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The 95% Mortgage Cliff

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During this session with Housing Australia, I call out the lack of transparency and the questionable math behind the home deposit guarantee schemes.

I asked Mr Langford why it took nine weeks to get an answer to a simple question: how many borrowers have exited the scheme? They finally admitted that of the 185,000 guarantees issued since the scheme was launched, over 45,000 have already been discharged.

I’m highly sceptical of their reported “success” rates. They previously claimed that there were only 11 defaults out of 250,000. The actual arrears rate on bank loans is around 1% – 227 times higher than the claimed arrears rate of 0.0044%. Therefore, it’s statistically impossible!

My point is simple: they don’t actually track people once they exit the scheme, so they’re essentially flying blind when it comes to the data.

Despite Minister Ayres’ attempts to paint every exit as a “success story,” the data proves it’s not that simple.

As at the end of December 2025: ❌ 0.3% or 336 of borrowers are 90+ days in arrears, ❌ 0 .8% or 1000 are currently under hardship arrangements and ❌ 347 are in early-stage arrears (30–90 days).

While they boast that many are ahead on payments, I’m concerned about the “cliff” ahead.

When I asked for modelling on what happens to these 95% mortgages if interest rates rise three more times this year, they admitted they have no modelling for that scenario.

Ms Jarman has committed to providing me with a copy of the information guide for first-home buyers. I want to see for myself if it properly warns Australians about the massive risks of a 95% mortgage in a rising-rate environment.

— Senate Estimates | February 2026

Transcript

CHAIR: I’m going to rotate the call. Senator Roberts.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you, Chair. Thank you for appearing again today, Mr Langford. You undertook at the last hearings to answer on notice how many borrowers under your two and five per cent deposit guarantee scheme have exited since the program started. That was question on notice 458. That should be a number you have to hand very easily. You haven’t answered it in the nine weeks since the hearing. Why not?  

Mr Langford: I’ll ask my colleague Ms Jarman, who has just come to the table, if we have that information to hand. As to the delays, we apologise. There may have been some delay if we didn’t have that information to hand.  

Ms Jarman: Sorry, Senator—can you repeat exactly what information you’re after?  

Senator ROBERTS: You undertook at the last hearings to answer on notice how many borrowers under your two per cent and five per cent deposit guarantee scheme have exited since the program started. That was question on notice 458. I’d like the number, please.  

Ms Jarman: Yes, we do have the number that have exited. Of the 185,000 guarantees that have been issued since the launch of the scheme, 45,837 of those have discharged.  

Senator ROBERTS: You told me at the last hearing that there were only 11 defaults out of 250,000 guarantees issued. The actual arrears rate on banks’ loan books is around one per cent. That’s 227 times higher than your claimed arrears rate of 0.0044 per cent. Do you accept that your number is almost statistically impossible and only appears good because you don’t actually track the people who exit the scheme? Once they’re gone, they’re gone.  

Senator Ayres: Exiting is good.  

Senator ROBERTS: You don’t track them once they’re gone.  

Senator Ayres: These are people who have bought a home—  

Senator ROBERTS: Don’t try and change the topic. I’m asking the question. I want to know—  

Senator Ayres: under the scheme, then sold their home and moved on to their next home. That is the foot on the ladder that the scheme is designed to provide.  

Senator ROBERTS: Minister Ayres, at the last hearing, you said—  

Senator Ayres: That’s what it’s for.  

Senator ROBERTS: that people who are facing hardship can’t refinance. Do you know that that’s false?  

Senator Ayres: What do you mean?  

Senator ROBERTS: ‘People who are facing hardship can’t refinance,’ you said. That’s false.  

Senator Ayres: I said that people who are facing hardship can’t refinance?  

Senator ROBERTS: That’s what you said. 

Senator Ayres: I don’t know what context I said that in. You’re moving—  

Senator ROBERTS: Can you update me on—  

Senator Ayres: from one proposition, demonstrably not the case—  

Senator ROBERTS: And you’re changing my proposition. I’m trying to get on with it.  

Senator Ayres: which is that it’s a bad outcome.  

Senator ROBERTS: Why are you running from this, Minister Ayres?  

Senator Ayres: No. I’m running to this. I’m running to this. This is a good outcome.  

Senator ROBERTS: You changed my first proposition.  

Senator Ayres: This is a good outcome. I’m sorry if you’re confused about it. This is a good outcome for young Australians. 

Senator ROBERTS: I think you’re misleading.  

Senator Ayres: Buying a home, selling a home, buying a new one—this is a good outcome.  

Senator ROBERTS: Can you update me on your latest percentages for in advance, on schedule, in arrears and hardship?  

Ms Jarman: I can do that. As at the end of December, 0.3 per cent of the portfolio were 90 days plus in arrears, 0.8 per cent were under hardship arrangements, 26 per cent of the portfolio were on schedule with payments and 73 per cent were in advance of their repayment schedule.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you also have the actual numbers each of these percentages represent?  

Ms Jarman: I do.  

Senator ROBERTS: Could we have them please?  

Ms Jarman: Sure. We had 33,134 on schedule, 93,104 in advance, 336 ninety days in arrears and 1,000 in hardship. There is another category, for completeness. If you’re adding up to the total number of guarantees, in arrears of 30 to 90 days—so early arrears—there are another 347 customers there.  

Senator ROBERTS: How many total guarantees are those percentages of—is it less than the 250,000?  

Ms Jarman: The 250,000 is the number of Australians supported under the scheme. We’ve only ever issued 185,000 guarantees, but only 127,000 of those are active in the book at the moment. The rest of those have already discharged out of the scheme.  

Mr Rimmer: I gave evidence earlier in the day that the 0.3 per cent 90-day arrears rate is better than the other relevant arrears.  

Senator ROBERTS: Thank you. I heard that.  

Senator Ayres: I also should have said, Senator, again for the sake of completeness, that people exit the scheme if they sell their home. They also exit the scheme when they hit the 80 per cent loan-to-value ratio. That is, they come in at five per cent and make repayments that pay the 15 per cent gap over time, and then they’re considered to have exited the scheme. That’s also a good thing.  

Senator ROBERTS: How many five per cent mortgages that you got first home buyers into do you expect a default if interest rates are raised three times this year?  

Senator Ayres: Your One Nation colleague asked the same questions about an hour and three-quarters ago.  

Senator ROBERTS: He actually said ‘if we are entering a cycle’. I want to know what would happen with three interest rate rises.  

Mr Langford: I don’t believe we have modelling for that proposition that you’re putting forward.  

Senator ROBERTS: Do you, as the administrator of the five per cent deposit guarantee, provide first home buyers with any warnings about the risk of a 95 per cent mortgage?  

Ms Jarman: Yes, we do. As part of the application process, we’ve got an information guide. That guide clearly outlines what the guarantee is and how the guarantee is there to protect the lender and not the borrower. It also outlines the obligations of the borrower in terms of repayment of the mortgage and the circumstances in which the borrower is still liable.  

Senator ROBERTS: Could I have a copy of that on notice, please? 

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Ending the Era of Mass Migration

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For decades, the Liberal-Labor Uniparty has put the cart before the horse, bringing in record numbers of people before building the infrastructure needed to support them.

And what’s the result? Record homelessness, average house prices skyrocketing across Australia, and an entire generation of young Aussies giving up on the “Great Australian Dream”.

One Nation introduced the Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018 to put the power back in YOUR hands.

We must: ✅ Build the homes before the people arrive. ✅ Prioritise Australians over globalist agendas. ✅ END mass migration.

The Division

How They Voted

Transcript

Firstly, I have some housekeeping. The Plebiscite (Future Migration Level) Bill 2018 has been amended to update the question to be proposed in the plebiscite. It was necessary to reintroduce this bill and then amend it to overcome drafting delays due to inappropriate staffing levels in parliamentary support services, thanks to the Labor government. It’s a constraint the government has not inflicted on itself, given the thousands of pages of legislation before the Senate this week alone. Some technical amendments have been circulated to update section references. 

