Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Housing affordability is a crisis in this country. It's not just that young people can't afford to buy a house it's that people who are in long-term rentals can't afford to stay where they are because their rents are going up so much. A serious crisis in my electorate of Dunkley is where people who are in rental accommodation and the house is being sold, or something is happening that means they can't continue to live there, they can't find anywhere else to live. The cost of rent has skyrocketed in the last 12 months and millions of Australians are paying more just to keep a roof over their head.

We saw on Channel 7 on Saturday night that rent has increased by thousands of dollars a year for so many people. In Frankston, the median cost of rent has increased by $1,650 in the last 12 months. The Grattan Institute, ACOSS and the University of New South Wales have released research which shows that there has been a two-decade shortfall in low-cost housing investment by governments, and this has been exacerbated by the increase in property prices recently—some 22 per cent over the past year. Research shows that by August this year rents were growing by eight per cent, which is the fastest since 2008 and is almost four times the pace of wage growth. In Frankston, Carrum Downs, Skye, Seaford, Langwarrin, Frankston South and Mount Eliza—across my electorate—rents are going up and up and up, and real wages are going backwards.

Everyone is affected by this, but people who have other disadvantages in their life are the ones who are truly badly affected. These are people like Dom from my electorate who lives in Frankston South with his father. Dom is an NDIS participant and his father is on the age pension. They are good people who are struggling to deal with the challenges life has given them. Dom has a motorised bed and chair and relies on a four-wheel walker to get around. He's recently had surgery—times are pretty tough. He and his father have been served an eviction notice because the property they're renting is to be demolished. They're on the critical waitlist for public housing, but they can't find anything in Frankston. There is nothing for them.

In Australia today it is harder to buy a home and harder to rent than it has ever been. People like Dom and Dom's father are experiencing or at risk of homelessness. An age pensioner and an NDIS participant in a wheelchair are at risk of homelessness. It is not good enough, and we cannot continue to accept it in this country. That is why federal Labor has a plan to address our housing affordability and homelessness crisis, to invest in affordable housing and partner with state governments, like the Victorian state government, that also want to do it. We have to do it for people like Dom and his father and people across my electorate.

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