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?
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.
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.
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.
Hundreds of thousands of Aussies are homeless. Rents have skyrocketed — up 44% in just five years, adding over $10,000 a year to the average rental bill. House prices are surging as well, pricing homes out of reach of young Australians, who now need an annual salary of $220,000 to afford a home.
The Government lies and claims that this is about supply, yet Australia is building more homes per capita than any other country in the world. The real issue is demand. Right now, there are 4.7 million non-citizen visa holders in Australia. Is mum and dad with one investment property causing this crisis? Of course not. Mass migration is outstripping supply, and big business is profiting — the Big Four banks made $30 billion in profit last year. Every new mortgage adds $750 a month to their profit, or about $200,000 over the life of a loan.
Foreign corporate landlords are another threat. Backed by giants like BlackRock and Vanguard, they’re gouging rents and siphoning profits overseas – after using every tax trick in the book to avoid paying tax. Labor and the Greens even gave these corporations a 15% tax cut. One Nation opposed it because we stand for Australians, not foreign investors.
That’s why One Nation has the most comprehensive housing plan of any party: end mass migration, ban foreign ownership permanently, introduce 30-year fixed-rate people’s mortgages, allow super to help with deposits, cut GST on building materials, overhaul costly building code changes and limit negative gearing to a maximum of two properties.
One Nation will make housing affordable again and protect Australians from predatory practices. Only One Nation has a real plan to fix this crisis.
Transcript
Australia has hundreds of thousands of people who are homeless. Rents are skyrocketing. They are up by 44 per cent in just the last five years. That’s $10,500 a year on top of the average rental bill. House prices in the capital of Queensland increased 1.8 per cent in just one month—a 22 per cent annual pace. Australians have been lied to and told this is only about supply. They can get away with this because no-one tells Australia how bad demand is. With 1.8 million permanent visa holders and 2.9 million temporary visa holders, we currently have 4.7 million non-citizen visa holders in this country. Is mum and dad having one investment property really causing the housing crisis? Come on. Or is having 4.7 million visa holders in the country outstripping supply? Running this program of mass migration is incredibly profitable for big business, especially our big four banks. This week, one of those banks, Westpac, posted a $7 billion profit.
There are some abusers of negative gearing. It could do with some tweaking. On the whole, however, it’s a minor impact in the scheme of supply and demand. There’s a far bigger problem than mum-and-dad landlords with one house negatively geared. There’s a growing and worrying acceptance of foreign, corporate landlords in Australia. These predatory multinational corporations are backed by investment firms like BlackRock, Vanguard, State Street and First State. They only have one goal, which is to extract as much money as possible from the Australian population through gouged rents and siphon those profits out of the country tax free.
Last year, the Greens joined with the Labor government to give these foreign, corporate landlords a 15 per cent tax cut on the profits they’re sending overseas with the build to rent act. One Nation stood strong on principle and opposed handing foreign corporations a 15 per cent tax break. We couldn’t believe it. The fact is, Australia is still in a full-blown housing crisis. It’s an assault from all sides on nearly every aspect of supply and demand. One Nation took to the election the most comprehensive policy to fix the housing crisis of any party. Many Australians agreed, which is part of the reason why we doubled our number of senators.
Here’s our comprehensive plan on housing. End the mass migration program, which places huge strain on housing while only 0.6 per cent of migrants are building workers. We will establish people’s mortgages—30-year, fixed interest rate mortgages issued by the government, similar to government bonds and replacing the government’s Housing Australia Future Fund. We will allow people with HECS debts to roll their debts into their people’s mortgage, allowing them to get into a home loan that the banks would never give them, at a cheaper rate. We will ban foreign purchases and foreign ownership of Australian housing and farmland. The Liberals and Labor have talked about a two-year pause on foreign buyers of new houses. Come on; be fair dinkum! One Nation will extend that to new and existing houses, making the ban permanent while forcing current foreign owners to sell to an Australian within two years. We will implement a GST moratorium on building materials, cutting 10 per cent off the materials cost of building a home. We will conduct a root-and-branch gutting of the National Construction Code, especially changes that force every single new home to be completely NDIS wheelchair compliant, adding an estimated $50,000 to the cost of building each home. We will allow a person’s superannuation account to invest in their home, closing the deposit gap while protecting their superannuation. We will boost the Australian timber industry to make housing materials as cheap as possible. And we will deport—remigrate—200,000 people.
One Nation’s comprehensive plan takes care of all aspects of supply, demand, financing and cost. Only One Nation has a comprehensive housing plan.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/UO0STeRf1zI/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-11-20 16:51:142025-11-20 16:51:18Affordable Homes for Australians, Not Foreign Corporations
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.