The intent of the bill, though, is the same as on the previous occasions One Nation has brought this bill before the Senate. It’s time to ask the Australian people in a plebiscite: how much immigration is enough? That is a question for the people. After all, in a representative democracy, the first duty of a parliamentary representative is to listen to the MP’s masters—the people. I’ll say that again. After all, in a representative democracy, the first duty of every parliamentary representative is to listen to the members of parliament’s masters—the people. The remainder of the bill sets out the provisions necessary to conduct the plebiscite. That section of the bill closely follows the provisions of the gay marriage plebiscite. Just as One Nation respected the wishes of the Australian people in that outcome, we would expect all members of parliament and senators to respect the outcome of this plebiscite. 

This bill will pose the question, ‘Do you support a zero net migration policy for a period of five years?’ It’s a very simple, straightforward question. ‘Zero net’ simply means the number of new arrivals must equal the number of people who leave—zero net migration; net migration, zero. This brings to an end the era of massive population growth and mass migration started under John Howard’s prime ministership. That will ease the pressure on housing, medical services, education, transport and infrastructure and provide space for the assimilation for the massive number of people who have been brought to Australia under this Labor government. Five years is enough for that process to work through, especially the construction of housing and infrastructure. 

And One Nation would police existing immigration laws. There are an estimated 200,000 people here illegally, meaning people who have deliberately breached their visa conditions, which is illegal. These people should be deported—remigration back to where they came from. That provision is not in this bill. We should not need a bill to make the government police the laws it already has. One Nation does not oppose immigration. We oppose mass migration, which—for the deliberately ignorant or unaware, unconscious and uncaring left-wing commentariat—can be defined as new migration from all sources which exceeds the housing construction rate after accommodating natural population increase. Pretty simply, build the home before the person arrives. This is not rocket science—build the home before the person arrives. I speak as a migrant and as an Australian citizen. 

For a generation, the Liberal, Labor and Greens parties have had this simple concept backward—bring a migrant to Australia and, once they’re here, build them a home. In the meantime, they’re homeless. Eventually build them a home—no rush! This backwards approach to immigration has caused the worst housing crisis in Australian peacetime history—record homelessness and growing. New migrants coming in here are homeless. Australians are homeless. The elderly, unemployed and working poor are being priced out of the housing market as new arrivals increase demand. That drives up rents and home prices. 

The government has then stepped in and created schemes to make it easier to afford one’s home, supposedly, usually through low-deposit mortgages and first home buyer grants. All these do is drive up the price of the house, so the young person is back where they started, needing an unaffordable deposit and a higher income to cover repayments on a home that should, at their asking price, be made of gold. Other speakers, I’m sure, will point out how the Albanese government’s latest confidence trick on young home buyers, the low deposit housing scheme, has had exactly this effect—driving up prices so that young buyers are no better off. 

You will hear an opposing argument that the housing crisis is not about population growth; it’s about housing construction. In recent days, the Labor Party has once again stood in front of cameras in their high-vis gear, complete with hard hat, all borrowed from the wardrobe department, to announce more money is to be spent on housing. What comes of these announcements? Nothing. People cannot build with what we don’t have. There is a lack of approved land, equipment, materials and experienced construction labour. It’s an outrageous thing to say all we need to do is to bring in more tradies. To begin with, more new arrivals is the cause of the problem. I’m mindful that sitting right behind me is someone who’s in the construction industry from Western Australia, Senator Tyron Whitten, and he will be speaking later. Secondly, homes are not making it to the tradie stage fast enough to justify more tradies. 

This is all a smokescreen anyway. The reality is that the ALP doesn’t want more tradies, having only brought in 6,000 new tradies in their entire first term. That’s less than one per cent, a fraction of one per cent, of the government’s mass migration intake—less than one per cent building houses for the other more than 99 per cent, as well as the pent-up demand from the past. The government wants a labour shortage so their union boss mates can demand ludicrous wage rises. I’ve heard of stop/go attendants earning $140,000 per year and, in some areas, $200,000 a year. What does that do to the cost of houses? What does that do to the profit and viability of builders? Construction companies are going under. We can see that. 

What do material shortages do to their profit? This epidemic of mass migration is happening around the world, a global push from globalists setting the agenda in BlackRock Inc. and then moving into the housing market with benefits given to them by the Labor government only in recent weeks. In the absence of Australian production of building materials, Australia is a price taker. We are competing with literally the entire world to get building materials to Australia. Local councils are flat out processing development applications. Everyone in the housing chain is juggling red tape, green tape and blue UN tape to somehow manage to get homes built. More tradies won’t fix that problem; reduced housing demand and fewer new arrivals will fix that problem. 

Consider this question: more arrivals increase home prices and cause homelessness, so what does reducing new arrivals do? There’s no need to guess at the answer. Our friends across the ditch in New Zealand have answered the question for us. New Zealand has woken up. Immigration numbers were reduced from 70,000 in 2024 to just 13,000 in 2025. As a result, new home prices fell and rents stabilised after just one year of reduced migration. Look at Canada. The same has happened in Canada. In contrast, Australia keeps bringing in more new arrivals than we have houses. And guess what? House prices and rents keep going up and up and up. Go figure. It’s pretty simple. Australia is already building more new homes per capita than any other country in the world, yet record homelessness continues growing.  

An entire generation of young Australians is being disenfranchised. I talk to these fine young Australians every day. They tell me that they’re giving up on ever owning their own home—giving up! Giving up on their own country. Scott Challen, a builder in Brisbane, tells me that, daily, young people are being disenfranchised. That is dangerous for the future of our country. These young people speak of their frustration, of their betrayal, at the hands of the governing Liberal-Labor uniparty. These are children that have done everything society has asked of them. They’ve studied hard, stayed out of trouble and achieved a trade or university degree. They are working in a good job—or two jobs, or for some of them three jobs, to make ends meet—and they find that, despite this dedication and sacrifice, they’re struggling to pay rent, let alone save for a home deposit. Even if they can save a deposit, where can they afford to buy? Sydney? The average home price is above $1.5 million. No young person can afford that, yet Sydney is where the jobs are. Why is Sydney so dear? Well, new arrivals—that’s the answer. Analysis of average home prices, average rents and immigration numbers in Sydney in the last five years shows a simple fact: the higher the immigration intake, the larger the increase in rents and home prices—full stop, end of story. Conversely, the lower the intake, the lower the prices. 

How many people are currently in Australia who aren’t Australian citizens? Good question. After a bit of digging, I believe the answer is around 3.7 million people, made up of 2.5 million temporary visa holders and 1.2 million permanent residents, plus 380,000 tourists and short-stay crew. That makes four million people plus, when including tourists, here in this country who are not citizens. Migration statistics are opaque and confusing. They are deliberately opaque and confusing. There are lots of traps when adding different types of data together, and it’s an area where we’re prone to get fact-checked, misreported and misrepresented. This allows the champions of mass migration to understate the intake and then deflect away from migration to blame other factors, like a lack of tradies. Don’t fall for it. It’s rubbish. 

If you are in this country and not a citizen, you need to be on a visa. We know how many visa holders are in the country right now. As at July 2025 there were 2.5 million temporary visa holders, not including tourists. There were 1.5 million permanent visa holders, and four million noncitizens—four million non-Australians—all of whom need a home in which to live. The effect this is having on the housing market can be seen in a simple statistic: 43 per cent of the population of Greater Sydney and 41 per cent of the population of Greater Melbourne were born overseas. That isn’t migration; that’s mass migration. It’s invasion. It’s part of a globalist agenda across many woke Western nations, and Australians are shouting this in the streets now. 

