Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for North Sydney, the member for Indi and other members for their contributions, and I thank the member for Higgins for bringing on this debate.

I want to address a couple of issues mentioned by the member for North Sydney. Yes, it is complex but it's also simple. When you build more houses, you increase supply. When you increase supply, you bring down the pressure on prices and rents. You also increase the capacity for the quality issues that you mentioned, Member for North Sydney. When you've got more choice in the market, tenants suddenly have more power in the market. Tenants can say to landlords, 'Unless you fix the lighting and the damp, I'm moving down the road to the other rental that has become available.' You can only increase choice by increasing supply, and that's what will be before the Senate: a fund to increase supply by 30,000 new homes in the next five years. It is a fund that will fund housing forever, a perpetual fund. Ten billion dollars is the biggest single housing investment proposed by any government in more than 10 years. Ten billion dollars is nothing to sneeze at. That's in addition to all the other things the government's doing through record rent relief and the help-to-buy and help-to-rent schemes, including across regional Australia.

I note that in her contribution the member for Indi called for an expansion of the HAFF, and I think she has foreshadowed some amendments to the bill. To be honest, I'm a bit concerned by what she said—although I think she has good intentions—about expanding the remit of the HAFF to include support for infrastructure like drainage and sewerage. That would chip away at it. We want the HAFF to build houses.

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