Bert Van Manen (Forde, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Much as I'd like to take up the challenge offered by the Leader of the Opposition, it's interesting in this space to reflect on a little bit of history. I think the member for Rankin has stepped out of the chamber, but I grew up in Waterford West, in the middle of my electorate, and have seen the development of the city of Logan over the last 50 years. My first job, interestingly, was at the Commonwealth Bank at Woodridge, more commonly known today as Logan Central. But I still refer to it by its original name of Woodridge, because that's what it was when I grew up. Every second Thursday, when people got their Centrelink payment, they would come in to bank their cheque—as it was in those days; it wasn't electronic—but at the same time they would pay their Housing Commission payments. Depending on your arrangement with the Housing Commission, there were two different slips. One was for those who were paying rent, and the other one was for those who were in, effectively, a 'rent to buy' scheme with the Housing Commission. The interesting thing with those old Housing Commission homes—and I see this across my electorate, in areas like Waterford West, which the member for Rankin helpfully mentioned prior to his exit from the chamber, or Loganlea or Eagleby or parts of Beenleigh—is that the people who were in the 'rent to buy' scheme now actually own those properties. With the properties that are now owned, you can notice the difference. Those people are starting to renovate those properties. They're starting to upgrade them. They're quite different, maybe, to the Housing Commission property next door that's still a rental property. There is a clear distinction.

For some reason, the state government, whatever its political persuasion, has not seen fit to replace the stock of public housing that has now been purchased by those tenants and reinvest into public housing with new properties to replace the ones that have been taken out of the rental stock. That is in part the reason—at least in my part of Queensland—why we are seeing issues with lack of availability of public housing.

I'm very proud of the actions by this government in the budget and over the last 12 months in seeking to ensure that Australians, if they so desire, have the capacity to purchase their own home. We know that the housing market in large part is driven—immigration aside—by first home buyers entering the market and ensuring that they can then move up the property ladder. Whether they buy a more expensive house or they downsize and do some other things is up to them, but it creates movement in the property market. In addition, with the HomeBuilder grant, we've seen a lot of first home owners actually building houses and adding to the housing stock. I've spoken with many first home buyers that have loved the opportunity to build the home that they have so desired to move into and get out of the rental market. This, for me, is the key measure in this particular bill, the Family Home Guarantee. Now, I know and I'll acknowledge that it will not help all single parents.

Debate interrupted.

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