In every nation, it is the government’s duty to design immigration policy for the benefit of citizens already in the country, not for the benefit of those outside wanting to come into the country. Immigration policy, just as a side point, has four broad aspects in my view. The first is numbers of people allowed—no, invited—into the country. The second is the quality of people allowed in, their skills, whether they will be put straight to work and contribute productively, safety and security, the quality of people and the culture. The third is: will the people coming in assimilate and integrate into the identity of the country? The fourth is: will Australia’s identity be preserved? Multiculturalism, introduced by Bob Hawke and reinforced by John Howard, undermines assimilation and integration and destroys Australian identity. 

Stop it and restore Australian identity. This bill, though, is only about numbers. The question of how much immigration is too much has never been put to the Australian people. It’s time. As a migrant and as a citizen, I value our country and say: it’s time. 

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The Debt Trap: Labor Government’s Housing Mirage

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I have expressed grave concerns that we are signing our young Australians up to be “debt slaves” to the big banks. It’s one thing to offer a “leg up” onto the property ladder, but it’s another thing entirely to push them into a lifetime of unmanageable debt.

During my questioning of Housing Australia, I pointed out a massive flaw in how they report their success. The department “brags” about a low default rate — only 11 claims out of 250,000 — yet admit that they stop tracking borrowers the second they refinance or exit the scheme. Think about that. If the families under the most financial stress are the ones forced to refinance or leave, they vanish from the government’s data. We’re essentially flying blind, ignoring the very people who might be “going backwards.”

I’ve said it before on the Senate floor, and I’ll say it again: this scheme is “smoke and mirrors.” Pumping more low-deposit buyers into a market where there aren’t enough houses to go around, the government is just upping the price of entry-level homes. This completely ignores the root of the problem—supply, caused by mass immigration. We’re watching house prices increase and the very people this was meant for— the younger Aussies — can’t even afford the ‘starter’ homes.

I’m not going to let this rest. We need to see the real numbers, not just the cherry-picked stats that make the government look good.

Australians deserve to know if their “dream home” is actually a debt trap.

— Senate Estimates | December 2025

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll try to be brief. I refer to data on how people who are taking on these 95 per cent mortgages are actually faring, because I have grave concerns that the government is just signing up first home buyers to be debt slaves to the banks. Firstly, does Housing Australia track participants who later refinance or discharge their lower deposit guaranteed loans with a different lender?

Mr Rimmer: I’ll pass that question to Mr Langford in a minute. The five per cent deposit scheme has been in place for five years now. Over 250,000 guarantees have been issued. Only 11 of those 250,000 have been paid, at a total cost of about $500,000, a relatively small amount of payment per claim. Out of all 250,000 Australians who were supported into purchasing a house through this program, 11 have fallen into very significant arrears.

Senator ROBERTS: If you don’t track participants who later refinance, how do you avoid a survivorship bias in your arrears metrics if the borrowers most at risk of stress are those who refinance?

Mr Langford: We only have a relationship with the borrower until the point they exit the scheme. There is no ability for us to track what happens to them beyond that.

Senator Ayres: For everybody who enters the scheme, it’s their first home. It’s not unusual for somebody to refinance. They have their foot on the ladder, so they might go and buy a larger home, a different home, a home in a different country town or whatever it is. If you are apprehensive that there might be something in addition to the 11 out of 250,000 people experiencing difficulty, everybody who has a mortgage, every Australian has challenges from time to time meeting their mortgage—

Senator ROBERTS: We certainly do.

Senator Ayres: That’s right. These people are no different from everybody else. It’s just that they’ve got a leg up because they fit the criteria of the scheme. Of course, we want them to have that first step on the ladder, to grow—to grow families and to grow in opportunity. That’s a good thing.

Senator ROBERTS: My concern is if we’re tracking to see whether they’re getting a leg up or a push down. That’s what I want to track.

Senator Ayres: The evidence in this scheme is that—

Senator ROBERTS: I’m trying to go through this quickly for the sake of everyone. Could you please provide on notice counts by year since 2020 of scheme backed loans refinanced or discharged?

Mr Rimmer: We’ll take on notice what information we have that could be useful to answer that question.

Senator ROBERTS: And where possible, with any available reason as to what they’re doing?

Senator Ayres: Yes, they’ll do their best to provide that to you.

Senator ROBERTS: That’s all we can ask for.

Senator Ayres: But don’t take it from that those are bad outcomes. Those are overwhelmingly good outcomes.

Senator ROBERTS: My office and I want to get the data to understand this.

Senator Ayres: We’ll do our best to provide what can be provided.

Senator ROBERTS: Your reports show the share of loans ‘in advance/on schedule/90-day plus arrears’. But you explicitly state you do not receive participants’ current income or valuation data and rely on lender hardship programs. Why is Housing Australia not collecting borrower-level hardship outcomes?

Mr Langford: In the way that the scheme’s designed the relationship is between the borrower and the bank. We are providing a guarantee ultimately to the lender. For a range of reasons, including privacy, we don’t get updated information from the applicants.

Ms Jarman: Further to that, each month we do get from the lenders the actual number of borrowers under the scheme in 90-day-plus arrears or in hardship.

Senator ROBERTS: Can you table or give me on notice the number of scheme participants flagged as in hardship by panel lenders by state and lender?

Ms Jarman: Yes. I don’t have the state breakdown here. I do have the overall number. We can take the state breakdown on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: And the resolution number? I don’t expect you to have the data here. How many scheme backed loans have progressed from arrears to default and resulted in a Commonwealth guarantee call?

Ms Jarman: Some 11 claims have been paid under the scheme since its start in 2020.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you provide the number and value of claims against the guarantee by financial year, and the cohort in terms of which guarantee scheme they are and geography?

Ms Jarman: Yes, we have that data.

Senator ROBERTS: You’ve previously told me that roughly 61.5 per cent of scheme loans are ahead, 38.4 per cent on time and 0.1 per cent in 90-day-plus arrears at a point in time. Do you have an update on those figures?

Ms Jarman: We do. As at the end of October, the in-advance number is 75 per cent of all loans, the on schedule is 23 per cent, the arrears number is 0.6, and the hardship number is 0.8.

Senator ROBERTS: What’s the cohort composition behind those figures—loan age, borrower, income band?

Ms Jarman: I don’t have that breakdown in front of me.

Senator ROBERTS: Can we get that on notice?

Ms Jarman: Yes, we could provide further detail there.

Senator ROBERTS: Debt-to-income and loan-to-value at origination versus latest?

Senator Ayres: Just at an aggregate level.

Senator ROBERTS: Per year.

Mr Langford: Do you mean per year of origination?

Senator ROBERTS: Yes.

Mr Langford: We’ll do our best to provide what information we have on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: Without longitudinal borrower data, these metrics really are incomplete. Can you provide distribution tables for scheme borrowers by debt-to-income bands, loan-to-value ratio bands and income quartiles at origination and latest available?

Ms Jarman: We can take that on notice.

Senator ROBERTS: The Reserve Bank finds that highly leveraged borrowers are most likely to fall into arrears in the current environment. Of your five per cent deposit borrowers, how many are in the bottom income quartile? That’s the one that the RBA refers to as going backwards.

Mr Rimmer: I’m sure Housing Australia will do their best to find that. My understanding is that the arrears rate for loans under this scheme is lower than the arrears rates in the market as a whole. My colleagues may wish to correct that if it’s wrong.

Ms Jarman: That’s correct. When we speak with our panel lenders, the feedback that they provide is that with the cohort of borrowers under the scheme the arrears performance is equivalent, if not favourable, to their other borrower cohorts.

Senator ROBERTS: We’d like to see that in the data.

