Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It's abundantly clear that Australia is facing one of the worst housing crises in our country's history. We have millions of renters facing some of the worst rental stress they've seen in their lives. In fact, we know that rents have increased seven times faster than wages since the pandemic began. We know that mortgage holders, who were encouraged to take on significant debt under the promise that interest rates wouldn't increase over this period, are now facing skyrocketing mortgage repayments. We know that right now there is a need for over half a million social homes. We know the social housing waiting list alone, which continues to be restricted by government criteria, is now 163,500 people. There are also over a hundred thousand homeless people in this country. We know that it will now take 11 years for the average person to save a deposit on a home, and that's only going to get worse. And that's before you take into account all the other debt, low wages and other significant financial stress people face in buying their homes.

Today in this place we've heard a lot of stories of MPs doorknocking—which I'm very glad about; it's good to hear that MPs are doorknocking—when, time and again, they encounter people who (a) realise that maybe their kids won't be able to buy a home in the area in which they grew up, (b) are themselves struggling to pay the rent, or (c) are stuck on a social housing waiting list. It's good to hear that the government have recognised this as a problem, but it's important that we break down just how deeply inadequate Labor's housing plan is.

The reality is that under Labor's housing plan the situation will get worse. It not a marginal improvement, not a tiny improvement in people's lives; the situation will literally get worse. The first thing to say is that 20,000 social homes over five years breaks down to about 4,000 social homes a year. Since 2018, the social housing waiting list in Australia has increased by 7,600 applications. That means that the increase in the social housing waiting list is greater than the number of homes Labor plans to build every year. That's before you get to the total need for social housing. We know that over the next 10 years there will be a total need of about 800,000 social homes in this country. Labor's plan addresses three per cent of that.

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