I thank Senator McGrath for this motion, which One Nation supports. This government is flooding the country with new arrivals who need a bed to sleep in. Home construction is 500,000 homes behind, and this figure is not reducing; it’s growing. A sensible party would simply impose a moratorium on new buildings until housing catches up. That’s One Nation policy.
This, though, is not a sensible government nor an honest government. The roundtable received a proposal to force Australians with spare bedrooms to take in new arrivals or pay a penalty tax. Elderly Australians living in their family homes, with children moved out and bedrooms galore, are terrified of this idea. Current best practice is for the elderly to stay in their homes for as long as possible. Now they are to be turfed out through taxation and forced into retirement homes. In answer to my question on this topic to Minister Gallagher yesterday, I did hear a qualified denial. The minister did not rule the idea out, though; rather she used vague words like, ‘The proposal was not raised while I was in the room.’ Really? That’s not a clear statement. The idea must be dismissed and never considered again.
I would raise this simple question: what’s a bedroom? Does ‘bedroom’ mean any room that can be used to house a new arrival? Studies, rumpuses, garages turned into granny flats? Who will make these decisions? SBS, who promoted the idea, has clearly never watched Doctor Zhivago, a movie depicting life under Soviet rule, which depicted this very thing. The Soviets actually did this, so it’s an idea with precedent. Will the government include compulsion in addition to taxation? Will all those Australians who are buying their homes under Help to Buy or government guaranteed mortgages, who have the government as the shareholder or guarantor on the mortgage, be forced to comply? Will they? Who knows, because no-one is saying. They won’t deny it.
I call on the Prime Minister to rule out any new taxes on the family home, including land tax, bedroom tax and grave tax.
https://img.youtube.com/vi/ON3w73M5OnU/maxresdefault.jpg7201280Senator Malcolm Robertshttps://www.malcolmrobertsqld.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/One-Nation-Logo1-300x150.pngSenator Malcolm Roberts2025-11-04 13:11:582025-11-04 13:12:08Hands Off Our Homes
I’m an immigrant, and I love this country deeply. Like many others who marched in the March for Australia, I came here legally, embraced the culture, and built a life as part of the Australian community—not separate from it. We weren’t born here, but we’re proud Australians.
What we’re standing up against isn’t immigration itself—it’s immigration without assimilation. We’re tired of politicians pushing mass immigration without thinking about the social and economic hardship it causes. We’re fed up with being called racist or hateful just for wanting to protect our way of life, our jobs, and our communities.
Australians aren’t against migrants — we’re against policies that prioritise foreign workers over Aussie ones, that erode secure employment, and that replace permanent jobs with insecure subcontracting. Labor used to stand for workers, but now they’ve abandoned the working class in favour of globalist agendas, predatory billionaires and their corporate interests.
The truth is diversity is not our strength. Our strength lies in people from all over the world with different backgrounds coming together as Australians, respecting our laws, values, and culture. That’s the Australia I believe in – the Australia I marched for. If you love this country, if you want to contribute and be part of a united Australia, then join us.
Transcript
Immigration without assimilation is an invasion.’ So read the T-shirt that a lovely, older immigrant lady wore in the Cairns March for Australia on Sunday. Many of the tens of thousands of Australians who marched for Australia on Sunday were not born here. Like me, they’re immigrants. I spoke with marchers from all over the world, of every religion and skin colour. They are wonderful Australians who came here as migrants legally, who love this country and who have built a life in Australia, not on top of it—not those who impose their religion, their culture, their intolerance and their perpetual hate onto Australians and who marchers rightly criticised. Marchers criticised politicians and others who hate this country so much that they seek to flood Australia with like-minded arrivals to destroy our culture and to carve off religious and ethnic enclaves in order to divide us. The Australian public are not against immigrants. We’ve had a gutful of excessive, mass immigration—a simple distinction that the unhinged rants from Greens and Labor senators yesterday were designed to cover up. I appreciate the far left in this country have disappeared up their own nobility complex and have completely abandoned any pretence of democracy, decency or civil discourse. Vile, unhinged abuse devoid of facts—indeed, devoid of any relevance to the motion I presented yesterday—doesn’t work on One Nation. It doesn’t work on our supporters and it doesn’t work on those who attended the many marches for Australia. Our beautiful country can embrace and lift up only so many people before the economic and social costs cause the elastic of society to snap back, which is the process you’re watching with confused looks on your faces and fear in your eyes.
The immigration debate is not an argument about someone’s past nationality, religion or skin colour. It’s an argument about wealth, opportunity and security. Former Labor prime minister Julia Gillard knew this to be true. In an address to the University of Western Sydney in March 2013, then prime minister Gillard promised Labor would ‘stop foreign workers being put at the front of the queue, with Australian workers at the back’. She said:
We will support your job and put Aussie workers first.
