Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Just make it! But it will also provide much-needed opportunities for younger Australians. It will free up, to some extent, and help add supply of family homes to the market, which is a very good thing.

I've spoken about what's happening on the Sunshine Coast at the moment, and it is dire. That's despite the previous government having done things like providing some $2.1 billion to community housing providers. The parties now in opposition, when they were in government, not only took their obligations to homeowners very seriously but also took seriously their obligations to those people who are less well off—those people who can't afford to own their own home at this point in time and may not be able to afford a private rental. This coalition, when we were in government, provided some $2.1 billion to community housing providers to build or to refinance their existing loans and to help people get into a subsidised rental home.

I did an inquiry in relation to this in the last parliament. Community housing providers provide a sensational service to the Australian people—far better, in my view, than traditional state public housing. State public housing has a very, very long list. In Queensland, it takes years and years and years to get a home if you are on the waiting list for a public house. But, when you finally get that house in public housing, you get a roof over your head. Community housing providers provide so much more. Community housing providers effectively want to put themselves out of a job. Community housing providers like—I'll come back to it in a minute. My mind's gone blank. But community housing providers want to look not only at providing a roof over your head but at why you are in need of assistance in the first place and how they can help you get out of community housing and into private rental, for example, and maybe even into homeownership. That is far and away better than what public housing under states and territories provides. To be able to assist a family to get out of some form of community housing and into the private rental market or homeownership is a very worthy and much-needed objective, and the parties now in opposition, when we were in government, were working hand in glove with the community housing sector.

But, more than that, when we were in government, we were providing over $4 billion a year in Commonwealth rent assistance. Members opposite pilloried the coalition when we were in government about not doing enough to help people in their time of need in relation to housing. We were spending billions of dollars in helping people with their rent. The whole concept of Commonwealth Rent Assistance was that the Commonwealth would provide approximately 30 per cent of the cost of rental housing. As we've seen in the last couple of years, rents have gone through the roof, and that 30 per cent figure is probably inaccurate now. But it is absolutely false to say that, when we were in government, the coalition was not pulling its weight in relation to housing.

This bill is very important in providing greater certainty and security to pensioners and veterans, increasing the assets test exemption from 12 months to 24 months. It really does build on the great work of the previous coalition government. The measure will see around 890,000 Australians have greater certainty in their fortnightly social security payments. This will benefit 450,000 age pensioners and 440,000 other payment recipients with financial assets affected by deeming rates.

As I've indicated previously, the coalition worked assiduously in assisting people with housing. I've talked about the end user, but what I haven't talked about is the construction sector itself. The construction sector is worth about eight per cent of GDP in this country. It employs over a million Australians. In about June 2020, the construction sector faced an economic cliff, and a lot of my friends and colleagues in the building industry were saying how dire things were becoming. But the coalition government heard their pleas and acted with the various programs that I've talked about. When we were in government, we continued to work with the construction sector. We provided jobs and security to the people in need as a result of COVID, and that benefit is in addition to the work we've done in relation to homeownership. I support this bill with great gusto.

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