Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Canberra for her question. I know that she has a lot of first home buyers in her electorate and I know that her concern goes not just to the mums and dads and families in her electorate but particularly to some of her constituents with disabilities. We went out to Abbeyfield in her electorate and visited a wonderful facility there with the Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children’s Services as well.

The Australian government is very concerned about the effects of the global financial crisis and we know that many Australians are watching housing markets in the US and elsewhere. Of course, we are not immune to world economic forces, but there are a number of significant differences between Australian housing markets and those overseas, and they include the comparatively strong financial sector here in Australia and the action that the government has taken to make sure that it remains that way. We also have non-conforming loans running at about one per cent in Australia, compared with about 15 per cent in the United States.

A critical difference as well is that we have a shortage of housing rather than an oversupply, as you see in the United States. In fact, Treasury estimates that we have a shortage of about 30,000 homes a year fewer than we should be building to keep up with underlying demand, and many would say that that is a conservative estimate. Indeed, that is one of the reasons that we set up our National Housing Supply Council, a council of eight leading experts in the housing industry to pull together the best evidence to tell us more about the mismatch between supply and demand for housing here in Australia. Just last week I met with the council again to discuss their progress and their views about the pressure points in the housing market here in Australia. We spoke about the affordability problem that continues to be faced by first home buyers, about pressures in the rental market, about the need to improve the efficiency of the housing market and about the implications of the global circumstances on housing supply.

Of course, all of our programs are squarely targeted at meeting these challenges, and housing affordability for first home buyers, for example, is being tackled by our first home saver accounts. We have already delivered on these accounts, a $1.2 billion commitment from the last election, and the response has been first-rate. Indeed, a piece written by Laura Anderson in the Adelaide Advertiser quotes the ANZ as saying:

There has been significant interest, beyond our expectations …

A spokesperson from Members Equity is quoted as saying:

A lot of people are ringing up, particularly parents who realise it is a good mechanism to develop secure savings for their children.

The Commonwealth Bank is quoted as saying the response has been ‘extremely encouraging’. Collecting substantial funds in these new accounts is particularly important at a time when having access to savings is very important in the economy. At the same time, the government has injected substantial funds into the non-bank-lender mortgage market, a move that has been welcomed by economists, by mortgage providers and, of course, by the opposition. We have also had a very substantial amount injected into new measures to stimulate building both in the rental area and for homeownership through our first home saver accounts; our National Rental Affordability Scheme, which will see the building of up to 50,000 new rental properties in coming years; and our Housing Affordability Fund, which will bring down the cost of new homes to purchase. Of course, there are no silver bullets when it comes to housing supply in Australia, but a sensible approach over the long term will certainly help us to meet the challenges ahead.

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