Housing Australia Amendment (Accountability) Bill 2025; Third Reading

Summary

The government can currently change the Home Guarantee Scheme — a program that helps people buy homes with smaller deposits — without Parliament being able to stop those changes. In August 2025, the government made major changes to this scheme (removing income limits and property price caps), but Parliament had no power to review or reject them. This amendment makes all future changes to the Housing Australia Investment Mandate under the Housing Australia Act 2018 subject to parliamentary oversight, meaning Parliament can now disallow (reject) any directions the government issues that significantly alter housing schemes. This matters because it shifts control of major housing policy from the executive government alone back to elected members of Parliament, ensuring big changes to schemes affecting home buyers go through proper democratic scrutiny.

What happens at this stage

The final vote in this chamber on the bill as a whole, after all amendments have been considered. If it passes, the bill moves to the other chamber to go through the same process. If both chambers have already agreed to identical text, the bill proceeds directly to Royal Assent.

Next: The other chamber, which runs the same process from First Reading, or Royal Assent if both chambers have already agreed