5500 households have either moved or are getting ready to move into brand new homes, and they deserve nothing less can I say. There are a lot of people – and we hear it in this chamber day in and day out – who either want to block proposals like this because they think that their free market can deal with everything or want to deride and undermine our efforts to roll out the biggest uplift and the biggest improvement to social housing in a generation. It is quite extraordinary. Well, we are just going to get on with this. We are not going to be swayed by the naysayers, we are going to keep going.

From the start of the Big Housing Build in June 2024 the net number of social houses in Victoria has increased by more than 4390. This goes to that point again of ‘Let’s not let facts get in the way of a good story here.’ We are going to keep going. In that time we have added over 9100 new dwellings through a combination of construction and acquisition in the Big Housing Build as well as other programs, and of course Ms Ermacora noted the $1 billion Regional Housing Fund in her contribution, and that is delivering at least 1300 homes using a range of methods to deliver new and upgraded homes across regional and rural Victoria. We have also committed over $1.3 billion through the Big Housing Build in regional Victoria to date, and that is quite an extraordinary figure. Across regional Victoria the Big Housing Build and the Regional Housing Fund have seen more than 1800 new homes already completed in rural and regional Victoria right across the state.

The Big Housing Build is something that we are all on this side of the house incredibly proud of. We are also proud of the fact that we are prepared to think outside of the box and come up with innovative solutions like the Help to Buy program, and the Victorian Homebuyer Fund really started that conversation and that collaboration. Having a partner in Canberra that we can actually work with to roll out these schemes more broadly across the country can only be a good thing. I would urge everybody to support this bill, but I am not confident they will.

Tom McINTOSH (Eastern Victoria) (11:03): I stand also to support the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025, and I will pick up on a number of comments that Minister Stitt made that I think were really absolutely spot-on about how important it is to have homes for Victorians. Home is a place where every other aspect of Victorians’ lives can bear fruit from – having that secure home, an affordable home, a home that is a place that people feel that they can go out from into the workforce, get a job, be able to come home at the end of the day, have a place that is home that is their own, and for our younger Victorians to be able to go through our education system, through early learning, child care, primary, high school and into our TAFE system and to be able to come back to that home, that central place. We know that people need our healthcare system, we know that people need the infrastructure to get from A to B, but it all comes back to home, and I think that is a really important point to start with. Minister Stitt made some comments about the opposition not seeing housing in that light, and we note that the opposition are not here.

They are sitting in their offices, and they might be watching or listening in on their TVs. I would encourage them, although they are not on the speaking list, to stand here and talk about a program that is helping Victorians get into homes and will continue to do so under the Commonwealth government. I would encourage them to come up and talk about housing, because it is about positive policies. As I say often in this place, it is about a set of values that underpin what it is that we come here to do as individuals and collectively as parties – what it is that brings us here, that drives us to get out of bed every day to come in here and make the lives of Victorians better. We know that the Liberal Party have their revolving door of leadership challenges and who is going to get the spoils of a few roles and a driver and this sort of thing; that is not what drives people on this side of the Parliament. What drives us is ensuring the livability, affordability and quality of life of Victorians, of young Victorians and every generation, to have a better quality of life than those before, and that is exactly what programs like this do.

When you think about generational inequality and when you think about the numerous waves of migrants that have come into his country, the ability to get into a home and have that equity for future generations is really, really important. I touched before on the security of a home. It is also really important for families. We know that around the world birthrates are declining and around the Western world housing affordability is an issue. Minister Stitt made a really good point that we all need to work together. There is no silver bullet that fixes housing affordability overnight. It takes everybody working together and varying levels of government coming to this place and coming to other parliaments with ideas to improve housing affordability. As Minister Stitt said before, those opposite do not come to this place with ideas. When they were all sitting in student politics worshipping Reagan and Thatcher and trickle-down economics and this sort of thing – actually, I think trickle-down economics was raised in an earlier motion by Mr Davis today. There is nothing underpinning and nothing driving that desire to help Victorians from the Liberal Party, because there is no belief in anything other than taking the hands off the wheel and letting everybody sort themselves out. They do not take a central point of view to how we can put in programs like this to assist people to get into houses, so that young Victorians – or any Victorian, for that matter, whether it is single women nearing pension age or whether it is young Victorians – can get into a house.

