Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) National Cabinet agreed to a national target to build 1.2 million new well-located homes over five years from 1 July 2024; and

(b) the New South Wales Government has conceded that it cannot reach its agreed housing targets of 75,000 new dwellings a year over the next five years;

(2) expresses concern that, as a flow-on consequence, the Commonwealth Government cannot reach its target to construct 1.2 million new homes over five years;

(3) acknowledges that:

(a) the Government's pipedream figure for new housing did not take into account:

(i) record high numbers of liquidations in the building and construction industry;

(ii) a shortage of available construction materials;

(iii) increasing construction material costs; and

(iv) a shortage of skilled tradespeople; and

(b) the Government refused to intervene in the dispute between the Maritime Union of Australia and DP World at container terminals, leading to a 50,000 container backlog and further exacerbating construction material shortages; and

(4) further notes that the Government has:

(a) legislated a failed housing plan; and

(b) ultimately demonstrated that it cannot develop any policy to address the housing crisis, let alone deliver it.

This motion concerns our housing affordability crisis, which is a national crisis. Whether it be homeownership or rentals, housing is largely unaffordable for most Australians that do not already own their own home—for Australians on an average wage of $85,000, for our first responders, for those who work in aged care. This is a crisis across our country. Millennials and generation Z have mostly given up on owning their own homes. I hear of teenagers being stressed, not about missing out on Taylor Swift concert tickets but about concerns that they will not be able to afford to live in the communities where they grew up, and this is a national shame.

In my first speech in this place I spoke of my commitment to addressing housing affordability, and whilst ever the good people of the electorate of Hughes provide me with the privilege of serving in this place I will be committed to this and I will continue to speak about this, because in my electorate this is a massive issue. After cost of living, housing affordability remains the biggest issue that people talk to me about when I'm out door-knocking, when I'm doing mobile offices and when they email me. As an example, based on figures from CoreLogic, as of July last year, to buy a house in Moorebank in my electorate you need $1.2 million; in Holsworthy, $1 million; in Oyster Bay, $1.7 million; in Jannali, $1.5 million; in Illawong, $1.6 million; and in Sutherland, $1.4 million.

Price is always determined by supply and demand. That is year 8 economics. The high cost of housing—the reason that we have the housing affordability problem in this country—is largely due to a lack of supply, and this is what this motion is about.

The Minister for Housing and the Prime Minister have said over and over again that they will deliver 1.2 million new homes over five years. So said National Cabinet. That's 240,000 new homes every year. But, a bare few months later, Labor Premier Chris Minns, in my home state of New South Wales, conceded his government cannot meet its housing targets. The New South Wales Premier, in the country's most populous state, has at least been honest. He has said New South Wales can't meet those targets. That means the federal government cannot meet its targets of 1.2 million.

Other supply factors that the Minister for Housing, Minister Collins, and also the Labor government overall have been silent about are things like the record number of liquidations in the building and construction industry. According to ASIC, there were nearly 2,000 construction insolvencies in the six months to September 2023—1,810. There is a massive shortage of construction materials, which has not been helped by the fight between the maritime workers union and DP World, to whose assistance the government did not come in relation to that. That saw 50,000 containers backlogged on wharves. Many of those containers contained construction materials. So we have that. We also have a massive increase in the cost of construction materials—30 per cent, the tradies in my electorate tell me. There is a massive shortage of tradespeople. We've all spoken, on both sides of this place, about the shortage of trades. There are also the delays and red tape involved in releasing land at both the state and local government levels.

None of these issues has been effectively addressed by the government, and that is why I say that the government has legislated a failed housing plan. That is why I say that the government cannot deliver its 1.2 million homes in five years. The government has demonstrated that it cannot develop, let alone deliver, a policy that will address housing supply and housing affordability, particularly for our millennials and our generation Z, into the future.

See this speech in context