Senator Ayres: We’ll certainly provide that, but that’s the evidence that’s been given time after time on this question and it fits with our experience. Working people are very disciplined about meeting their mortgage commitments.

Senator ROBERTS: They certainly have good values.

Senator Ayres: And that’s what’s going on here. That is a very good story, and an improvement on the last set of figures; 75 per cent of Australians are ahead as a result of this scheme. That’s a very good outcome.

Senator ROBERTS: What proportion of arrears and defaults sit in the going backwards quartile?

Ms Jarman: Sorry. What do you mean by the ‘going backwards’ quartile?

Senator ROBERTS: The bottom income quartile.

Ms Jarman: I don’t have any arrears data broken down by borrower cohort in front of me.

Mr Langford: If there’s a range of these statistical matters that you’re interested in, we’d be very happy to receive those and see what we can provide.

Senator ROBERTS: I’ll put them in writing for you.

Mr Langford: That would be much appreciated.

Senator ROBERTS: Have you run stress tests for the guarantee book to estimate how many will go from on time to arrears or default by quartile and debt-to-income or loan-to-value ratio bands?

Ms Jarman: Yes, every year.

Senator ROBERTS: Could we get that?

Ms Jarman: Yes, you can.

Senator ROBERTS: Once a participant refinances or exits, does Housing Australia have any visibility of their subsequent hardship or default outcomes?

Ms Jarman: No, we don’t.

Senator ROBERTS: How can parliament be confident that public reporting is not undercounting stress by removing the most vulnerable borrowers from your data?

Senator Ayres: You can’t refinance if you’re in hardship, right? That’s not a realistic thing to happen. If somebody can’t meet their obligations, they won’t get refinanced; 11 people haven’t met their obligations out of the 250,000. If they purchase a new home, they’re not doing it under the scheme, they’re doing it using the improved equity. People point to bad outcomes out of house prices going up, but there are good outcomes. House prices lift, they get increased equity, they get up the next step on the housing ladder, and then they’re out of the scheme. That’s a good thing. There’s no downside to either of those propositions. We’ll provide what we can. I understand the point you’re making.

Senator ROBERTS: Could you please provide counts on notice of scheme loans exited via refinance and any post-exit arrears or default?

Ms Jarman: We can provide the discharge reason, but I can’t provide information once they’ve discharged. I don’t have visibility of that from the lenders.

Senator ROBERTS: You can’t get it from the lenders?

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The Great Australian Sell-Out

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The “Australian Dream” hasn’t just faded—it’s been sold out.

Young Australians are being forced into a impossible choice: become a lifelong debt slave to the banks, or pay rent to a foreign corporate landlord like BlackRock forever.

Here is the reality the major parties are trying to dodge: 👉 It now takes 30 years to save a deposit near the city – a national tragedy. 👉 The government is using insane mass migration to prop up GDP and hide the fact that we are in a per-capita recession. 👉 We’re giving tax breaks to foreign investment funds to “Build to Rent” while local families are priced out of auctions. 👉 Bureaucracy is stopping our tradies from actually building the homes we need.

We don’t need cringeworthy TikToks or “election bribes” disguised as subsidies. We need a government that isn’t afraid to speak the truth about the root causes.

While the “Uniparty” of Labor, the Liberals, and the Greens runs and hides from these facts, One Nation is the only party standing up for everyday Australians. We’re committed to putting your family’s future ahead of global corporate interests and fixing the migration numbers so the next generation can actually own a piece of Australia.

It’s time to put Australia first. It’s time for One Nation.

Transcript

I move: 

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: 

The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with mass-migration adding to the 4.7 million non-citizens in the country, tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords like Blackrock under ‘Build to Rent’, foreigners continuing to buy Australian homes and red tape stopping tradies from building more. 

The government has offered young Australians starting out in life two equally terrible options: either become a debt slave to the banks forever or rent from a foreign corporate landlord like BlackRock and never actually own a home. Successive Liberal-National and Labor-Greens governments—uniparty governments, that is—have failed to address the root cause of the housing crisis: mass immigration. Why would they do that? The answer is simple: necessity. After years of selling Australia out to their foreign masters, such as BlackRock Inc, Australia’s domestic economy was performing so badly that immigration became the government’s lifeline. 

Australia has had negative per capita income for five successive quarters. What that means is that everyday Australians are going backwards. Their small pay rises do not compensate for inflation. 

The reason the Australian economy as a whole is not in recession is the spending from new arrivals, as they furnish their homes and buy clothes, appliances and so on. This feeds on the GDP. But, per capita, we’re in recession. It’s economic sherbet. Once the sugar hit wears off, these new arrivals wind up in the same cost-of-living recession as Australians. 

Instead of developing infrastructure, reducing red tape, reducing green tape, reducing blue UN tape and getting private employment going again, the government takes the easy way out: more migrants, and more, and more. Decades of mass immigration have led us to this place we are in today, where we have 4.7 million visa holders in the country who are not citizens of Australia. We now have absolute confirmation that neither Labor nor the Greens, the Liberals or the Nationals are capable of solving, nor can they be trusted to solve, the real cause of the housing crisis: mass immigration. 

And it’s a crisis. The latest CPI data shows that housing has now risen 5.9 per cent in the last year—an accelerating rate of increase. And electricity, by the way, went up 37 per cent, as those election bribes Labor gave you—sorry, electricity ‘subsidies’—started to expire. According to CoreLogic, it now takes someone on the average wage 12 years to save for a home deposit on the outskirts of Sydney and 30 years to save for the deposit on a home close to the city—30 years, for a deposit! Servicing a home loan now costs 42 per cent of income. The point at which a mortgage is considered to be impaired used to be 30 per cent. That’s insane! It’s a tragedy for young Australians. 

The blame for this rests squarely with the Liberal-National and Labor-Greens parties. You have taken the option of homeownership away from young people with your insane mass immigration and your net zero agendas. You, and you, have allowed foreign multinational corporations and superannuation funds to bid up the price of Australian homes, and you’ve stood idly by while young people have walked away from auctions in tears. Instead, you make cringeworthy TikTok videos. You make promises that are not and cannot be kept, because you run and hide from the real reasons for the crisis: the Ponzi scheme that mass immigration has become. You run and hide. 

Here’s what One Nation wanted this parliament to vote on today: 

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency: 

The urgent need to address the failure of the Albanese government to fix home ownership for the next generation, with mass-migration adding to the 4.7 million non-citizens in the country, tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords like Blackrock under ‘Build to Rent’, foreigners continuing to buy Australian homes and red tape stopping tradies from building more. 

Yet the other parties want to remove the facts, the data, from One Nation’s motion. No-one wants to talk about the fact that there are 4.7 million visa holders—people who are not Australian citizens—in the country right now, all needing homes. No-one wants to talk about the tax breaks being given to foreign corporate landlords BlackRock Inc. No-one wants to talk about foreign ownership of Australian homes—no-one, except One Nation. 

There is a reason why One Nation is the most trusted party in the country on the issue of migration—that’s what the polls are saying quite clearly. The reason is simple: we care; they don’t. One Nation will govern for everyday Australians. It’s time for a One Nation government now. 

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Foreign Investment Housing Stats Don’t Add Up

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The International and Foreign Investment Group is still trying to tell us that foreign ownership of Australian housing is less than 1%. They’re sticking to a figure of 0.8% and say they have “full confidence” in it.

I asked them a simple question: Does any real estate agent or any Australian actually believe that?

The truth is, they’ve never conducted market research to see if the public trusts their data. They track the “flow” of new sales while ignoring the massive amount of housing already in foreign hands.

Australians are being priced out of the housing market, while bureaucrats ignore what’s really happening in our suburbs and rely on data that just doesn’t pass the pub test.

I will continue to question these figures until we get answers that reflect reality.

