Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Security is a prerequisite to prosperity. Foundational to security is having a roof over your head. This is acutely known by our Prime Minister, who grew up in precarious circumstances himself in social housing, and by our housing minister, Julie Collins, who speaks quietly of the trauma associated with her period of homelessness. Their lived experience, plus the growing backlog of Australians seeking homeownership, or, at the minimum, shelter, after a wasted decade, is what is driving our determination to act.

The problem is of such magnitude that many of my young constituents in Higgins have given up on the prospect of homeownership. Rather than homeownership being a right, it has become an aspiration—and it is receding like a mirage in the desert. My constituents are resigned to joining the 42 per cent of people in Higgins who rent.

In Higgins, rented units make up 29 per cent of dwellings—well above the nine per cent nationally. And rent is not trivial. It ranges from $386 in Murrumbeena, $395 in Carnegie, $411 in Windsor, $415 in South Yarra and $421 per week in Armadale and Prahran, to a whopping $590 in Kooyong—well above the greater Melbourne median of $390. According to the 2021 Census, 27 per cent of renters in Higgins are experiencing renter stress, paying 30 per cent of their income or more towards rent. And rents have gone up since then, pushing more of my constituents into renter stress. In the 18 months to February this year, rent increased across the board in these suburbs, the increases ranging from 7.1 per cent in Armadale to 12.5 per cent in South Yarra.

Getting a foot into the housing market has become a pipedream for young people, not only in Higgins but across Australia. In the highest-renting suburbs in Higgins, this is what median house prices are doing. As of February last year, 2022, median house prices were as follows: Armadale and South Yarra, $2 million—median; Prahran, $1.8 million; Carnegie and Murrumbeena, $1.7 million; and Windsor, $1.6 million. They have been going north for the past five years in these suburbs—the same suburbs, incidentally, with the highest numbers of renters. And why wouldn't people want to buy in these areas, with their village feel, proximity to public transport and amenity, vibrant shopping strips and restaurants? My constituents keep flocking to them. With every year, house prices stretch further away.

Amanda's daughter is a nurse, a few years out, who is trying to get into the housing market. She is a doer and a saver, having put away $100,000 in savings since she worked as a teenager at McDonald's. Remarkable. She works near a big city hospital and justifiably wants to live near where she works. Those late shifts plus the emergency asks when no-one else is available demand that she drop everything and come to work to serve her community. Despite doing everything right, Amanda's daughter is struggling. Amanda's daughter's story is tailor-made to some of the solutions we are offering. Or is it the other way around—that our proposals are tailor-made to her predicament?

It starts with the Housing Australia Future Fund, a $10 billion investment to build 30,000 social and affordable homes over five years, which interlocks with the National Housing Accord. The latter, led by our Treasurer, commits us, in partnership with the states and territories, industry, super funds and construction, to build a million homes over five years from 2024. Managed by the Future Fund guardians, some of whom live in my electorate, the Housing Australia Future Fund will plough returns from the $10 billion invested back into building social and affordable housing. Ten thousand homes will be allocated to essential workers like Amanda's daughter, a nurse, but also to other workers like police—people we simply cannot live without. An additional 4,000 homes will be earmarked for vulnerable Australians, like women fleeing domestic violence, and older Australians. The fastest growing group of homeless Australians are women over the age of 55, who find themselves marooned, without a place to call home, when their circumstances change due to relationship breakdown, job loss or bereavement. Indeed, in Australia, 7,500 women around the country return to violent partners because they have nowhere else to go. Urgency is further heightened, of course, by the pandemic, which has exacerbated domestic violence.

Women fleeing family violence are one particularly desperate group, but there are others covered by our fund, including veterans who have fallen through the cracks, who have been allocated $30 million, and First Peoples in remote communities, living in a state of disrepair and squalor, who have been allocated $200 million over the next five years. The fund will target people living on the edge, either in the throes of homelessness or at risk. We want to pull them back from that edge so that they can stabilise their lives and move forwards. It's a preventative measure, like a handbrake that stops the slide into hopelessness and dysfunction.

Domestic violence, a shortfall of affordable housing, unemployment, mental illness, family breakdown and substance misuse contribute to homelessness. Often, as a doctor, I would say, 'There but for the grace of God go I,' because I often came across patients—people who had pretty standard, what we would call 'normal lives', living in suburbia—who had fallen on hard times. This had destabilised them and sent them on a downward spiral. They ended up washing up on my ward. Living in a car or couch surfing means that homelessness can be hidden from plain sight.

The shame of defeat weighs heavily on homeless people as they spin their wheels in search of enduring shelter. That's why we have established the interim National Housing Supply and Affordability Council—to provide independent advice to government on options. One of the council's key tasks will be to advise us on the National Housing and Homelessness Plan, a plan to deal with homelessness. Given planning and zoning is not the remit of the Commonwealth, our government has fulsomely engaged with the states and territories, holding three meetings with our state counterparts to ensure that we are all pulling in the same direction. We have rejected the divisive federal-state antics that were the signature of the previous government, because the scale and the severity of the problem is too great.

In Higgins, Prahran was a hotspot for homelessness for the duration of the time that I worked at the Alfred, and this was where I picked up most of my patients, and they're still there. A national homelessness plan is long overdue after a wasted decade, where people like my patients fell further behind. Given the urgency of the situation, with families living in tents in parts of Australia, we cannot wait for the fund to start paying out, which is why we have unlocked $575 million from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to get going. For my constituents with itchy feet, the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee may appeal. Launched three months ahead of time by our government, it has already helped 1,600 Australians into homes in the regions. They are living the dream, but it's also easing pressure on the rental market.

We accept this suite of proposals is a start, and calls for more ambition are legitimate. More ambition means more construction workers, more materials, more boots on the ground, industry expertise—all of which are in dire short supply. In Victoria, major construction projects like the Suburban Rail Loop, Big Build, level crossing removals and hospitals have added further constraints on the work force. This is where our free TAFE courses targeting urgent skills like construction kick in. I need my constituents and others around Australia who may be searching for options to check out the offerings at their local TAFE. In my electorate it's Holmesglen, and it's a fantastic place—a happy place of learning linked to career pathways that I have visited many times.

The magnitude of the housing crisis is the clarion call to action which successive Liberal-Nationals governments failed to heed. We in the Albanese government are geared for action on this front because a home, as I said in my maiden speech, is like the warmth of a million suns. Let's bring our people out of the shadows and into the light. I commend the bills to the House.

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