Renting is really important for a lot of people, and a lot of people may rent their whole lives and be very happy to do so. But for others, coming back to the point I was making before about families, having the stability and security of a home so they can get kids into child care, they can get kids into kinder, they can get into a primary school, they can get into a high school, they can create those pathways into TAFEs or university and they have got that point of stability for families to work around is really important. By ensuring that Victorians are able to put their money towards a mortgage and not put it into rent, those who want to do so, this is such an incredible program. The fact is that Victoria has led the way on a program like this and that the federal government is picking it up with the Help to Buy program, and it has been noted that imitation is the sincerest form of flattery – how fantastic.

I will talk through some of the technical aspects in a moment, but I just want to pick up on another point Minister Stitt talked about before. I think she was starting to talk about healthcare workers. I just want to go a bit further on just how important it is for the services that so many of us depend on, whether it is health care, whether it is education or whether it is indeed in construction or manufacturing, for their workforces to be able to live near where we as a community need them across our great state. It is really important that they have housing and that they are able to buy houses. Again, this program is just so valuable for getting that rich fabric of our society interwoven so we do not have people travelling one or two hours to get to work because they are not able to get into a home close to where they work. I just think that is another really important thing to keep in mind: it is about so many of our incredibly important service workers and so many other people across our workforce being able to get into a home.

The Help to Buy scheme is the Commonwealth’s proposed nationwide shared equity scheme. As I said, it is modelled on our Victorian Homebuyer Fund. It has been highly successful in reducing the capital outlay for Victorians looking to purchase a home. It has already supported over 13,500 Victorians to become home owners, with another 2300 approved to purchase under the scheme. I just want to pick up on the point I was making before that this will go on to assist generations of Victorians whose families now have equity in a home. I think that is just a really important point to note. I know that the Liberals are not here to be part of this conversation, so I do not know what they would have to offer or what they have to offer Victorians when it comes to housing, services and infrastructure, but anyway, we go on.

Under the Commonwealth constitution the Help to Buy scheme cannot operate in a state unless it either refers to the relevant state powers or adopts the Commonwealth’s legislation. That is why the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Power) Bill 2025 adopts the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy Act 2024. Without a referral or adoption under section 51 of the Commonwealth constitution, the Commonwealth Parliament does not have the constitutional power to operate Help to Buy in the states. The Commonwealth enacted its Help to Buy Act 2024 in December, meaning it is now ready and waiting to be adopted by us here in Victoria.

It is an exciting opportunity for the rest of Australia to be able to have this program when we have shown how well it works here. The Commonwealth will offer an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes and up to 30 per cent for existing homes. Eligible Victorians will only need a 2 per cent deposit to enter the scheme. Applicants purchasing in Melbourne or Geelong will be able to purchase a property of up to $950,000 – up from the $850,000 initially proposed by the Commonwealth – and in regional Victoria of up to $650,000.

The Commonwealth have announced it will expand the income and price caps in the Help to Buy scheme, meaning more Victorians are eligible to participate in the program. The income caps have increased from $120,000 to $160,000 for joint applicants – and single parents are included in that – and from $90,000 to $100,000 for individual applicants. As for the property price caps, the Commonwealth has increased these from $850,000 to $950,000 in Melbourne and Geelong. My mum actually coined the term, I think, ‘double parents’. I talk about single parents, but I think they are double parents because they do the work that in other homes might be done by two people. To be able to assist them is something really meaningful, and I am really glad that that has been identified in the income caps. It is hard enough for families to do everything they do, let alone when it is one person trying to do so much. Again, just to have that security of a home is really important. Program directions will sit alongside the Help to Buy Act and will assist Housing Australia with the delivery of the scheme. The program directions will contain details of the scheme, including the scheme’s eligibility criteria and obligations on participants.

I did just want come to a few points on the Victorian Homebuyer Fund. As I said, it has supported over 13,500 Victorians to be home owners so far. The staggered allocations will ensure the Victorian Homebuyer Fund continues to support Victorian home ownership until Help to Buy is established. The Victorian Homebuyer Fund will close to new applicants on 30 June 2025, and the State Revenue Office will continue to administer the existing Victorian Homebuyer Fund.