— Senate Estimates | December 2025

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS:  Could I have the International and Foreign Investment Group, please. Do you still maintain the view that, in Australia, foreign ownership of housing is less than one per cent of the housing market?  

Ms Di Marco:  I’ll hand most of these questions to Mr Tinning and Ms Sloan, who I think have the statistics in front of them and can speak to any policies of the government. But I just want to caution at the beginning of the session that, if we start to get into questions of application of residential real estate, many of them may need to be taken on notice because that is the remit of the Australian Taxation Office. But I’ll hand over to Mr Tinning.  

Senator ROBERTS:  The chair will be happy with that.  

CHAIR:  I will be.   

Mr Tinning:  We don’t have figures for the total stock of housing, but we do have annual figures for purchases.   

Senator ROBERTS:  Do you still believe that they’re under one per cent?   

Mr Tinning:  We have figures for 2023-24, with the latest available figure being purchases at 0.8 per cent, so that is under one per cent.   

Senator ROBERTS:  You do. Do you honestly believe that any real estate agent in Australia accepts the claim that foreign ownership is less than one per cent of the housing market?   

Mr Tinning:  These figures are from the ATO, and we have very strong faith in their ability to accurately monitor these figures. They have very strong systems, so we are confident in those figures.   

Senator ROBERTS:  Yes, I’ve been on that merry-go-round, and I used to ask you questions. You told me to go to the ATO, so I went to the ATO. Do you honestly think any Australian believes that foreign ownership is less than one per cent?   

Mr Tinning:  I can’t comment on the views of the Australian populace, but we are very confident in those figures.   

Senator ROBERTS:  I’m asking you for your views.  

Mr Tinning:  My views are that those figures from the ATO are accurate.   

Ms Di Marco:  I’m not sure that it’s for Mr Tinning to provide views on whether he thinks those figures are accurate; however, we do have those figures from the ATO. Also, just to reiterate his earlier point, the figures that we have from the ATO are about the flow, the investment number that’s been made as a proportion over the year and not the total ownership of foreign investment.   

Senator ROBERTS:  I’m concerned about both, but I understand that. He made that very clear. Have you ever conducted any market research or surveys around public confidence in your figures?   

Ms Di Marco:  No, we haven’t.   

Senator ROBERTS:  Why not?   

Ms Di Marco:  In April or May 2025, the government made a range of announcements regarding strengthening controls around foreign investment in residential real estate. But I would argue that it’s not really for us to go out there and conduct market research on these sorts of matters. The government has made a range of policy decisions, and we’re looking to implement those as quickly as possible.   

Senator ROBERTS:  Lastly, how many forms have been lodged since the vacancy fee returns foreign owners have come into effect?   

Ms Di Marco:  I think we’d have to take that on notice. The ATO would hold those details.   

Senator ROBERTS:  That’s understandable. Could we have them on a yearly basis, please?   

Ms Di Marco:  We’ll see what we can get for you.   

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Australians First – Not Globalist Agendas!

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Australia was once the richest country per capita in the world. Today, we have the worst poverty I’ve seen in my lifetime—yet we still have abundant resources, farmland, and energy. Successive Liberal and Labor governments have shut down industries that provided breadwinner jobs, strangled farmers with green tape and UN blue tape, and sold out our wealth.

Our GDP is growing, yet Australians are getting poorer. Wealth is being transferred to foreign billionaires and their investment funds—BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street—who now control our banks, retailers, telcos, and energy companies. Prices go up, markets are rigged, and everyday Australians are pushed into poverty while executives take multimillion-dollar salaries for compliance. Housing is worse than ever. Rents in Sydney have surged 40% since 2021, and Melbourne and Brisbane aren’t far behind. Over half of low-income renters spend more than 30% of their income on housing. Meanwhile, the government floods the country with mass migration, driving up demand and destroying quality of life. They paper over the cracks with debt, money printing, and more public servants, which only makes things worse. One Nation warned this would happen.

Net zero, mass migration, and bureaucratic strangulation are killing our standard of living—and now one in seven Australians lives below the poverty line, including one in six children.

One Nation has solutions:

👉 abolish net zero policies and subsidies

👉 end mass migration

👉 ban foreign ownership

👉 cut red, green, and blue tape

👉 restore breadwinner jobs

👉 protect our farmers

👉 make housing affordable again

These problems are man-made, and they can be solved. One Nation is right—and we’re fighting for Australians, not foreign billionaires or globalist agendas.

Transcript

Welcome to the latest episode of your favourite TV show: One Nation Were Right All Along. First up, we have the Nationals finally seeing the light of the net zero scam—well, kind of. Their support has gone from unqualified support to ‘how much net zero can we do before we start losing seats?’ In their announcement, Nationals leader David Littleproud said: ‘The Nationals accept the science of climate change and remain committed to emissions reduction. The current aggressive pursuit of net zero is unfairly damaging to regional Australia and economically unsustainable for the country’—he’s waking up—’We need a slower pace aligned with the OECD average’.  

That’s a clever sleight of hand. The OECD reduction has stalled for five years. Their accumulative reduction is currently 14 per cent, and Australia’s is 24 per cent. The latest data will show ours at 28 per cent, double the OECD’s. Tying Australia to the OECD will buy the Nationals an election or two before having to restart reductions. Remember, though, that they still believe in net zero and in the need to cut carbon dioxide production. I welcome the Nationals realisation of the damage net zero is doing and wish they had more courage to walk away from the scam entirely. 

In contrast, One Nation strongly oppose net zero, and we would abolish all federal government net zero mandates, programs and boondoggles. We would shut down all the schemes and departments promoting this scam, saving taxpayers $30 billion every year. This is not the only cost of course. Parasitic billionaires and corporations sucking on taxpayer subsidies and electricity consumer subsidies, and others in private industry, are taking advantage of this scam to build industrial solar and wind, transmission lines, big batteries and other paraphernalia of net zero. This cost will be as high as $1.9 trillion through to 2050. Remember that industrial solar and wind lasts only 15 years, which means everything that has been built so far will not be in use in 2050 and will have to be built again and again. The government’s Bollywood version of the cost of net zero does not take into account this massive expense—nor do they consider the environmental cost of the destruction of native forests for wind turbines, access roads and transmission lines; the cost of dumping these monstrosities into landfill every 15 years; or the run-off from toxic metals from damaged solar panels. This would be hilarious if it weren’t so sad. 

Electricity is an input cost right across the economy. The price of everything you buy, from physical goods in stores to services and financial products, goes up as the electricity bills of the companies providing those services go up. Everyday Australians are poorer because of net zero, and so is Australia’s beautiful natural environment. The government used to say, ‘Renewables are cheaper, so prices will come down eventually.’ However, after 20 years of the transition—the last three at breakneck pace—electricity bills are not coming down; they’re rising rapidly.  

Some of those who are wealthy enough and have an actual house in which to install solar panels and an expensive wall battery are reporting slightly reduced electricity bills. The very few Australians with the money to spend $25,000 on a solar array and wall battery for a home they own are thumbing their noses at the millions that do not have a house and $25,000 to add solar and a battery. Net zero is becoming a case of the haves and have-nots. Those who can’t afford their own electricity generation are left to buy electricity at prices that have increased at twice the rate of inflation since the net zero benchmark year of 2005. It’s a trend that continues, with a nine per cent increase in electricity prices in 2025. 

One Nation are right in our opposition to mass migration. Today we learnt that the majority of Australians agree with us—right again. A poll in the Australian yesterday showed that almost two-thirds of Australians want a reduction in the migration rate; 94 per cent of One Nation supporters support reduced migration, which has now been a feature of One Nation policy for 30 years, ever since the Liberal-National coalition under John Howard doubled migration and started mass migration. Significantly, 78 per cent of coalition voters want a reduction in immigration, and so do 71 per cent of supporters of smaller parties and independents, which does include the teals—so that’s very interesting. 

