Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I speak often in this place and elsewhere about my mission to make Fisher the place to be for education, employment and retirement, but I don't often explain what lies behind that statement. At the heart of my mission for Fisher are the hopes and aspirations that I had when I moved to the Sunshine Coast 25 years ago. They are the hopes and aspirations that are shared today by the thousands of Australians, young and old, who are moving into my electorate as we speak. People on the Sunshine Coast want to be able to get the best education for themselves and their children, they want to be able to get a meaningful and rewarding job in a career of their choice, and they want to be able to retire in comfort and dignity with the highest quality health care. Importantly, they want to be able to do all of that without having to leave our community and move to a big city. That's why I want to help make the Sunshine Coast the place to be for education, employment and retirement. I want people to be born on the Sunshine Coast or to move here and to be able to make that long-term commitment to our region, to live on the coast, work, put their roots down, make a contribution and help us build a prosperous and healthy community. That's what the people who come to the coast want and that is what I want to help them achieve for themselves and their families.

For that to happen, the people of Fisher need to have the opportunity to fulfil one of the most important of their aspirations—that is, to own their own home. For most Australians, home ownership is a fundamental part of their financial security and, indeed, their life plan. It is the rock on which many things are built. For many years, as you are aware, Mr Deputy Speaker Howarth, I was a builder, and I have seen the effect that owning a first home can have on a young family: the sense of achievement and the feeling of security and of belonging to a community. I want that for everyone in Fisher, for those who live here now and those who will join us in the coming years.

Current projections suggest that we are likely to see more than 200,000 new residents moving to the Sunshine Coast by 2035. There is a transformative program of housing construction already underway. At Bokarina beach, Palmview, Beerwah east and at the two very large developments at Aura and Harmony, the construction of tens of thousands of new houses is under way. At Harmony, near Palmview, accommodation for as many as 17,000 new residents is being built, while at Aura, near Caloundra, 20,000 homes will house 50,000 new Sunshine Coasters over the next 30-odd years. According to the developer, Stockland, 70 per cent of those living in Aura will be owner-occupiers and 45 per cent of them will be new, or first, home buyers. Aura is a great example of how hardworking aspirational Australians can get out of the rent cycle and make a start in growing their family's prosperity for themselves and for future generations. Like Harmony and the other developments going on around the coast, Aura offers house-and-land packages targeted specifically at affordability, with prices well below the region's median house price.

Thousands of young families are taking up these opportunities and getting a foot on the housing ladder. Forty per cent of buyers to date are key workers like nurses, police officers and teachers. Some are even pest control operators, Mr Deputy Speaker.

See this speech in context