Mr Davis was letting a lot of words fly over there earlier, as he does – lots of words without much depth or facts or figures or anything to back them up. We know Mr Davis, particularly at the most important times, forgets to recall facts and figures. And I think there was some commentary around the federal side of things. We know that Liberal–National coalitions, as I was talking about before, when there is not an underpinning of values to inform policies, turn up to Parliament and turn up to elections with negativity, looking in the rear-view mirror and generally looking to find segments of our community to scapegoat. It is no surprise that when it comes to housing, Liberal members are not in this chamber making contributions. Poor Mr Mulholland, who spoke so well in his first speech about wanting to see his, our, generation of Victorians being able to get into homes, has been straitjacketed. I feel sorry for Mr Mulholland being put in a straitjacket by his party. He has obviously got political ambition, and he has been put in a straitjacket as a consequence of that.

But I am proud that this side of the chamber is absolutely focused on a range of policies that are ensuring that more Victorians are getting into homes, whether that is metro or regional. The big investments, like the 25 per cent of the Big Housing Build’s housing being put into regional Victoria or the additional $1 billion out of the $2 billion regional package alongside worker accommodation, are just so important. When I go out and talk to businesses and towns, it is not like when I grew up in the 1990s in regional Victoria where the services and the infrastructure had been ripped out, businesses were leaving, pubs were closing and footy clubs were folding. We have now got a different scenario in regional Victoria where, because the infrastructure and the services have been put in, we actually need more houses in regional Victoria. They are not being left to rot into the ground. The fact that we are putting in social affordable housing and we are giving people equity in their homes to see our regional towns not only survive but actually thrive, means we need more trades. That is why we have got TAFE and that is why we have got the school and education systems to train up the next generation of workers. We know that lot get rid of those pathways. It is so important to housing across metro but indeed across regional Victoria. I commend this bill to the house.

David LIMBRICK (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:18): I also would like to speak on the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025. Before I talk about the bill, I would like to just briefly respond to some of the comments from Minister Stitt around the idea that housing is somehow a free market. Unfortunately the minister triggered me somewhat by that comment, so I feel compelled to respond. The idea that property in Victoria and in Australia is somehow a free market is quite ludicrous to me. It is difficult to think of markets that are more interfered with by governments – maybe energy, maybe finance and a few other markets – but think about stamp duty, land taxes, planning controls, heritage overlays and land releases. The Victorian government will not even let you put a gas stove in a new house in Victoria. Historically we have had all these grants from the federal government. We have the federal government controlling immigration. Government interferes in property like you would not believe. In fact as evidence of this, the Victorian government was talking about how wonderful it is that they got this new scheme a while ago where you are allowed to build a granny flat on your own property. That alone is proof of how much the government restricts what you can do with your own property and how it is definitely nothing like a free market. Back to the bill: this bill effectively facilitates a Commonwealth scheme, a scheme which I do not like, which is around the federal government giving people the option of the federal government taking equity in up to 40 per cent of a property. Although I do not like what the federal government is doing, I acknowledge that this bill today is not creating that scheme; it is effectively putting in the right mechanism so that it can be accessed by Victorians. So despite my concerns about that, I will not be opposing this bill.

But this bill does something – I have not heard much comment on it – that is actually interesting and good because of the fact that the federal government will take part equity in your home. There is a constitutional prohibition on state governments taxing federal property, so one of the things that this bill does which is quite interesting is exempt the part of the home that is owned by the federal government from state duties and land taxes. So effectively this is one of the things that this bill does for you if you are actually participating in this scheme: my understanding is that the 40 per cent equity part of your property will not be subject to land taxes and stamp duties and other state government fees, because it would be prohibited by the constitution. That is an interesting point.

Ryan Batchelor interjected.

David LIMBRICK: Maybe we can take up that interjection in the committee stage. I have got a few questions in committee stage about constitutional issues. I do have some concerns about some of the other state taxes and levies that I am not certain are covered by this bill, and I will be asking questions of the minister in the committee stage about that. But suffice to say that people will inadvertently I think be getting potentially some relief from land tax and stamp duty if they do this.

