The Death of the Quarter-Acre Block

Added: 2026-05-31

[00:00:00]Senator Roberts. Thank you. And I thank Senator Bragg for the Housing Australia Amendment Accountability Bill 2025, which One Nation supports.

[00:00:10]There's an urgent need for this bill, which restores the Senate's right to scrutinize regulations issued under a bill.

[00:00:16]In recent years, more and more provisions which would previously have been included in the bill, hard-coded if you like, are now provided for in regulations, which are written by bureaucrats for the benefit of bureaucrats and for the benefit of ministers and donors and mates.

[00:00:32]Regulations that in many cases are are beyond the reach of parliamentary scrutiny. They avoid Parliament.

[00:00:38]What we are increasingly seeing is not government, but dictatorship.

[00:00:42]A collectivist agenda informed by communist ideology and deployed with complete contempt for the parliamentary process and for all the large majority of Australians who did not vote Labor and Greens.

[00:00:54]The Liberal Party had form on this, yet Labor have normalized it.

[00:01:01]The Albanese Labor Government is in the process of removing the option of home ownership from the reach of everyday Australians.

[00:01:07]Young people will simply not be able to own their own home and to use that home in the way most in this chamber have been able to.

[00:01:15]Let me explain.

[00:01:16]One Nation opposed the help-to-buy scheme because the scheme ensures people will most likely never fully own their own home. Never.

[00:01:25]In the many, many years that this scheme makes you a slave to the government in your own home, the government does nothing for you. For example, any renovations you make, the government benefits from what you pay.

[00:01:37]Installing a new kitchen for $20,000 means you only get $12,000 in capital appreciation and the government pockets $8,000 in additional equity for doing nothing.

[00:01:48]If you spend $21,000, you'll you'll first need to get the government's permission to modify your own home.

[00:01:54]You can't use any equity you do accumulate to refinance and free money up for buying a business, for instance.

[00:02:00]That's expressly forbidden.

[00:02:03]Your children get into trouble or need a hand to buy their own home, you can't help them. No part refinancing. Trapped.

[00:02:10]If you want to buy the government out, then you have to pay them back in 5% lots. Why?

[00:02:16]Well, the government knows prices appreciate. Taking a loan to pay all of the equity off in one one go cost the government money. They miss out on the capital appreciation during the period you're paying that loan off.

[00:02:28]Use your home as security for a personal loan? No. No secured loans against one's own home. They're expressly prohibited.

[00:02:37]That's why we did not support the scheme.

[00:02:40]That is why we did not support the scheme. We're proud we didn't support it. It's a trap. It's not about letting your young get ahead, it's about limiting the amount they can get ahead.

[00:02:49]That's what Labor's doing.

[00:02:51]As usual, communists make every equal every equal person by making everyone poor.

[00:02:57]This scheme is a tax dressed up as a helping hand, a solution to the exemption of family homes from the capital gains tax. Nobody stands between this Labor government and the money they want to use to give away to other people in electoral bribes. Sorry, promises.

[00:03:11]And One Nation opposes the Albanese government's low deposit home scheme, low deposit home ownership scheme, which allows borrowers to get a home loan on 5% deposit or if they are single parents, 2% deposit.

[00:03:25]The government underwrites the mortgage so the bank does not wear the risk.

[00:03:29]You'll notice a pattern here.

[00:03:30]This government is every bit as friendly with Australia's rapacious banking sector as the Liberals were.

[00:03:36]Under the low deposit scheme, the home can't be valued at more than 1.5 million dollars.

[00:03:42]Million, and there's no limit on the income of the applicant or the number of mortgages issued.

[00:03:47]Don't you just love this scheme? It should be called making it easier for high income earners to buy a house in urban Labor electorates.

[00:03:54]No wonder the government's support in recent opinion polls is strongest amongst those earning more than $100,000.

[00:04:01]The party of the worker, no more. The party of the rich is a better description of Labor. No wonder the Liberals have lost market share, Labor is stealing their voters.

[00:04:11]One Nation is now the party of the worker and the party of small business owners who use their home as security to grow their business.

[00:04:18]Our opposition to the low deposit scheme has been proven to be the right decision.

[00:04:23]House prices in capital cities went up 8% and 10% in the year to January between between 8 and 10% in the year to January 2026, adding $100,000 to the average Sydney home price. That's $100,000 more people will have to borrow to get a home. Thanks, Labor.

[00:04:42]The additional demand for homes from these schemes forced the price up and made affording the mortgage harder. A low deposit is no help if you can't afford the repayments on 95% or 98% of a million-dollar-plus mortgage. You've done this.

[00:04:55]Destroyed hopes.

