Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

We said we would embrace three major new policies. I have news for those opposite who interject: each one of those policies has been implemented in government. There have been $2.2 billion worth of housing affordability investments by this government, against zero investment in these areas by the previous government. Under this government there is a Minister for Housing. Under the previous government there was no housing minister. Under this government there is an investment in First Home Savers Accounts. Under the previous government there was no such investment at all. Under this government there is investment in a new National Rental Affordability Scheme. On the part of those opposite there was no such investment.

Today we took this one step further by releasing the guidelines for the new Housing Affordability Fund. The Housing Affordability Fund is more than half a billion dollars strong and it is designed to do one thing: to provide a partnership with local government and others across Australia to bring down the on-costs for a new house in a new housing development across the country. If you have a participating local authority, we would seek to do two things. If they wish to partner with the government in the new Housing Affordability Fund, then the way in which we propose to do it is as follows. Firstly, if that partnership occurs, the amount which we invest with that local authority will represent a parallel drawdown in the infrastructure costs which are passed on by the local authority to a new homebuyer. That is one thing, but the second is that the other real increases in costs which are faced by new homebuyers out in new housing developments are also what are called holding costs or holding charges—in other words, charges which arise from delays in the development approval process. This is the second part of the proposal contained in this new fund. If we enter into an agreement with a local authority somewhere, the other part of the deal is to draw down the delay in the development approval process and again to draw down further the additional costs passed on to the homebuyer. Put those two things together and our calculation is that new homebuyers could be up to $20,000 per house better off. That is a practical step forward on the part of this government. It is a half-billion dollar program. It does not solve all the problems in housing affordability, but it is a program which has been warmly welcomed by the industry, including the Housing Industry Association.

The other thing I would say is this: if you also look at this in the context of the other measures we have put forward on housing—$623 million for a National Rental Affordability Scheme to encourage the building of up to 50,000 new affordable rental units of accommodation as well as the $1.2 billion investment in the First Home Saver Accounts, on which the Treasurer is currently engaged in final negotiations with the banks—what you have are three programs on housing affordability, more than $2 billion worth of activity, out there in the marketplace for the use of Australia’s homebuyers, or those who wish to invest in affordable rental housing and those who wish to save for their home. These are practical actions by a government getting on with the job of putting real programs out there to help first home buyers and other homebuyers deal with the challenge of declining house affordability.

We have said many times in debate in this House in recent months that cost of living pressures for working families, for pensioners and for carers have been going through the roof in recent years. Housing affordability—

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