Senate backs housing accountability

The Senate has passed the Coalition’s bill to bring accountability to the Housing Australia hellhole.

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The Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025 was passed with the support of the Senate crossbench on Thursday morning. It was the first private senators bill to pass the Senate in two years. The bill amends the Housing Australia Act 2018 to provide that directions about Housing Australia’s functions are subject to disallowance.

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We have a major problem in this country with the delegation of authority to Ministers. In too many cases, Ministers make laws without any reference to the elected assembly, otherwise known as the Parliament of Australia. 

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For example, the government radically and materially changed the Home Guarantee Scheme (5% deposits) by stripping means testing and place caps from the scheme without any Parliamentary oversight. 

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In this particular case, we see a targeted scheme for government mortgage insurance going from a product which was available to lower income earners now being made available to any prospective first home owner—no income cap, no cap on places. The result we've seen since 1 October 2025, when these changes were made operative, is a big upshot in entry-level house prices.

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The Housing Minister has god-like powers which the Senate has voted to strip. This bill guarantees that Australia’s Parliament retains oversight and control over legislative functions of Housing Australia—which is now a property developer and massive insurer. 

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This government is obsessed with secrecy and loves doing things without Parliamentary oversight or review. It is the same government that wants to gut the FOI laws. After having presided over the worst compliance record of freedom of information rules since the Keating government and after having flouted the Senate orders for the production of documents, they still want to gut FOI rules. How low can you go? 

I thank the Senate and look forward to the House of Representatives debate. 

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