[00:04:57]The combined average price for a home in our capital cities is now $1.14 million.

[00:05:03]One Nation policy is to allow first home buyers first home owners to top up the first home owners grant with secured equity from the person's own superannuation account.

[00:05:13]We will allow low-income earners to buy on a 5% deposit against a government guarantee on the mortgage.

[00:05:20]Why won't this force up home prices?

[00:05:22]Because of the thing the Albanese government refuses to do, stop mass immigration.

[00:05:28]A One Nation government will deport around 200,000 people who are here illegally, illegally, and have a moratorium on new arrivals for 3 years creating negative immigration.

[00:05:40]As Australians engage with a housing scheme, they will find there will be a home available to purchase without pushing the price of homes up.

[00:05:49]One Nation policies have been thought through, thought through.

[00:05:53]One policy complements another and every Australian will benefit. Our policies come in suites.

[00:05:59]S U I T E S. Unlike this Labor government which continues to throw money at problems it never solves because it never thinks things through.

[00:06:08]To look good, not do good, shallow.

[00:06:11]Hurting young people. And yesterday the Reserve Bank put up interest rates 0.25% which would not have happened if government policies had not driven up house prices 8 to 10% in the last year.

[00:06:23]Every mortgage holder in Australia is now facing higher repayments because of the Albanese government's inability to manage government policy.

[00:06:32]Senator Bragg is right. This bill is necessary to provide scrutiny and to try and elevate the standard of government in this country.

[00:06:40]Can I say to the Labor government, for the love of Australia, please, please stop trying to help. You're making it worse, especially for young people.

[00:06:48]Let people get about their business, keep more of their own money and more easily pay for their homes themselves.

[00:06:55]Stop bringing in millions of new arrivals, millions of new arrivals, all of whom need a home in which to live. Stop forcing people out of their homes with your evil land taxes Labor are doing in Victoria so your mates running union super funds can buy up the homes.

[00:07:11]Every new scheme makes things worse for young running young Australians. That's why we don't support your idiot ideas, your dishonest, ludicrous ideas. Where else should the accountability be forced on the government? Here our foreign corporations used to pay 30 uh 30% withholding tax on housing investments like build to rent.

[00:07:32]Labor has cut that tax to 15%. Halved.

[00:07:36]Looked after your corporate mates from overseas. Labor makes it easy makes it easy for its mates, globalist foreign wealth funds to rip more money out of Australia. To rip more money off Australians, you lower the tax, the tax will come out of the people instead.

[00:07:50]Let's be clear.

[00:07:52]This Labor government said to foreign corporate landlords like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, First State, that with interlocking ownership are in reality BlackRock Inc.

[00:08:02]Labor said to BlackRock Inc., "We'll cut the amount of tax you pay in half."

[00:08:08]Australians, forget the Australian dream of owning your own home.

[00:08:12]Labor's dream is that you live in a shoebox apartment paying rent to BlackRock Inc. forever, while those foreign corporations pay less tax than you do. Less tax than you do. And Labor's just cut it in half.

[00:08:25]That's what build to rent means.

[00:08:28]Whenever you hear build to rent from Labor, remember renting forever to a foreign corporate landlord.

[00:08:34]They'll build homes for sure, but Australians will never ever own them.

[00:08:39]It's build to rent forever.

[00:08:42]Part of the United Nations World Economic Forum's agenda of global control of people and wealth transfer from the people to global wealth funds.

[00:08:51]BlackRock Inc. And this Labor government is helping that along by giving these foreign corporations a big tax cut to to incent incentivize foreign corporations to buy Australian homes.

[00:09:03]The bill did not reduce the tax for Australian owners. It brought foreign owners tax rate down to the same level as Australian investors. That's the most telling part of all. This bill only changed the tax treatment of foreign predatory multinational corporations. Is Labor the party for Australia or are they the party for foreign corporations? Build to rent answers that question. Clearly they are for the foreign corporations like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street, BlackRock Inc. That's why Labor's policies on mass immigration and housing are designed to destroy home ownership for all young families. For all.

[00:09:36]Instead, One Nation is for Australians owning their own home.

[00:09:39]On all this, I told you so. I told you so for years. I initiated the mass immigration and housing debates 4 to 5 years ago and have hammered both. Only One Nation housing policy covers all aspects, supply, demand, construction, cost, finance.

[00:09:54]So, I'm going to do something a little unusual and quote extensively Senator Bragg's dissenting report on the build-to-rent bill. Hope you don't mind, Senator.

[00:10:01]It goes to the very heart of what's wrong with the Labor Party. The following passages are taken from the committee report into the Labor Party's build-to-rent scheme.