What caught my eye with the poll is that two parties who have been pushing infinite immigration are doing so against the wishes of their supporters. Only 10 per cent of Labor’s supporters want more migrants, while 49 per cent want fewer. While 27 per cent of Greens voters want more immigration, 32 per cent want less. Immigration is now one of the biggest election issues in New South Wales, which is not surprising, given the rental crisis in the greater Sydney area, thanks to the Albanese immigration invasion. It is interesting to see there is no gender divide on immigration. Opposition to high immigration is spread evenly between men and women. 

It’s a betrayal of the very concept of democracy for this government to continue its globalist agenda to flood Australia with these very high levels of mass immigration against the wishes of the Australian people. Liberal and Labor governments are importing too many new arrivals from cultures that do not readily assimilate and bring with them a religion, Islam, that seeks to carve out a slice of this country to introduce their own system of law—divisive. 

At the same time, the government is inhumanely ignoring the tragedy of the slaughter of Christians in Nigeria, in Sudan and in South Africa. I asked the Minister representing the Minister for Home Affairs yesterday in question time how many Christian refugees we brought in from these trouble spots. The answer was telling: zero! I asked who’s benefiting from Australia’s humanitarian intake. His answer was that the top five countries for refugee visas, 15,000 in all, are all Islamic countries. This is nothing more than selective discrimination against Christians. In the past, Australians would have considered this sedition. One Nation still does. 

Third, One Nation is correct about the standard of living. For years, I’ve been warning the Australian people that the net zero agenda, combined with mass immigration, is destroying business investment in our productive capacity, reducing living standards. Sky News is reporting today just how bad things have become. One in seven Australians now live below the poverty line, and one in six children are below the poverty line. That’s 3.7 million people struggling to pay for food, power and rent in a nation bursting with resources, all a result of Liberal-Labor uniparty policies—mass migration, net zero, housing, overregulation. 

In what was once the richest country, per capita, in the world, we now have the worst poverty in my lifetime, yet we still have the natural resources; the abundant hydrocarbon fuels—coal, oil and natural gas; amazing farmland; and a strong tourism industry. For years, successive Liberal and Labor governments have shut down industries that provided breadwinner jobs in steelworks and heavy manufacturing, and value-adding jobs like textiles. They weighed our farmers down with so much green tape and blue United Nations tape that they are struggling to stay afloat. Australian wealth is being sabotaged in a process called ‘managed decline’. It’s deliberate. Yet our GDP is still growing. What’s going on? Australia’s wealth is being transferred from Australians to foreign beneficiaries. The world’s predatory billionaires have used their investment funds, like BlackRock, First State, Vanguard and State Street, to buy not only shares in Australian companies but entire industries. Except for two of our insurance companies, all our insurance companies are foreign owned. 

Major retailers Coles, Woolies and Bunnings are foreign controlled. The Australian big four banks are foreign controlled, and so are our telcos and oil and gas companies. Satan’s bankers then put up prices, knowing they control the markets, so consumers become price takers. There’s no market anymore; it’s controlled. Australians working at the top of these companies take extremely high salaries—in many cases, multimillion dollar salaries—in return for compliance, and everyday Australians go backwards into poverty. 

The government is making things worse, allowing so many new arrivals that housing prices and rents are forced upwards, while quality of life and standards of living go backwards. In Sydney, median unit rents have surged 40 per cent since 2021, and Melbourne and Brisbane aren’t far behind, climbing more than 30 per cent. For low-income renters, over half now spend more than 30 per cent of their income on housing—30 per cent on housing! Our prime minister went to the last election promising to leave no-one behind, knowing his policies were doing exactly the opposite. The government is now increasing spending on housing, on paid parental leave, on child care and on hiring more and more and more public servants on high wages to paper over what is a crashing economy. The government can’t use debt and money printing forever to save its backside. Debt and printing money cause their own severe economic problems and then more poverty. 

One Nation has opposed the net zero war on business investment. We have opposed the migration invasion, and we warned that these policies, combined with the red bureaucratic tape, green tape and blue United Nations tape would destroy the standard of living in our beautiful country. And it has. We bloody told you so! We have put forward solutions and practical, effective policies to solve all these challenges—proven solutions. All these issues are due to decades of dishonest Liberal-Labor uniparty policies and laws. As President John F Kennedy said: 

Our problems are man made. Therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. 

One Nation is right. 

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Labor and Liberals Have Failed Our Youth

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A few weeks ago, I attended the One Nation branch launch in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, where 140 everyday Australians had plenty they wanted to discuss with me. I was delighted to see so many young people in attendance, yet heartbroken by the lack of housing opportunities they’ve endured under Liberal and Labor governments.

One Nation will turn the useless Housing Future Fund into a low-deposit mortgage fund for young Australians, offering low-interest, fixed-rate mortgages for up to 30 years. We’ll bridge the deposit gap by enabling Australians to use their own super accounts to take a share in their home—not their super fund, but their personal super account, which will continue to grow as the value of the home increases. This policy will be as ineffective as the ALP’s unless housing prices stop rising through demand management.

One Nation will reduce housing demand by deporting 200,000 people who have deliberately exploited our immigration system, making room for young Australians to enter the housing market.

One Nation will restore opportunity for our young.

Transcript

Last week, I attended the One Nation branch launch in Wagga Wagga, New South Wales, where 140 everyday Australians had a lot they wanted to talk about with me. I was delighted to see so many young people attending, yet heartbroken at the loss of opportunity they’ve suffered under Liberal and Labor governments. One Nation’s housing policy will make a major difference to the lives of all young Australians. We’ll turn the useless housing future fund into a low-deposit mortgage fund for young Australians, offering low-interest fixed-rate mortgages for up to 30 years. We’ll allow HECS-holders to roll their HECS loan into their home loan, reducing their combined repayments and increasing their borrowing ability. We’ll overcome the deposit gap, allowing Australians to use their own super account to take a share in their home—not their super fund, but their own super account, which will continue to grow as the value of the home grows. We’ll limit negative gearing to two homes. These policies are only half of One Nation’s solution. 

As a result of the Albanese government’s low-deposit scheme making the housing shortage worse, home prices have gone up 6 per cent—a stupid mistake. Offering incentives to help young people own their own homes increases demand, forces up prices and leaves young people worse off than before the government helped. The truth is we’re building homes faster than any other country in the world. 

Managing demand must include a review of who’s buying all these homes. We will remigrate 200,000 people who deliberately broke their visa conditions, who completed their study and simply stayed here or who lodged spurious asylum claims. Send them home. Deport them. They’re here illegally, taking up the beds of Australians. One Nation’s balanced housing policy will benefit renters and homebuyers, stabilise the housing market and safeguard the family home nest egg in retirement. It will give young people, young families, a fair go—that’s what we need. Bring it back. 

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Your First Home Shouldn’t Be a Dream

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A good idea has many parents—just look at the push to suspend costly National Construction Code changes. One Nation proposed it first, saving $50K per home. Now the Liberals and Labor are claiming credit.

Yet the real crisis is homelessness, driven by mass immigration policies started by the Liberals and turbocharged by Labor—over 500,000 arrivals a year while Aussies sleep in cars.

Only One Nation has a comprehensive housing policy. We would cut demand by stopping illegal immigration and visa abuse, ban foreign home ownership, slash construction costs by ending net zero and overregulation. On the finance side, One Nation would roll HECS debt into home loans and allow super to fund deposits.

It’s time to put Australians first.

