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

It is interesting to hear the government talking about a first home owner boost and the opposition talking about extending something. I thought they were now opposed to the Economic Security Strategy. They are opposed to it now. They want to extend something that they are out in the community trashing, saying that it is having no practical effect on employment. It is absolutely extraordinary. After 10 years of no action in housing, they are now talking about extending our measures at the same time as they are out in the community trashing those same measures. To get back to Andrew Hanlon, he said on the ABC:

It is certainly clear that demand for housing finance has been in recovery for five months. And it comes as no surprise, given the change in interest rates and the federal government’s incentive for first home buyers.

Of course, that is leading to strong employment outcomes in the building sector and, we heard last week, in the banking sector. But as the Adelaide Advertiser said in its editorial on Saturday:

Helping first-home buyers into the market has a multiplier effect. Homeowners are more likely than renters to spend money on gardening, furniture, hardware, white goods, carpets, paints, security systems and a myriad of other products.

Of course, our action does not end with the first home owner boost. We are building 20,000 new social housing dwellings and we are doing substantial repairs to 10,000 dwellings and minor repairs to almost 40,000 dwellings. All of those measures support building jobs. In coming weeks I expect to announce the first new construction projects under the Nation Building and Jobs Plan to build at least 2,300 new homes. By August this year, we will have completed the tender process for stage 3 of the funding for completely new homes to be built, with $5.3 billion worth of investment from the federal government.

Project bids are already coming in from around the country. Less than six weeks after the Nation Building and Jobs Plan was announced, the government have been working with the states and territories. We have started the ball rolling on the largest tender and procurement process for social housing in the history of this nation. It is not business as usual. We have said to the states and territories that we expect them to work with builders and developers to look at what they have in the pipeline and proportions of new developments to be bought for social housing. We want to see 75 per cent of all of that work completed by the end of next year.

The first home owners boost, the new social housing initiative and all of these other programs support jobs for builders, carpenters, plumbers, electricians, architects, project managers, bricklayers, tilers, carpet layers, concreters and plasterers; and they also support the industries that supply the materials, including bricks, timber, carpet, windows and whitegoods. All of those employment outcomes are because of our spending, our first home owners boost and our social housing initiative.

See this speech in context