Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Having secure, affordable housing provides so much, allowing you to find secure work, perform better at school and reduce stress. Like the member for Wills, the Minister for Housing, the Prime Minister and so many others in this House, my parents first rented in a public housing flat. They then bought a home, through a rent-to-buy scheme, from the Housing Commission in the 1960s. That made so much of a difference to my sister and me. It meant that I'm here. It meant that she has a PhD. That's what a difference secure housing makes. These experiences shaped the way that I feel about the importance of affordable and available housing.

It's a common theme throughout the entire country, in all communities. We're seeing the struggles across all generations and too many people who've entirely given up on owning a home. It's been an issue for more than a decade, and, under the previous government's watch, housing became more unaffordable and out of reach for ordinary Australians. The legacy of the previous government has only compounded the pain that Australians are feeling. The decade of deliberate wage suppression under the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison governments left workers financially insecure and unable to juggle the rising costs of living and increasing price of housing. Insecure work means you can't get a loan, let alone anything else.

According to the ABS producer price index, house construction costs have increased 46 per cent over the past decade. The actual materials have been so hard to get because of COVID. That's the previous government's legacy—a legacy that's still being felt by every Australian renter and prospective homeowner, with rising interest rates and rents. What was the previous government's solution to this? It was to allow workers to raid their super so that they could buy a house. That was their really brilliant idea. They wanted young Australians to pull out $50,000 from their super, not taking into account that the median superannuation balance for those aged 25 to 34 was probably less than $25,000. It was an incompetent policy from an incompetent government.

The situation left us behind and is an incredibly difficult challenge, but it's a challenge that the Albanese government realises and, moreover, is committed to taking a leadership role to address. We won't sit on our hands and pretend there's nothing government can do to ease the pain of all Australians. We understand that no one policy can solve this challenge. That's why the Albanese government will use the multiple levers available to us in order to get Australians into their own homes.

There are immediate actions, which our government has already taken, as well as medium- and long-term goals to help. We've brought forward the regional first home buyer guarantee to 1 October this year. That will get 10,000 eligible Australians into homeownership. We've already acted to unlock $575 million through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to invest in social and affordable housing. We've taken these immediate actions alongside holding meetings with federal, state and territory housing bodies. These are the first meetings in five years. Housing will require leadership and initiative at all levels of government, from local to federal, and we are committed to ensuring that we talk to every level and that we work together.

In the medium-to-long term, we'll build 30,000 new social and affordable houses under the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. Twenty thousand of them will be social housing, 4,000 of which will be for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence and for older women who are at risk of homelessness. The remaining 10,000 will be affordable houses for our frontline workers, such as police officers, nurses and teachers, who kept us safe during the pandemic. They deserve to be able to own a home where they live, close to where they are.

Multiple policies are what we have to offer, and we will not require Australians to sacrifice their financial security in retirement just to put a roof over their head. The Albanese government understands that Australians deserve a government that will support and ensure that the Australian dream of owning a home is available to all Australians, especially our younger Australians to come.

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