Transcript

A good idea or a popular idea has many parents. A bad idea or an unpopular idea is an orphan. Well, look at this! One Nation came up with the idea of holding the National Construction Code changes—stopping them, suspending them—to save $50,000 per house in construction costs. That was One Nation, before the election! Now we see Senator Bragg taking ownership of it for the Liberal Party. Then we see the Labor Party coming up with the idea at the roundtable. Where did it come from? One Nation. We have a homelessness crisis in this country. Every major provincial city in Queensland has homeless people sleeping in cars. Working mums and dads are sleeping in their cars. They come home to see if their kids are still there. Why? Because the Liberal Party started mass catastrophic immigration under John Howard, and the Labor Party has turbocharged it now with over 500,000 new immigrants per year. 

That’s what’s driving the homelessness crisis. And only One Nation has a comprehensive policy for housing—working on the demand side, working on the supply side, working on the cost side and working on the finance side to reduce demand. To stop immigration, we would deport immediately 75,000 people who were here illegally and deport students who were not in compliance with their visas. On the supply side, we would stop foreign ownership of houses in this country—just stop them! We’d give them two or three years to sell and get out. Free them up. Many of those homes are locked. On the cost side, we would reduce regulations, stop the National Construction Code changes, and end net zero to reduce the price of energy. On the finance side, we would roll HECS debts into home loans and allow access to super accounts to get a deposit. Why can’t your super account invest in your own home when it can invest in other people’s homes? This is bloody ridiculous! 

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Mass Migration Has Consequences—Acknowledging Them Isn’t Hate

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I asked Mr Sivaraman, the Race Discrimination Commissioner, whether he stood by his comment that “the bile of racism” is spilling into public forums and many political debates. He confirmed that he does. I then questioned whether simply asking about migration intake numbers is racist, and he agreed that it isn’t necessarily so, though he warned that targeting certain groups can make it problematic.

I raised the fact that there are four million non-citizens in Australia while we have record homelessness, and that years of mass migration have put pressure on housing, schools, hospitals, and infrastructure. I asked if acknowledging these facts makes someone racist. Mr Sivaraman said linking migration directly to these issues is overly simplistic and can lead to scapegoating, though I clarified I never claimed migration was the sole cause—just a significant factor.

We discussed fairness for migrants themselves, who sometimes lose housing when new arrivals come, and the mismatch between the skills Australia needs and those brought in under migration programs. Mr Sivaraman agreed that failing to recognise migrants’ skills is a real problem and mentioned campaigns to address this. I pointed out that, in construction, only a tiny fraction of arrivals have the promised skills, which raises serious concerns.

— Senate Estimates | October 2025

Transcript

Senator ROBERTS: Mr Sivaraman, as Australia’s race discrimination commissioner, you say ‘the bile of racism’ is spilling out into the public forum and many political debates. Do you stand by that comment?  

Mr Sivaraman: Yes.  

Senator ROBERTS: Is questioning the migration intake numbers racist?  

Mr Sivaraman: In and of itself, it doesn’t have to be, no. It’s a question of what’s associated with that and whether certain groups get targeted.  

Senator ROBERTS: There are currently four million people in this country, our country, who are not Australian citizens taking up beds while Australians are homeless—there is record homelessness—after years of unprecedented levels of mass migration. We have been at record numbers for multiple years in a row. That’s not saying anything disparaging about those people who have arrived; that’s just a fact. It is just a mathematical fact that, if we continue to accept arrivals at the rate we are, our schools, hospital, dams, transport and housing are going to become even more overwhelmed than they are. That’s a fact. Is anyone who acknowledges that fact a racist? 

 Mr Sivaraman: I think to simply connect, in a very linear way, migration to the various problems that you’ve described would not be accurate. The problems that you’ve—  

Senator ROBERTS: What is inaccurate about it, Mr Sivaraman?  

Mr Sivaraman: The problems that you’ve alluded to, like housing and the cost of living, are complicated problems with many different sources. Migration is one of the many different factors that may or may not contribute to those issues. Directly linking them is something that I wouldn’t agree with, and it’s that simplification that often then leads to the scapegoating of migrants, and I think that can be problematic.  

Senator ROBERTS: Could you tell me how I’m scapegoating migrants, when I am one? And can you tell me how it’s simplifying the issue?  

Mr Sivaraman: It is a simplification of an issue if you directly say that there is only one cause for the significant problems that you’ve— 

Senator ROBERTS: I didn’t say there was only one cause. It’s the significant factor. 

 Mr Sivaraman: Even that, in itself, is a simplification. It can be any number of factors that contribute to those issues.  

Senator ROBERTS: We know for a fact that we’ve got record homelessness, and the government is bringing in record numbers of people year after year after year. They haven’t got anywhere to go, Mr Sivaraman. We even see migrants coming here, being given housing and then being turfed out when the next wave of migrants comes. Is that fair to the migrants?  

Mr Sivaraman: I’m not sure if I can take it further. Homelessness is obviously a serious and significant issue. Simply pointing to migration or migrants as the problem, or the cause of that issue is overly simplistic.  

Senator ROBERTS: What about the misalignment between the skills we need in this country for people to get straight to work and bringing in people without those skills and them not being able to find work? Is that dehumanising to the migrants? Is it dehumanising to the people here?  

Mr Sivaraman: Senator, I’m glad you raised that issue. I think there is a real problem with the failure to recognise skills, experience and qualifications of migrants, which often leads to people being underutilised and dampening their productivity in the workplace. I note that Settlement Services International are running a campaign now called Activate Australia’s Skills, because we do want to fully utilise the skills of migrants that come here so that they can contribute to our workforce. That’s a really important issue.  

Senator ROBERTS: But, if they don’t have the skills—for example, in construction, the government is bringing in, supposedly, construction workers with skills in construction, but only 0.6 per cent actually have those skills and experience. How are they going to build houses for the other 99.4 per cent?  

Mr Sivaraman: I’m unaware of the statistics you’ve quoted, so I can’t speak to those statistics specifically. But in a general sense there is a lot of research and data that shows that we have failed to recognise the skills and qualifications of migrants, and that is a significant detriment to the Australian economy.  

Senator ROBERTS: This is my final question before moving on to Dr Cody. I understand in your role as Race Discrimination Commissioner you are being paid $398,450 per annum—almost $400,000—plus 15.4 per cent super. Are those pay figures correct? Mr  

Sivaraman: I think that they would be, yes. I’d have to check the Remunerations Tribunal determination. 

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Build-to-Rent is Really Build-to-Never-Own

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Labor’s decision to slash the withholding tax for foreign corporate landlords from 30% to just 15% is a slap in the face to everyday Australians. While families struggle to buy a home, Labor is rolling out the red carpet for global giants like BlackRock, Vanguard, and State Street—offering them tax breaks to build rental stack-and-pack apartments that Australians will never own.

Let’s call it what it is: build-to-rent is build-to-never-own. It’s designed to lock Australians into a lifetime of renting from foreign billionaires, while those same corporations pay less tax than the hardworking people they’re renting to.

One Nation has been warning about this for years. We believe in the Australian dream—owning your own home, not renting it forever from a global landlord.

We stand with Australians, not greedy foreign corporations and parasitic predators driving the World Economic Forum and the United Nations agenda.

Transcript

Senator Bragg’s disallowance seeks to throw a spanner in the works of the build-to-rent scheme. That’s a very good thing and One Nation will be wholeheartedly supporting it. Foreign corporations used to pay a 30 per cent withholding tax on housing investments like build to rent. Labor cut that in half, to 15 per cent.  

Let’s be clear: this Labor government said to foreign, corporate landlords like BlackRock, State Street, Vanguard and first state, ‘We’ll cut the amount of tax you pay in half.’  

Forget the Australian dream of owning your own home. Labor’s dream is that you live in a stack-and-pack shoebox apartment paying rent to BlackRock forever, while those foreign corporations pay less tax than you do. That’s what build to rent means. 