I do not want to misquote the interjection, but I think Mr Batchelor was interjecting about a principal place of residence exemption for land tax, although as we heard in the last sitting week of Parliament, I asked the Treasurer about people who were actually receiving land tax bills on their principal place of residence because they were operating businesses from home and the new thresholds had changed and now they were liable. I do think that it is a relevant issue. But the bill does address this problem, the constitutional issue for land tax and stamp duty. My concern is about other taxes, so we will see in committee stage what the government’s answer is to that.

Nevertheless I listened carefully to Mr Davis’s contribution. He did point out one thing which was also a concern of mine, which is the issue around the timing of this bill. As he indicated, the federal opposition have said that they will not go ahead with this scheme. Therefore I am concerned that maybe this is a bit premature considering that the election will be coming soon and that if the government does change then this will have to be redone. I do have that concern, but nevertheless I will not be opposing this bill, because it is just facilitating a Commonwealth scheme – a Commonwealth scheme that I do not like, by the way. But it does feel rather wrong to deny Victorians access to it, especially when they might be able to get some relief from tax.

Ryan BATCHELOR (Southern Metropolitan) (11:24): I am very pleased to rise to speak on the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025 on an incredibly important topic – one of the most important policy challenges that we are dealing with in this state, and that is the question of housing and housing affordability and helping Victorians to be able to afford to buy a new home. I have spoken extensively about why I think housing is an exceptionally important policy issue for Victoria to tackle, and it is very clear that this government, this state Labor government, is doing just that. It is taking a range of measures to address housing and make sure that we have got the housing policy settings that we need to support more Victorians into home ownership, support more Victorians to find an affordable rental of a high quality and a high standard and make sure that Victorians have got a place to live, have got a place to call home. That is the fundamental core of this bill.

One of the things that does interest me as a constitutional nerd is that we rarely get pieces of legislation in here that are required to facilitate policy and take into account some of the constitutional quirks that exist in Australia. We are here using the powers under section 51(xxxvii) of the Commonwealth constitution to refer matters to the Commonwealth so that their laws can have applicability. Obviously the Commonwealth does not have a head of power with respect to housing. What we are doing with this bill is referring to the extent that is required to assist the operation of the Help to Buy scheme from the Commonwealth with those relevant powers here from Victoria. It is something we have done in other policy jurisdictions, and I think it is a sensible action for the state to be taking.

We are doing that because the Victorian Labor government led the way in the nation when it came to supporting those who could not afford a deposit on their home and could not afford to buy a home to get into the housing market through the use of shared equity schemes. The Victorian Homebuyer Fund was set up by this Labor government to support Victorians with a contribution through an equity stake that is taken in a property and enabled more Victorians to get into the housing market. It was a huge success. Victoria led the way and the nation followed. In 2022 when the federal Labor government was elected, they recognised just how good Victoria’s policy, the Victorian Homebuyer Fund, was. They copied it, they took it to Canberra and they set up to Help to Buy scheme, which eventually passed the federal Parliament. Mr Davis earlier was asking, ‘Why has it taken so long?’ Well, one of the reasons why it took so long for the Commonwealth Parliament to pass the Help to Buy laws was because the Liberal Party opposed them and the Greens blocked them. That is why it took so long for these laws to take place, because the Liberal Party opposed them and the Greens blocked them. Only Labor was determined to help more Australians buy a home. Victoria led the way; the nation followed, and all the Liberals want to do is take us back. All the Liberals want to do is take us back, and we have got proof in terms of the reasoned amendment that Mr Davis moved earlier. It is very clear. Let us not make any bones about it –

Ann-Marie Hermans interjected.

Ryan BATCHELOR: Mrs Hermans on the other side is interjecting because she is frustrated that the Liberal Party cannot act fast enough to stop Victorians being able to buy a first home. The core of her frustration is that she wants to be able to enact laws to stop Victorians owning their own home. Well, we will not let them. We are absolutely going to stand up for Victorians who want to buy a home by opposing the reasoned amendment that Mr Davis moved earlier, which seeks to withdraw the bill because the Liberal Party opposes this legislation. They say:

… noting the contrasting position of the two major federal political parties on this policy.

