Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When my parents purchased their first home in south-west Sydney four decades ago, they had only been in Australia for five years. They both worked in factories and didn't earn much, but they worked hard and were able to save up to buy a three-bedroom townhouse that they still live in today. I think it's testament to the egalitarian spirit of the eighties in Australia that, if you worked hard, you could build a life here—that two new migrants who had little formal education and spoke very little English could set down roots and buy a home to raise their children.

In the early 1980s, when my parents were buying their first home, the median house price in Sydney was just under $79,000, equating to about four times a typical full-time salary. Three decades later, when my husband and I were buying our first home, the median house price in Sydney had risen to $700,000, equating to about nine times the typical full-time salary. The first home my husband and I purchased was nowhere near the median house price. It was a tiny one-bedroom shoebox apartment in Homebush West. It was all we could afford at the time, but even that purchase was a stretch for us. We had saved and saved but still fell short of the 20 per cent deposit. Thankfully, our parents were able to lend us the rest. We, like so many other Sydneysiders looking to buy their first home, had to dip into the bank of mum and dad.

Around 15 years later, the median house price in Sydney is now around $1.5 million, equating to 12 times the average wage. In the four decades since my parents bought their first home, the same house in Sydney has gone from costing four times the average wage to costing 12 times the average wage. Because of the meteoric rise in property prices, we are having to work harder and earn more than our parents' generation in order to purchase a home. For some, it means that the idea of owning a home is not an aspirational goal but an unattainable pipedream.

Housing affordability is an issue I care deeply about. Having a place to call home provided me a sense of security and community when I was growing up. It's what my husband and I hope to build for our son, and it's what so many households want in my electorate of Reid. Unfortunately, for nine years we had a government that refused to make the substantial policy changes needed to address housing affordability. I'm proud to be part of an Albanese Labor government that is tackling the issue of housing head on. It was a key election commitment for us in 2022, and now we are delivering on those commitments.

The Help to Buy policy is an important step towards helping homebuyers, but it isn't the only thing we're doing. We came to office in 2022 with a broad housing agenda. We want to provide more safe and affordable homes for more Australians. After nine years of neglect from those opposite, this is a government that is finally showing leadership when it comes to housing, and we are tackling it from four different angles. Firstly, we are providing direct assistance to help the most vulnerable by increasing rent assistance by 15 per cent, the largest increase in more than 30 years. We've also established the Housing Australia Future Fund to build the social and affordable housing Australia needs. That $10 billion fund is now set up and taking applications. Through the National Housing Accord, we are supporting 10,000 affordable rental homes over five years.

The other way we are tackling housing affordability is by increasing housing supply. We are working with state governments through the housing accord to set a national target to build 1.2 million more homes over the next five years. We've committed $3 billion to the new homes bonus and $500 million to the Housing Support Program to incentivise local and state governments to build more homes more quickly. We are investing an additional $1 billion in the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to support building more homes. I'm pleased to see up to $575 million in funding has already been unlocked, with homes under construction across the country. To help renters, we've introduced new incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation.

Part of the reason housing affordability has remained an intractable problem for nine years is that it's a wicked challenge that requires three levels of government to work together. Yet those opposite showed a complete disinterest in taking national leadership when it comes to housing policy. For the past nine years housing policy and funding has been fragmented, piecemeal and woefully inadequate, and generations of Australians are paying the price. This is the third area in which the Albanese Labor government is bringing in reform: at last we have a federal government that is showing leadership on housing.

Minister for Housing, Julie Collins, convened the first National Housing Supply and Affordability Council to provide evidence based recommendations to inform all governments on how to improve housing supply and affordability. She also convened the first housing ministers meeting in five years, bringing together federal, state and territory housing ministers. It's extraordinary to think that the previous Minister for Housing, the member for Deakin, in all his time as housing minister, did not convene a meeting of state and territory housing ministers. The issue of housing affordability has been brewing for years and years. It's complex, involving local council development approvals, state and territory planning policies and supporting infrastructure projects, and yet the member for Deakin could not bring himself to get everyone together to establish a national housing plan.

Finally, the fourth angle from which we are tackling the housing crisis is our assistance for first-home buyers. We have expanded the Home Guarantee Scheme, which has already helped 86,000 people across Australia into homeownership. Under this scheme, eligible homebuyers are able to buy a home with as little as a five per cent deposit rather than the standard 20 per cent deposit.

We are also providing assistance to first-home buyers through the Help to Buy scheme, which is the bill before the parliament today. Help to Buy is the first national shared-equity scheme of its kind. It helps Australians get their feet on the housing ladder by reducing the amount required for both the saving of a deposit and the servicing of a mortgage. The government will loan applicants part of the upfront purchase price of a new home—either 30 per cent for an existing property or 40 per cent for a new build. Participants will require a two per cent deposit to access the scheme, making it significantly more affordable for participants. Forty thousand eligible participants will be able to access the scheme alongside a standard mortgage. This equity contribution ensures the sustainability of the program while offering lower ongoing mortgage repayments for individual participants. This scheme will be targeted at middle- and low-income Australians who might not otherwise be able to get a foot on the housing ladder.

Now, there's been some disappointing opposition to this bill. From those opposite we get their one big idea for housing affordability: to get a generation of young people to sacrifice their future by accessing superannuation early. This is yet another step in their ideological obsession with opposing superannuation. They have never supported superannuation and have never quite got their head around the fact that it is a retirement income, not a bank that you can dip into whenever you need. It's a system that is the envy of the world, and yet those opposite are obsessed with undermining it. To make things worse, the coalition's plan has been uniformly canned by housing, finance and economics experts. In fact, they say, the coalition's solution will make housing affordability worse by driving up demand.

In Australia we like big nation-building projects: Snowy Hydro, the Sydney Harbour Bridge, projects that define and shape our nation for decades to come. I think housing should be our next nation-building project. Unlike those opposite, this is a government with an ambitious plan to do just that. We are tackling housing affordability head on by increasing supply, providing direct assistance to vulnerable groups and first-home buyers and providing the institutional reform so sorely needed. These are the changes that are needed to shape our country to ensure more Australians have a place to call home.

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