On Tuesday, 13 October 2026 I spoke on the government's Home Ownership and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026.
You can read my full contribution below or in the official Parliamentary record of proceedings (Hansard) here.
I rise to make my contribution on the Home Ownership and Other Legislation Amendment Bill 2026. It is worth saying at the outset that I do not intend to oppose the bill because it does, in fact, tidy up some oversights in the initial proposals from the government. I will not speak entirely against the bill because it is important to acknowledge that. I will not vote against the bill because people are so genuinely desperate for any assistance they can get to ensure they have stable housing.
However, I am as sure as eggs not going to stand here and applaud the LNP and Labor for their most recent attempts to throw us a bone. It is vitally important that we get on the record that demand-side policies like this are nothing more than a false promise from governments that cannot bring themselves to do anything that might dent the profits of the private development sector and governments that are not willing to make the investment in public and social housing that we so desperately need and have needed for years. These are false promises that simply cannot fix the busted housing system and the market as it is at the moment.
I will give a bit of an overview of the LNP’s Boost to Buy policy. It was initially opened up with 500 places on offer in December 2025. After 11,000 applicants expressed interest in the first round— 11,000 applicants for those 500 initial places—we then saw another 500 places open up in April 2026.
Those two 500-places releases give us our ‘1,000 dreams’. How could any of us forget the Treasurer and his budget making that starry-eyed proclamation about the ‘1,000 dreams’ Queenslanders could look forward to realising? The scheme requires a minimum two per cent deposit and a maximum $1 million home value. You have to meet the income thresholds. You have to be a first home buyer. The Queensland
government equity contribution is 25 per cent for existing homes or 30 per cent for new homes. Importantly, those first home buyers need to remember that the government will recoup its share of the gains and also would bear its share of the losses. Nonetheless, first home buyers stand to lose some of their equity at whatever point they sell out of this scheme.
Let’s pause for a moment to reflect on how it is all going at this stage. As at estimates, just a couple of months ago now, we learned that only 115 homes have settled under the scheme, and there are still regional allocations under the scheme that remain unclaimed. We have gone from ‘1,000 dreams’, if that was a big number to start with, down to 115 homes so far. It is frankly laughable. Meanwhile, we have federal Labor’s Help to Buy scheme, which opens up 10,000 places for the entire country, mind you. It still has the minimum two per cent deposit. You cannot fall below the income thresholds. The Australian government proposes to contribute 30 per cent of equity for existing homes and 40 per cent for new builds. Again, when you sell, the government will recuperate its share of any capital gains or losses on that property.
For all of the toing and froing between the government and opposition in this debate about who is more trash on housing, let’s pause to reflect on the fact that these two schemes—Help to Buy and Boost to Buy—are effectively identical schemes being proposed by Labor and the LNP at the federal and state level. Neither of those schemes can possibly be the solution to fix the housing market in the state that it is in at the moment. I repeat: these are demand-side policies that cannot fix the problem and will only drive house prices up, and that is exactly what these two and five per cent deposit schemes have done. From 2025-26 median house prices in Brisbane rose 17.4 per cent. It is staggering. The median house price is over $1 million. Remember that the criteria to even participate in the scheme is that the house cannot be worth $1 million or more.
Then there is the hysteria: ‘I thought the housing market was crashing.’ This investor panic is overblown, but it also skims over a really crucial point in the current landscape. Any price drops we are seeing are largely concentrated or basically limited to the upper end of the market because there are still so many people at that lower end struggling to get their foot in the door, struggling to get their first home.
Ultimately both of the major parties’ policies through these demand-side grant schemes and shared equity schemes are bandaids on bullet wounds. The demand for entry-level houses will continue to increase and it will continue to push prices higher. Those first home buyers who are lucky enough to win this lottery will see their purchasing power increase but they will still in almost every case be carrying a crippling mortgage and they will lose the government’s share of equity when they ultimately sell, leaving them worse off in the long run.
The bottom line here is that neither Labor nor the LNP are interested in seeing house prices go down. The housing minister, on my recollection, will not even tell us whether he thinks they should. We ultimately do not even need to hear their answer. We just need to look at their policies. They make absolutely clear that they want to see house prices continue to rise from the completely unattainable and unaffordable levels they are at already.
We still have a state rental system that allows unlimited rent increases, no security of leasing and all of that in the context where it is nigh on impossible for some people to buy a home. We still have a complete free for all on Airbnbs and other short-stay accommodation. We have no consequences— no cost—for developers or investors who choose to leave perfectly good homes and land vacant because it suits their personal financial purposes at any point in time. There is no penalty for wasting perfectly good homes while families sleep in tents in parks. It is disgraceful. Handouts for the private market that got us into this mess continue while we are still seeing a pitiful investment—a woeful underinvestment—in public and social housing.
It even goes further than that. The Deputy Premier has directed developers to remove the affordable housing components of their applications—550 homes earmarked as affordable as part of a development of 2,500 homes will now return to the market rate. We have to remember this: when the major parties pretend that their first home owners grants are fixing or going anywhere near addressing this crisis, they still want house prices to go up faster than wages can catch up. They have no interest in correcting that disparity between increases in house prices and wage growth. Instead, this government’s priority is making it lawful to once again receive corrupting donations from developers— from their mates in the development industry who are working within the framework of Economic Development Queensland, which is now being run by their mate, the former LNP councillor and federal member for my area. How he could possibly be considered qualified to be in charge of development for the state is absolutely beyond me.
It is a disgrace that they are putting jobs for mates and developer donations to plump up their campaign war chests ahead of Queenslanders having a safe place to live. Shame on them! Shame on anyone who is not prepared to take real steps towards limiting the financial power and the political influence of massive development companies that are making profits hand over fist at the expense of ordinary people. Shame on anyone who is not prepared to offer renters in this state genuine security and real rights, because we are not going to see this property market turn around overnight. We need real rights for renters—caps on rent increases and a genuine end to no-ground evictions so people can live their lives with stability and security so that their kids can know that they will have a safe place to live and that they can genuinely settle in and put roots down in their community. At the moment we are seeing nothing more than the continued flourishing of self-interest from this LNP government and their developer mates.