Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

It is very relevant to the amendments because you build houses out of wood; you build houses out of timber. It's very relevant. I know you've cut Victoria out of the Murray-Darling Basin Plan. Maybe cut Victoria out of the amendments to the housing plan too. Maybe Victoria doesn't exist anymore in the minds of those opposite. It very relevant because the fact is that you just won't have the materials and you certainly won't have the labour to build homes. Since this time last year, new home starts are down by 6.6 per cent. It once was the great Australian dream to own your own home—not anymore, because people are burdened down by the weight of the cost-of-living crisis brought about by Labor at the federal level and at every other level that they are in power.

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