What a difference 10 years makes! Now those foreign workers are being advanced to the front using DEI, and Australian workers are being told not to apply. Often, the application is not even for a job with secure employment, an award or guaranteed conditions. In the new Australia, jobs are now a subcontracting arrangement requiring an Australian Business Number, an ABN. A microbusiness with a single customer—the same business which used to employ Australians on permanent employment, with awards protecting wages and working conditions—is no more. In just 10 years, the Greens have pushed Labor so far to the left they have abandoned their working-class base, embracing a UN/World Economic Forum sustainability agenda which gives their members less and foreign, predatory billionaires more.
It’s no surprise that marches included members of the AWU, the CFMEU, the ETU and other unions who’ve seen their wealth, opportunity and place in Australia be reduced. Labor has failed to defend Australian workers from employment arrangements that destroy the standard of living of everyday Australians. Instead of listening to the public, rightly complaining, Labor came into this place yesterday and ranted against One Nation. They name-called, lied and misrepresented out of confusion and fear. One Nation has a message for this government: go back to your masters at the World Economic Forum, go back to your owners—the world’s predatory billionaires—and tell them Australia has had enough. We’re not going to be ground zero for your evil plan to tear apart Australian society, culture and cohesion and rebuild in the image of the World Economic Forum. Everyday Australians want our country back. Our success is inevitable because our Australia, built on family, on community and, yes, on national pride, is paradise compared to your ugly vision of a society based on an ever-changing agenda relying on intimidation and bullying.
Harvard political scientist Robert Putnam found that the greater the diversity in a community the less they volunteer, the less they give to charity and the less they work on community projects. A massive new study based on detailed interviews of nearly 30,000 people across America supports those who marched on Sunday. In the most diverse communities, neighbours trust one another about half as much as they do in the most homogeneous settings. The study found that virtually all measures of civic health are lower in more diverse settings. Ask the five tight monocultures—Japan, Taiwan, China, South Korea and Singapore. Diversity is not our strength. Our strength is Australians who’ve come here from all over the world, with different races and religions providing different perspectives on life, working together as a community of Australians old and new. One Nation welcomes anyone who loves our country, who wants to join in and who wants to pull their weight, follow our laws and, in so doing, lift themselves up. If that’s the Australia you love, please join One Nation and help us reverse the decline of our beautiful country.
Australia’s migration program is failing to deliver the skilled workers we were promised.
An analysis shows that in 2023-24 only 12% of permanent migration spots went to skilled workers — and 0.09% to tradespeople. Meanwhile, the housing crisis worsens.
The system is broken!
— Senate Estimates
Transcript
Senator ROBERTS: Thank you for appearing tonight. I want to go to an analysis of the migration program—it’s an analysis done by Emeritus Professor Peter McDonald and Professor Alan Gamlen, who are affiliated with the Migration Hub at the ANU—and also a comment on their analysis by Leith van Onselen, the economist, who says of the report:
Australia’s immigration system is unskilled and broken.
They say, ‘In 2023-24, the permanent migration program’—185,000—’delivered just 166 tradespeople, negligible against national needs.’ The report also shows that just 12 per cent of places in the nation’s permanent migration program are going to skilled workers. Instead, many of these place are being allocated to members of skilled workers’ families. Zero point zero nine per cent of new permanent residents are in the trades. Australians have been promised that the migration program is to fill skills shortages to fix the housing crisis, and that’s being used to justify hundreds of thousands of arrivals—millions over the last few years. Yet now we know that just 166 tradies arrived in one year. Why is your department failing to make sure the people who are granted permanent places in Australia are actually skilled? Senator Watt: Maybe the place to start, Senator, is what figures the department has around—there was a little discussion about this earlier in a session you weren’t here for, but maybe that’s a decent place to start.
Ms Sharp: Certainly. Thanks, Minister. Going very specifically to primary visa applicants who work in the construction sector, in 2024-25 there were 15,524 skilled visas granted to workers in construction.
Senator ROBERTS: Excuse me—what was the total migration that year?
Mr Willard: 185,000.
Senator ROBERTS: 185,000?
Ms Sharp: That was the permanent program, Senator, yes. Of that permanent program, 8,741 were skilled workers in the construction sector.
Senator ROBERTS: That’s about four per cent.
Senator Watt: But very different to the numbers you were just quoting, Senator.
Senator ROBERTS: Depends how they’re classified, Minister.
Senator Watt: Well, I think you gave a figure of 150-something—
Senator ROBERTS: 166.
Senator Watt: Yes, whereas the actual number is over 8,000—so, pretty big difference.