Whenever you hear ‘build-to-rent’, remember ‘renting forever to a foreign corporation, a foreign corporate landlord and a foreign global wealth investment fund’. They’ll build homes, for sure, and Australians will never, ever own them—never. It’s built to rent forever. I’ll quote from the Economics Legislation Committee report into the Treasury Laws Amendment (Build to Rent) Bill 2024 and the provisions of the Capital Works (Build to Rent Misuse Tax) Bill 2024. The provisions of the bills include ‘reducing the final withholding tax rate on eligible fund payments—distributions of rental income and capital gains—from eligible managed investment trust investments from 30 per cent to 15 per cent, starting from 1 July 2024’. So there you go—a tax cut in half for those global, corporate, predatory investors, who own almost everything and are determined to own everything. I’ll say that again: they own almost everything and are determined to own everything. 

The report states: 

The draft legislation was adjusted as a result of this consultation to ensure the government’s policy objective of incentivising foreign investment in BTR— 

Build-to-rent— 

including affordable housing supply, is achieved. 

They are admitting that the objective of the bills is incentivising foreign and predatory corporations into owning your home. The report also states: 

The Property Council advised the 15 per cent tax rate for investment in housing is already available to Australian investors. The MIT— 

managed investment trust— 

withholding tax rate applies to withholding tax that goes back to overseas investors— 

Predators and parasites— 

but foreign investors can also capital partner with Australian investors. 

That is the most telling part of all. This bill would only change the tax treatment of foreign, predatory, multinational corporations. That’s all. There’s nothing for Australians. Australian companies could do it. Foreign companies pay a penalty—that’s a good thing. Yet the Labor Party of Australia would change that; you in the government would change that. Are Labor the party for Australia, or are they the party for global, foreign corporations? Build-to-rent answers that question clearly. Clearly Labor are for the foreign corporations like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. One Nation, though, is for Australians owning their own homes. 

I’m going to do something a little unusual and quote extensively from the coalition senators’ dissenting report on the build-to-rent bills—an outstanding report. I hope you don’t mind, Senator Bragg. It goes to the very heart of what’s wrong with the new Labor Party: 

Build to Rent has had minimal cut-through in Australia because our tax settings are designed to favour individual, ‘mum and dad’ investors, not institutions. That is appropriate. 

This legislation seeks to tip the scales in favour 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. 

Why? The report continues: 

Dr Murray was critical of the Bill’s attempted perversion of our tax arrangements: 

It’s not clear to me why local investors shouldn’t be advantaged over foreign investors in Australian housing. I don’t see that there’s a good argument … for levelling 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. 

That’s just like One Nation policy. The report goes on: 

At the public hearing, the Association of Superannuation Funds of Australia (‘ASFA’) suggested that Australians would prefer Black Rock and Cbus be the nation’s landlords— 

Really? You would? 

and described mum and dad investors as undertaking a ‘hobby activity’— 

How condescending; how arrogant— 

Senator BRAGG: Do you think the Australian people want to rent their house from a super fund? 

Mr Clare: I think that they would be very happy with institutionally owned residential property where there is an option of having longer-term tenancies rather than the more-typical-in-the-market situation where there is a lack of assurance of continuity of tenancy because it’s a small-scale, hobby activity for individual landlords. 

The report continues: 

This is the view of a vested interest. Most Australians would not agree with this proposal. 

Other witnesses did not share ASFA’s view. Grounded Community Land Trust Advocacy told the Committee:  

Senator BRAGG: Are you concerned that we are seeing a corporatisation of housing in Australia? 

Mr Fitzgerald: Absolutely. This is delivering horrifying results in the Northern Hemisphere, and this legislation makes no account of that— 

No account of what’s actually happening— 

It perplexes me that this government, which purports to be in support of labour— 

That is, workers— 

is allowing rent-maximisation strategies to come through unabated. Yes, I agree: pushing mum-and-dad investors out of the housing market will result in less competition— 

An oligopoly for the big fellas— 

What we’re seeing in the Northern Hemisphere is a horrific new software program called YieldStar, which in Atlanta coordinates rental increases for 81 per cent of rental properties. The board of supervisors in San Francisco has now banned this as a monopolistic practice— 

Yet you want to bring it in— 

There’s just nothing in this legislation that even prepares us for what’s coming. 

The report goes on: 

The Housing Industry Association pointed to the importance of Australia’s housing market maintaining a focus on individual ownership. 

Senator BRAGG: But isn’t it the case that the character of the housing market in Australia is largely focused on individuals? … Do you think that’s a good or a bad design feature? 

Mr Reardon: I think that is a very positive outcome, with the association and connection with home and with location, and a sense of place and purpose—all of those dynamics. 

This is reinforcing what we already know and what Senator Bragg has already discussed. Mr Reardon goes on: 

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 is a cornerstone, a foundation of a safe and productive society. Personal responsibility enables and is the basis for a safe and productive society. 

Senator Bragg’s report then says: 

Australians are not interested in subsidising institutional investors. When asked what organisations would be the key beneficiaries of Build to Rent tax concessions, Treasury confirmed that foreign fund managers would be at the centre: 

There are a lot of foreign investors using the MITs because of the withholding tax concessions and other benefits from using that structure, but there can also be domestic investors using the MITs; they just get a different tax regime. Those investors will be working in partnership with commercial developers to develop these buildings. 

The report continues: 

Cbus Super has previously committed to scaling up in the Build to Rent sector, announcing a plan to scale up its portfolio to approximately $2 billion in apartments. 

Some of the most alarming evidence from the public hearing was that the passing of this Bill could see Australian taxpayers subsidising foreign governments in their investment in our housing market. Dr Murray warned: 

I find it interesting because we’ve already even got foreign investment funds doing build to rent. 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’re already doing—through a foreign government. I find that a bizarre outcome of this proposed bill. 

It is bizarre. The report continues: 

Approaches like Build to Rent endeavour 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 US— 

I will digress from Senator Bragg’s dissenting report for a minute. The bankers in the United States said in the 1920s that their dream was a combination of predatory behaviour and legislation to get a monopoly and own every house that they could in the country—to control people—because once people have their residence at stake, they are easily controlled. The report says: 

Fund managers have become the predominant landlords in the US. According to the US Government Accountability Office (‘the GAO’), large institutional investors emerged following the global financial crisis, purchasing foreclosed homes at auction in bulk and converting them into rental housing. 

In 2023, corporate housing funds held $1 trillion USD in assets. In Atlanta, Charlotte and Jacksonville, institutional investors own 25, 18 and 21 per cent of the rental stock respectively. 

That is what you are wanting here. We don’t want it. The report continues: 

This corporate housing model, in order to generate a return on investment for institutional investors, relies on individuals being locked into a cycle of perpetual renting— 

This is exactly what we’ve been warning for the last five years. It continues: 

There is a growing consensus in the US that this model has failed and is hurting prospective first home buyers. Lawmakers from both sides of politics are introducing legislation to limit institutional investment accordingly— 

Watch what’s happening; this has failed— 

While the US is moving away from corporate housing, the Australian Labor Party is forcing Australians into it. 

Well, Senator Bragg, I’m not ashamed to admit we probably couldn’t have written it better ourselves; thank you. 

Build-to-rent is an abomination that destroys the Australian dream of owning your own home. One Nation raised this cruel reality years ago. One Nation rejects making Australians forever renters to a cartel of greedy foreign corporations. 

An honourable senator interjecting— 

Senator ROBERTS: Let’s see if you repeat that: One Nation rejects making Australians forever renters to a cartel of greedy foreign corporations, predatory parasitic corporations and parasitic predators driving the World Economic Forum and the United Nations agenda, on your conscience. All Australians should be able to work hard and one day own their own slice of this great, big, wonderful country with so much potential. Only One Nation has the policy to make this real for everyday Australians. 

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