That is code for ‘Labor supports helping people to buy a home.’ The Liberal Party opposes it. In the text of the amendment moved by Mr Davis is an admission that if Peter Dutton becomes Prime Minister, laws that seek to help more Victorians buy a home will be repealed and taken off the statute books in the Commonwealth. The reasoned amendment that Mr Davis moved today, which I assume that Mrs Hermans and Mr Mulholland will stand up and support when a division is called, demonstrates the Liberal Party does not support more Victorians getting help to buy a home.

That is what this debate is showing us here today. The Liberals are opposed to helping Victorians buy a home, and if we are wrong about that, we will see what they do on the vote on the reasoned amendment on the second reading. We will see what they do. They will be judged by their actions just as they are being judged by their words. Because what we see on this side is that, whether it is a state Labor government or a federal Labor government, we are doing all that we can to help more Victorians buy a new home. The Help to Buy bill facilitates the support under law and under the terms of the Commonwealth constitution for the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy scheme to be effective and have a sound constitutional basis. The Victorian Homebuyer Fund, which we set up and is being transitioned across to these Commonwealth arrangements, is expected to support around 10,000 Victorians purchase a home over the next four years. Our homebuyer fund, on which this scheme is based, has helped more than 15,000 Victorians become home owners whilst it has been operating.

This government make no apologies for our support for more housing. We make no apologies for our support for trying to approve more homes being built in this state, for trying to support the industry to build more homes in this state, and our support is working. Last year, 2024, Victoria built more than 61,000 homes, more than any other state and an increase on the year before. It was 15,000 more homes than were built in New South Wales and 28,500 more homes than were built in Queensland. Not only are we building more homes, we are approving more homes to be built. Our planning reforms are facilitating more approvals of new builds than any other state, and we are not going to stop. And although the opposition, the Liberal Party, is trying to stop the Labor government from helping Victorians to buy a home and from helping industry to build more homes, Labor will not be dissuaded from our task of supporting Victorians into home ownership, despite the opposition of the Liberal Party.

Through this Help to Buy scheme the Commonwealth will offer an equity contribution up to 40 per cent for the purchase price of new homes and up to 30 per cent for existing homes, which would mean that eligible Victorians will only need a 2 per cent deposit to enter the scheme. So applicants purchasing in Melbourne or Geelong are expected to be able to purchase property up to $850,000 and in regional Victoria $650,000. The program directions that will sit alongside the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy act will assist Housing Australia with the delivery of the scheme and contain details about the scheme’s eligibility criteria and the ongoing obligations on participants, and there will be an intergovernmental agreement to support the establishment of the requirements of state legislation in the enactment of a Commonwealth bill to facilitate this ongoing scheme of arrangement.

Essentially what is happening through these processes is that we are handing the baton from the Victorian Homebuyer Fund to the Commonwealth’s Help to Buy scheme, and therefore the Victorian fund will be wound down and applications transferred across to the new scheme once it is established, and the State Revenue Office will retain its existing roles to administer the participants in the existing scheme.

As I said before, Help to Buy is expected to support another 10,000 low- and middle-income Victorians to purchase a home over the next four years. The beauty of the scheme, the beauty of these shared equity arrangements, is that Help to Buy will reduce the overall mortgage for home owners by the equity stake that the Commonwealth takes in schemes. It will reduce the deposit hurdle, it will avoid the need for expensive lenders mortgage insurance and the size of the mortgage that an individual or a couple need to take out in order to complete their purchase will be lower than a mortgage that takes account of the total purchase price. This differs to schemes that – for example, and by way of alternative – support individuals by providing them with more of a deposit. You can provide someone with assistance on the deposit, but that still requires them to take a mortgage over the entire remaining value of the property. The beauty of shared equity is that the government’s equity stake in the property reduces the size of the mortgage that needs to be taken. Therefore, the ongoing payments that home owners face to service that mortgage, if it is only over 60 per cent or 70 per cent of the cost of the property rather than 100 per cent – those mortgage repayments under the terms of that loan – will be lower under a shared equity model than under a model that simply assists people with the up-front costs. It is more beneficial than those schemes that would provide, for example, assistance with merely deposits.