Senator ROBERTS: We can argue about the accuracy because it depends on the classification, but keep going.
Mr Willard: Senator, I’d add that the permanent program—it’s roughly two-thirds allocated to the skilled program. You are correct that the skilled program includes the primary applicants and their immediate family members, and there were 132,148 places delivered in that skilled program in 2024-25.
Recently in Parliament, Prime Minister Albanese tried to ridicule me, saying “Senator Roberts thinks that build to rent is part of the World Economic Forum’s agenda”‘ before calling it ‘a conspiracy theory. It reminded me of Gandhi’s quote: “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
After One Nation doubled our Senate representation, it seems the PM has moved from ignoring to ridiculing — and in doing so, he engaged in misinformation.
Let’s be clear: the WEF’s push to end single-family homeownership is real. Their “you’ll own nothing and be happy” slogan isn’t a conspiracy—it’s a stated goal. The Albanese government’s nature-positive plan borrows heavily from WEF’s SUB (sustainable urban policy), after meeting with the new WEF co-chair Larry Fink of BlackRock.
Everyday Australians—especially our hardworking farmers—are being ignored while billionaires get the PM’s attention. No wonder he was booed at the Bendigo bush summit and chased out of town by farmers on tractors.
Labor is no longer the party of the worker. It’s the party of predatory billionaires destroying our country for profit, power and control. We’re going to need more tractors.
Transcript
There’s a quote from Gandhi which reads: ‘First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.’ I was reminded of that quote last Thursday when Prime Minister Albanese said of me in the House of Representatives: ‘Senator Roberts thinks that build to rent is part of the World Economic Forum’s agenda’—cue the spooky music— before calling this ‘a conspiracy theory’. Now, I can understand, after One Nation doubled our senators in the last election, why the Prime Minister would feel the need to move from ignore to ridicule. In trying to engage in ridicule, the Prime Minister only managed to engage in misinformation.
The truth is the World Economic Forum opinion leader, who originated their mission statement ‘You’ll own nothing and be happy’, is the same person who used the stage at the annual World Economic Forum meeting in Davos to call for an end to single-family homeownership. Danish politician Ida Auken advanced his idea as part of the West’s sustainable urban policy, or SUB—as in subhuman. SUB is where the Albanese government took the name and many elements of its nature-positive plan, after meeting with the new World Economic Forum co-chair, BlackRock’s Larry Fink. Our Prime Minister should really be better informed on WEF’s evil agenda—or perhaps he is informed.
One thing’s clear: the world’s predatory billionaires have no trouble getting time with our Prime Minister. The people who can’t are everyday Australians, including our hardworking farmers who put food on our table and who we need more than ever to feed the millions of new Labor arrivals—our farmers who contributed $72 billion in exports last year to feed and clothe the world. No wonder the Prime Minister was booed and heckled while on stage at last week’s Bendigo bush summit and then filmed being chased out of town in the company of farmers on tractors.
Labor is no longer the party of the worker. It’s the party of predatory billionaires destroying our country for profit, power and control. We’re going to need more tractors.
Australia has up to 3.7 million noncitizens—in a population of just 27.4 million.
Hospitals are stretched, housing is unaffordable, and life is more expensive.
Why won’t the government reveal the real number?
Transcript
Not counting tourists, the number of people in Australia today who are not Australian citizens could be as high as 3.7 million. In a country with an estimated population of just 27.4 million people, this huge influx is stretching our hospitals, making housing unaffordable and making life more expensive.
Noncitizens must have a visa to be in Australia. These are split into two categories: permanent residency visas and temporary visas. The latest data from the Department of Home Affairs shows that, excluding the 320,000 tourist and crew visas, there are currently 2.5 million people in Australia on temporary visas. The data on permanent residency visas is not clear; it’s murky. Between 2000 and 2021, three million permanent residency visas were issued to permanent migrants. In 2023, it was estimated that 59 per cent of those three million permanent visa holders have become Australian citizens. As of 2021, that would leave 1.2 million people who have not become citizens and are still on permanent visas, plus any more permanent residents who’ve arrived since 2021. Adding that best estimate of permanent visa holders to the 2.5 million people on temporary visas, we get 3.7 million people who are potentially in the country on visas.
So what’s the real number? How many people are currently in Australia on a permanent visa, and why won’t the government tell Australians? Is it just too embarrassing for the government, after they promised to reduce immigration, to admit how many people in Australia aren’t Australian citizens? My new One Nation colleague Senator Tyron Whitten, Senator for Western Australia, will be asking the government about this number in question time today. In the middle of a housing crisis, the government had better know how many additional people it is letting into our country, undermining our standard of living and way of life.