[00:10:09]Quote, "Build-to-rent has had minimal cuts through in Australia because our tax settings are designed to favor individual mum and dad investors, not institutions. That is appropriate.

[00:10:19]This legislation seeks to tip that the build-to-rent legislation seeks to tip the scales in favor of institutions through tax concessions in order to make build-to-rent projects profitable for industry super funds and foreign fund managers. Labor thinks that institutions need a leg up over Australian first home buyers.

[00:10:37]Dr. Murray, a witness in the inquiry, was critical of the bill's attempted perversion of our tax arrangements.

[00:10:42]Quote, "It's not clear to me," he said, "why local investors shouldn't be advantaged over foreign investors in Australian housing. I don't see that there's a good argument for leveling the playing field there. It's not clear to me. If the intention is to attract super funds into this, why owning your own home via your super fund and renting your own home from your super fund is better than owning your own home and using that money to buy what is the best asset to own in retirement." End of quote. Similar to One Nation policy, housing policy.

[00:11:10]Another quote, at the at the public hearing from Senator Bragg, at the public hearing, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia suggested that Australians would prefer BlackRock and Cbus be their nation's landlords and described mum and dad investors as undertaking a quote, "hobby activity." Really? Do you think the Australian people want to rent their house from a super fund? A hobby activity? Come on. This is the view of a vested interest that Labor's cuddling up to. Most Australians would not agree with this proposal.

[00:11:41]Another witness observed, we are that we are that we are seeing a corporation corporatization of housing in Australia.

[00:11:48]Not from the usual suspects, the Liberal Party, but from the Labor Party, the former party of the workers, headed by Prime Minister Albanese.

[00:11:55]Pushing mom and dad investors out of the housing market will result in less competition. What we're seeing in the northern hemisphere is a horrific view.

[00:12:04]Software program called YieldStar, which in Atlanta coordinates rental increases for 81% of rental properties. The Board of Supervisors in San Francisco has now banned this as a monopolistic practice.

[00:12:16]There's just nothing in this legislation that even prepares us for what's coming.

[00:12:20]End of quote. Hence the need for Senator Bragg's bill.

[00:12:24]The Housing Industry Association pointed to the importance of Australia's housing market maintaining a focus on individual ownership, stating, quote, With the association and connection with home and with location, and a sense of place and purpose, all the evidence shows that people who own their own home are far less likely to be incarcerated and more likely to be gainfully employed. All of the evidence shows positive economic, social, and cultural outcomes. Personal responsibility, a cornerstone of a safe and productive society, I say.

[00:12:51]Australians are not interested in subsidizing institutional investors from overseas. When asked what organizations would be the key beneficiaries of build-to-rent tax concession, Treasury confirmed that foreign fund managers would be at the center. Really? Fund managers, foreigners? How very corporate of the Labor Party. Some of the most alarming evidence from the public hearing was that the passing of this bill could see Australian taxpayers subsidizing foreign governments in their investment in their housing market. Dr. Murray warned the committee, quote, I find it interesting because we've already got even got foreign investment funds doing build-to-rent.

[00:13:24]What's even funnier is that the largest one is a foreign government. We've got the Abu Dhabi Investment Council who owns the Smith Collective on the Gold Coast, which is 1,251 build-to-rent dwellings, and we're now proposing to offer them a better tax treatment for something they've already done.

[00:13:39]Through a foreign government. I find that a bizarre outcome of this proposed bill. It seems Prime Minister Albanese is not only best friends with billionaires like Larry Fink from BlackRock and Bill Gates from Vaccines R Us. He is best mates with the Islamist Abu Dhabi regime. Approaches like build-to-rent endeavor to emulate the corporate housing model, which has seen a downturn in the United States housing market. Fund managers have become the predominant landlords in the United States. According to the US Government Accountability Office, large institutional investors emerged following the the global financial crisis purchasing foreclosed homes at auction in bulk and converting them into rental housing.

[00:14:15]Prime Minister Albanese's housing schemes will lead to foreclosures and misery. This is not an unintended income. It's the point of it. Communists detest home ownership. It provides people with independence from the government, and that's the opposite of the fundamental purpose of a Labor government, which is to make people reliant on the government. This corporate housing model, to generate a return on investment for institutional investors, it relies on individuals being locked into the cycle of perpetual renting.

[00:14:42]There's a growing consensus in the United States this model has failed and is hurting prospective first-time buyers. Lawmakers from both sides of politics are introducing legislation to limit investment accordingly.

[00:14:52]While the US is moving away from corporate housing, the Australian Labor Party is forcing Australians into it.

[00:14:58]One Nation is dedicated to all Australians being able to own their own home, and to that end, we see fit