That sharing arrangement for those costs means that participants will have lower requirements in terms of the need to service a lower mortgage, providing them with a more financially beneficial and sustainable set of arrangements into the future. The flip side of that, the commensurate element of that, obviously is that financial risk and benefit will be shared proportionally between the parties who have a stake in the equity – so participants and the Commonwealth. Crucially, the Help to Buy scheme will help to overcome the need to obtain lenders mortgage insurance as the equity contribution and the deposit change the balance in the loan-to-value ratios.

The other important element is that analyses of these sorts of schemes that have been undertaken by independent experts, including by the Grattan Institute, say that the overall impact on the remainder of the housing market in terms of housing prices will be very small and close to zero. In that it stands in stark contrast to the Liberals’ approach of forcing young Australians to raid their super to buy a house and supercharging the housing market. Throwing petrol on the housing fire is the Liberal Party’s approach. The Liberals plan to allow people to use their superannuation for housing will turbocharge the housing market, will set prices racing and will leave individuals poorer in retirement. It is a lose–‍lose policy. You could not design a worse policy for supporting individuals entering the housing market than that proposed by the Liberal Party.

It is in stark contrast to Labor’s approach, the core of which is outlined in the bill today – helping to buy, smaller deposits and smaller mortgages, which means lower repayments than they would otherwise be. It is an exceptionally sensible approach and an exceptionally sensible bill that is all designed around bringing a practical benefit – helping more Victorians own their home – and I cannot believe the Liberal Party are opposed to it. I just cannot believe that Liberal Party members are going to stand up today and say that they are opposed to legislation and to schemes that help more Victorians buy a home. They are exceptionally out of touch. Whether it is the state Liberal Party or the federal Liberal Party, they are turning their backs on home owners and Victorians who want to buy a home. Labor stands with Victorian home owners and Victorians seeking to buy a home.

Evan MULHOLLAND (Northern Metropolitan) (11:39): I was not planning on speaking on this bill, but I thought I would give a brief contribution. It is really a pleasure for me to speak on the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025. It is important to run through a bit of the history and I guess the comparisons between the major parties at this level. We know that the federal government has delayed the implementation of this. They could not even get their senators to bother speaking on it and then gagged debate on it for quite a long time. Since then, the implementation of this has been very slow.

It is important to contrast this with the quite successful home guarantee scheme of the coalition government. What the federal government is planning on doing is quite similar to the Victorian Homebuyer Fund, where the government will own your home, whereas if you look at what happened under the former coalition government, the home guarantee scheme was a very, very successful program. Over 140,000 people used the home guarantee scheme in just the first few years – enormously, massively popular. I know people that used it. Whereas if you look at the Help to Buy scheme and other proposals at a state level, for example, 94 per cent of places in a virtually identical New South Wales scheme, which was the Shared Equity Home Buyer Helper, are still unused, such is the lack of demand.

I will go through a bit of the history of the Victorian Homebuyer Fund, which was launched by the Andrews government in 2021. It was meant to help homebuyers get into a house and get into the market by offering the state as a co-investor covering up to 25 per cent of a property cost, or 35 per cent for Indigenous buyers. While that would seem appealing, it has been riddled with flaws and left many homebuyers struggling. Unlike the federal home guarantee scheme, where the government only acted as a guarantor, the Victorian Homebuyer Fund meant that the government actually owned a share of your property, so Mr Andrews owned a share of the properties of all the people that took it up. But it obviously came with major downsides. Buyers had to repay the government’s share over time on top of their mortgage. If the home increased in value, the cut also grew, meaning buyers eventually had to pay even more to reclaim their full home ownership over a longer period of time, and many participants found it quite difficult to refinance. It actually created more financial hardship instead of financial relief, and this is what the Albanese government wants to turbocharge. While offering hope, it actually left people on low and middle and incomes worse off. I am not sure if people like Mr McIntosh and Mr Batchelor know the history of this and what their policies actually did and what their initiative that they are wanting to send to Canberra will actually do. They say they are for low- and middle-income people, but it actually left a lot of them worse off and in a worse financial position for going into a joint investment with the government.

