Melissa McIntosh (Lindsay, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to thank my good friend the member for Hughes for moving this motion highlighting the Albanese Labor government's long shot of providing 1.2 million additional homes over five years. We doubt it will happen and Australians doubt it too, particularly when the New South Wales government has conceded it cannot reach its new build target of 75,000 each year over the next five years. Housing pressures are so topical across greater Sydney, whether you represent Penrith, like I do, or parts of Liverpool and the Sutherland shire like the member for Hughes.

Young people and families are being impacted the most by the three crises that the Albanese is doing nothing real about to tackle. There is a cost-of-living crisis, a mental-health crisis and a housing crisis—a triple whammy that Aussies are battling through under the dark economic headwinds facing mums, dads and small-business owners across Western Sydney and, indeed, the whole country.

Let's take a step back and remember what the Labor party's commitment was on housing at the last election. They said they would get Help to Buy up and running by 1 January 2023. Well, they should have said that they'd halve Medicare-subsidised psychology sessions on that date, because that is the only thing that would have been the truth. Instead, we have Help to Buy before the parliament right now, in February 2024—more than a year later.

It's looking, possibly, to be an election year, with the Albanese Labor government limping to the finish line. In their armour, they want to tick a box and tell the Australian people they tried when it came to housing, but, of course, this program won't really get up and running for a while, and, if it flops, they'll be able to play the 'we ran out of time' card. What Labor forgot to mention at the last election was that, for the scheme to work, all states and territories need to legislate it. Good luck getting that through in time to create any effect soon. The government went to the last election failing to mention that most states already have a shared-equity scheme in place. In New South Wales, we have the Shared Equity Home Buyer Helper scheme. I'm informed by the shadow housing minister that in New South Wales 94 per cent of places in the scheme are still available.

Australians don't want the government owning part of their homes but they do want a government that will implement policies to support first homebuyers and those needing a roof over their heads. The National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation is something that the coalition government put into place. We provided more than $2.9 billion of low-cost loans and supported more than 15,000 social and affordable dwellings across the country. As someone who came into this place having worked in the community housing sector, I understand how vital such financial assistance is to build homes for those who need assistance. I'm informed that we're seeing one in three first homebuyers supported by the coalition's Home Guarantee Scheme. This scheme helps families with deposits as low as five per cent, and single parents with deposits as low as two per cent, to get assistance to enter the market and get the home that they need. And we all know that saving for a deposit is a daunting experience, but our first home super saver scheme is helping tens of thousands of young Aussie families accelerate their deposit.

Let's not forget that the former coalition government's stimulus for the housing and construction sector during COVID saw 137,000 home builder applications which generated $120 billion of economic activity and helped the sector survive in the aftermath of lockdowns. That's why it's such a shame that we have a Labor government presiding over the lowest levels of dwelling construction in over a decade. Forecasts for national and new home builds and renovation activity are slowing even further. You only have to drive down the streets of Western Sydney to see that renovations are slowing. With a housing minister missing in action and the government's key piece of housing policy being introduced in possibly the last year of this parliamentary term, no wonder we're seeing record high numbers of liquidations in the building and construction sector.

Compounding this is the shortage of available construction materials and their increased costs. It's such a shame that this Albanese Labor government is failing our country when it comes to fixing the housing crisis, not only in Western Sydney but in every single pocket of every community we represent.

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