Today in Parliament, Abigail successfully passed an amendment to enforce ministerial transparency within the Housing Amendment Bill 2025, reinforcing The Greens' commitment to social housing investment, accountability, and a comprehensive approach to addressing the housing crisis.

Abigail said:

On behalf of The Greens, I contribute to debate on the Housing Amendment Bill 2025 and indicate our support for the bill. The Greens spokesperson for housing, renters and homelessness, the member for Newtown, Jenny Leong, will deliver the bulk of The Greens' response to the bill. I will touch briefly on the Treasury aspects and give a few introductory comments, and Jenny Leong will deal with most of the bill in the Legislative Assembly. I understand that there were some hiccups with the way Homes NSW was established, and the way that came about is unfortunate.

Fundamentally, The Greens believe that more things should sit on the capital side of budgetary spending when it is an investment in something that ends up as an asset for the government. For many years, we have been pushing for more things to also be dealt with in that way, particularly investment in social programs that we know are going to have a long-term positive impact on finances, but unfortunately the rules are against us at this point. It remains a goal for budgeting beyond just the next few years and well into the future.

The housing crisis is urgent. The Greens have been banging on about it for a long time. We are in Parliament to help get houses built. I keep saying to Labor members that we are here to help them when we have the same policy goals and when we are doing things in the same way. We are really keen to help, and we are not going to beat Labor up when it does the right thing. The Greens are very pleased to see a lot more social housing being built and to see that being done without selling things off to the private sector and relying too heavily on the private sector to get us out of a mess the private sector is largely responsible for.

The Greens have spoken a lot in the House about the need for a holistic approach to dealing with the housing crisis and that supply is just one small part of it. But the supply of social housing is an incredibly important part of solving the housing crisis, and so we are pleased to facilitate money getting out the door. It is unfortunate that money has not gone out already but, from speaking with the Minister's office and Treasury, I understand that has not led to any significant delays in the spending of the money highlighted in the 2023-24 budget. I thank the Minister for Housing and the Treasurer for giving us that expertise to draw from and question.

The Greens have a couple of outstanding concerns. The first is about moving assets from government department to government department. We have sought assurances that this will be the spending of new money. We do not want to see the amount of money that was pledged towards social housing in the budget effectively given to other departments in order to scoop up their land and then build on those properties. Rather than it being consideration for the value of that land, we would like to see that amount actually spent on the building of the homes on that land that then gets acquired from the other government departments. We look forward to the actual buying of more private land in future years in order to add to the government's assets.

Finally, The Greens are keen to see more transparency and accountability around exactly where the money is going so we can very clearly understand how much new public land is being brought in and the net new houses that are being built. We have a couple of amendments to deal with those two concerns, which we will be moving in Committee of the Whole. With those comments, I rest. The Greens will support the bill.

Later on in the debate, Abigail moved the following amendment:

I move The Greens amendment No. 1 on sheet c2025‑031C:

No. 1 Dealing with property

Page 3, Schedule 1[4], proposed section 35B. Insert after line 18—

(2) Despite subsection (1), the Minister must not dispose of property described in subsection (3) unless—

• • a proposal for the disposal is tabled in each House of Parliament, and
  • after the proposal has been tabled, a resolution has passed both Houses that the disposal be carried out.

(3) For subsection (2), the following property is described—

• • land on which public housing is situated,
  • land on which public housing was previously situated,

Example— land where public housing buildings have been demolished or have ceased to be used as public housing

• • buildings comprising public housing.

As was flagged during the second reading debate, The Greens have some concerns around the transparency and accountability of what is being proposed and also in relation to futureproofing against a future government that may not be as keen on public housing and keeping public land in public hands. For those reasons, we drafted the two Greens amendments; I am dealing with the first one now. The idea is effectively to ensure not only that there is an ability to see what is happening but also that the Minister does not dispose of land on which public housing is situated or was previously situated, or even buildings comprising public housing, without first tabling the details of that disposal and having it brought to the Parliament's attention so that it can be negated by Parliament in certain circumstances. I understand that there have been discussions between my colleague the member for Newtown and the Minister in relation to this and that those discussions may progress. But the intention of the amendment is to really ensure that we do not end up with masses of public housing or public land being sold, particularly under a future government. I commend the amendment to the Committee.

The amendment was negatived.

Abigail then moved a second amendment:

I move The Greens amendment No. 2 on sheet c2025‑031C:

No. 2 Ministerial statement to Parliament

Page 5, Schedule 1[4]. Insert after line 6—

35H Minister to report to Parliament

(1) The Minister must, for each 12–month period commencing 1 July, prepare a statement to Parliament about the Minister's activities to support housing development and achieve housing targets in New South Wales.

(2) The statement must include all of the following—

• • details about the activities carried out by the Minister in the exercise of the Minister's functions under, or conferred by, this Act during the period,
  • details about other related, or relevant, activities carried out by the Minister in the exercise of the Minister's functions under, or conferred by, this Act during the period,
  • a report about progress in implementing Government policies and plans relevant to housing development and targets,
  • an assessment of the Minister's activities in supporting the implementation of the Government policies and plans relevant to housing development and targets.

(3) The Minister must ensure a copy of the statement is tabled in each House of Parliament no later than 12 months after the last statement was tabled.

(4) The Minister must ensure the statement is made publicly available on a NSW Government website no later than 7 days after being tabled in Parliament.

Requiring a yearly statement of the Minister's activities under this Act is a crucial step to all of the data gathering that members in this place like to do. Then we would be able to take an informed approach towards housing policy and plans, and work out what we need to do and where, basically providing extra transparency when it comes to the use of public money. We feel that there is not really sufficient oversight of the measures for housing development and the meeting of targets in the State. Again, this is designed to try to bring us all in to work together to solve this problem. By requiring a 12‑monthly statement to be made to this House, detailing the Minister's functions and everything that has been done under the Act, it will allow for that extra transparency and for us to advocate where needed.

I think it is similar to other statements that we asked for in the recent Transport Administration Amendment Bill 2024, which came to this House last year. It is also similar to the creative statement, like a housing statement to Parliament. I think this is in everyone's interests. To be honest, I am quite positive that the first one of these statements will actually be a good news story. I commend the amendment to the Committee, and I hope that members will support it.

The amendment was agreed to.

Read the debate in Hansard here.

18 February 2025