The home guarantee scheme was a much better solution. The government guarantees the purchase of your property and gets you over that lenders mortgage insurance hurdle that many people have been through. Rising property values meant repayments on the government’s share became unaffordable. House prices fell in some areas; that actually left buyers with negative equity whilst owing the government its fixed percentage. Under Mr Andrews and Ms Allan’s solution, it is a fixed percentage if you go backwards, but if your property increases in value, it is not the same. It obviously comes with quite complex rules, particularly at the state level, for refinancing and repurchasing the government’s stake. We know that doing something like that with the government, particularly the Victorian government, can be a bureaucratic nightmare. We know that there was red tape and long delays. Strict eligibility criteria and slow approvals meant that many missed out. There was a lack of transparency as to why many people that went in with good faith were not fully informed about the long-term costs of the scheme, and participants had limited options for renovations or modifications without government approval.

When you co-invest with Daniel Andrews you need to have government approval to do anything. If you are a landlord, for example, and you do not want to have minor modifications to your home but a tenant wants to, this government will side with the tenant. But when this government co-invests it burdens the home owner with absolute red tape to do any modification to a home it has a stake in. It did not actually solve housing affordability, as with the continuous cavalcade of failed solutions by this government. Rather than addressing housing issues head-on, the government simply inserted itself into the market, effectively bidding against regular buyers. It did not do anything to increase housing stock. It did not do anything to lower taxes. It was not a real solution for Victoria. It was a short-term political fix, entering people on low and middle incomes into a complex financial arrangement rather than genuinely helping them. It is meddling in home ownership through co-ownership schemes, so instead of Jacinta Allan co-owning your home, Anthony Albanese is going to co-own your home, and because they are forwarding on all the powers it is going to be exactly the same process.

Again, look at the success of the coalition government’s home guarantee scheme. And you know the difference between them? Particularly in my circles I know people that have used the home guarantee scheme. I do not know people that have ever used the Victorian Homebuyer Fund, because of the uptake; it is a lot lower. But I do not meet anyone who is aspiring to get into a home who says, ‘I would like to co-own my home with Jacinta Allan or Mr Albanese.’ But when you explain the contrast with the home guarantee scheme, that is the little bit of a boost that people need to get into the market, to get over that lenders mortgage insurance hurdle.

One of the other things that is often said to me about the hurdles into home ownership is the threshold of the stamp duty discount. The government does not like to talk about this anymore because it has not done anything about it for the last 10 years. The threshold for free stamp duty is still, after a decade of Labor, $600,000. Under $600,00 – no stamp duty. It tapers off to a discount to $750,000. In metropolitan Melbourne, what house are you buying for under $600,000? You are consigning people out to the growth areas. I have said it before: you would not even get a one-bedroom apartment. Even in the government’s activity centres you would not get one in one of those either, because we know that a three-bedroom family apartment in one of the government’s activity centres would not cost anything less than $1.4 million. The government’s threshold is still $600,000, tapering off to $750,000. If the government was serious about home ownership, it would adjust that or index that to average house prices in metropolitan Melbourne, but it has not at all, because it does not care about housing affordability and getting people into a home. We know that their Victorian Homebuyer Fund was an abysmal failure, as the Albanese Help to Buy scheme will be an abysmal failure.

Jut look at the extraordinary success of the home guarantee scheme. We would all know people that have used the home guarantee scheme; it is a great scheme – except Mr Albanese, just like Jacinta Allan before him, wants to instead co-own your home, so the government will have a stake in your home. We know that for low- and middle-income people and working-class people that has had a detrimental effect on their financial situation. Instead of giving them a leg-up, they are shackling them to financial ruin.

Mr McIntosh also spoke about different barriers to housing, and I will just continue to remind Mr McIntosh that his Labor government have been in power for over 10 years and for about eight of those years they had a fellow by the name of Richard Wynne as their planning minister, who did not do a whole lot. What he did do is block a lot of housing, put in quite a lot of height restrictions. He even introduced a bill called the Planning and Environment Amendment (Recognising Objectors) Bill 2015, and I happen to have a few of the contributions from that debate. We know Ms Kilkenny, who is now the Minister for Planning, spoke on that bill and said that this was a promise to give local communities a voice:

Unlike those opposite, the Andrews Labor government recognises that community and public participation is important and absolutely central to planning law and policy in Victoria. Unlike those opposite, the Andrews Labor government believes very strongly in giving a voice to the community.

Well, isn’t that funny: she is now the planning minister and doing the opposite. She also said:

Are they afraid of people expressing a different view to their own? Why are they so afraid of objectors?

