Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

I like the member for Macnamara, but that was five minutes of absolute waffle, five minutes that means nothing. The former government did the most important and significant piece of work for social and affordable housing that any federal government has done by establishing the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. I must say, the Labor Party seem to have wholeheartedly adopted it because of the important work it has done in delivering more than 20,000 social and affordable homes since its inception in 2018.

Importantly, when the pandemic hit we put in place a whole suite of measures. One area where the member for Macnamara was not horribly incorrect was that housing is a spectrum. What we did very proudly and unashamedly was support first home buyers. We supported more than 300,000 into their first home, whether it was through the HomeBuilder grants, which those opposite opposed, or through our home guarantee scheme, under which more than 60,000 people have been able to buy a home with a deposit of as little as five per cent or, for single parents, with as little as two per cent to get into their first home. In addition, we put in place the first home super saver scheme, another policy to help first home buyers turbocharge their savings and get into their first home. Yes, the housing market is a spectrum, and if you can assist people to get into their own homes you take pressure off the entire housing spectrum.

In National Homelessness Week, what have we heard from Labor? Labor have spoken a lot about it. It seems to be that the member for Macnamara has said that the Albanese government will assume responsibility for homelessness. He said that the federal government, under the coalition, saw it as the states' responsibility and that the Albanese government does not. So I assume that they now take responsibility for these things.

But let's look at the measures that they took to the election—a very threadbare agenda, I must say. The first is the Housing Future Fund. Unlike the future funds put in place by the coalition under the great Peter Costello, which were established out of government savings, here the Labor Party are going to borrow $10 billion—borrow it—and put it into the fund. Based on assessments that I've seen, in order to deliver on their 30,000 homes over five years, that would require a return on that investment of more than 24 per cent annually, or around the 20 per cent mark annually. I don't know whether members opposite have looked at equities or those sorts of products that the Housing Future Fund would be investing in. Do they seriously believe that that $10 billion is going to generate a 20 per cent return each and every year in order to deliver their 30,000 homes over five years? The member for Macnamara said, 'We're going to build 30,000 homes.' He didn't give the sort of minor detail that that's over five years. That's less per year than we delivered in social and affordable housing when we were in government through the National Finance and Investment Corporation.

So, the Labor Party has gone to the election saying, 'We're going to build fewer homes per year to support social and affordable housing than the coalition government, but we've got this great plan to do it, and we're gonna take responsibility from the states to do it.' What utter tosh from the government! The government is now saying they are taking responsibility, but that means they own every problem, that means they have to work with, in many cases, their state colleagues, who have presided over housing disasters. I mean, the member for Macnamara is a member of the Victorian Labor Party, which has been in office for a very long time, and we see the housing queues in Victoria longer than ever—from this very progressive, bleeding-heart Labor Party in Victoria: the longest queues we've ever seen. What has Labor been doing?

No one believes that this federal Labor government is going to do anything other than spout motherhood statements—the five minutes of guff we got from the member for Macnamara: it was just all motherhood statements, 'We've got a plan and we're going to do this and we're going to do that.' They opposed every single measure we put in place to support people to get into their homes. We are unashamedly a party that supports homeownership but also supports those who, through no fault of their own, need a secure roof over their head. That's what we delivered through the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. I'm pleased the Labor Party is adopting that model, but let's not kid ourselves. The Labor Party has nothing other than motherhood statements.

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