She then spoke about developments not meeting the amenity of her area. We know that Ms Kilkenny actually opposed several developments in her electorate, including the Endeavour Cove planning scheme in 2021. She said:

This is bad development and I will oppose it.

That was a three-storey development for 14 units. But it was:

…entirely inconsistent with the neighbourhood character, the local ecology and landscape, and indigenous heritage.

It will set a really bad precedent.

So for the Minister for Planning’s electorate it does not fit with the local amenity, but for everyone else’s electorate that is fine. And maybe Mr McIntosh should actually chat to his frontbench colleague Mr Erdogan, who for many years on the old Moreland City Council opposed countless developments and advocated for height restrictions in Brunswick, which Mr Wynne was happy to oblige. And he should chat to a number of his other colleagues who have particularly opposed developments over the years, like Nick Staikos, who has opposed developments in his own electorate, and like Paul Edbrooke, who has opposed developments in his own electorate and described Matthew Guy’s plans for his electorate in quite ridiculous ways. Plenty of other colleagues, from Jaclyn Symes to Mary-Anne Thomas, Sonya Kilkenny – you name them – have all opposed development for the last decade, and now they want to lecture us. We approved more homes in four years than Labor did in 10. That is the reality.

Rachel PAYNE (South-Eastern Metropolitan) (11:54): I rise to make a short contribution on the Help to Buy (Commonwealth Powers) Bill 2025. This bill makes the changes necessary to deliver the Commonwealth’s shared equity scheme Help to Buy in Victoria. When I first heard that the Victorian government would be phasing out their existing homebuyer fund to allow Help to Buy to take its place, I had serious concerns. At the time there was a massive difference between the eligibility criteria of the two programs. The Help to Buy program had an income cap of $90,000 for individuals and $120,000 for joint buyers. Compared to the Victorian fund, this was $40,000 less for singles and $88,000 less for joint buyers. Help to Buy also had a property cap in Victoria of $850,000 for metro areas and $550,000 for the rest of the state. Compared to the Victorian fund this was $100,000 less for metro areas and $150,000 less for regional areas. While the Commonwealth fund is more generous with respect to minimum deposits and maximum government contribution, the difference between property and income caps was stark.

Based on these concerns, I commissioned the Victorian Parliamentary Budget Office to investigate the impact of these eligibility changes on Victorians. Their findings showed that 668,800 Victorians, or about one in three who would have been eligible for the homebuyer fund, would be ineligible under Help to Buy. In the South-Eastern Metropolitan Region I represent just over 88,000 people who would have gotten a hand to get into their first home and were now set to be ineligible under these changes. As it stood, these changes would have left Victorians much worse off, and I could not have supported this bill. However, I am very pleased to see that in the recent federal budget it was announced that the eligibility criteria for Help to Buy would be extended. Both the income and property value caps have been increased, essentially cutting the shortfall from the Victorian scheme in half. Because of these changes, Victorians will not be as worse off as they could have been.

With that being said, as the price of housing gets more expensive month on month, it does feel like those trying to buy their first home are already on the back foot. Shared equity schemes can help, but they can be a bandaid solution. Often what they actually help do is avoid uncomfortable questions like: why are people earning a standard income unable to afford their own home without a massive level of government support? Yes, we need to increase the supply of housing, but at the same time we have to consider if the market is set up in a way where it is considered more important for someone to invest and grow wealth than it is for someone to have a roof over their head. We are faced with a very scary reality where forever renters are becoming commonplace. Structural inequity is growing, and not enough is being done. When we have essential workers like teachers, nurses and firefighters unable to live in the communities that they are supposed to serve, we are definitely doing something wrong.

I will continue to push for this government to address the housing crisis. Housing is a human right and needs to be treated like one. I encourage the Victorian government to push their federal counterparts for structural changes that go to the heart of the issue with housing. There are opportunities to be innovative. Why not start with housing incentives for essential workers and urgently get these people back into the communities they serve? There is still more work to be done, and while we would like to see Victoria keep its more generous shared equity scheme, we appreciate the expansion of Help to Buy and the need for a nationally consistent approach to address the housing crisis. Accordingly, Legalise Cannabis Victoria will be supporting this bill.

Business interrupted pursuant to standing orders.