Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Before coming to this place, I had the pleasure of spending 10 years in local government. In that time, there wasn't a week that passed in which housing wasn't talked about or on the agenda. We talked about housing targets, the cost of housing, housing diversity, affordable housing, planning reform, renters' rights, strata reform, inclusionary zoning and voluntary planning agreements—it went on and on. I've been at the coalface of the policy response to housing for a long time. In that time I've learnt that, for elected officials to address this properly, we need every level of government in a bipartisan way singing from the same song sheet. We need no politics—just progress.

For decades, we've had politics on housing. It's been so, so long. Politics on housing has put us into the mess we're in today. In my time on council and as mayor, New South Wales was governed by a state Liberal government. Throughout that time they would say that affordable housing was a priority. But the thing is they'd never do anything about it. Upon becoming premier in June 2017, former premier Gladys Berejiklian declared that housing affordability was the biggest issue for her. Liberal planning minister after Liberal planning minister would say nice things about affordable housing and the need for more of it but then actively stop people or governments from trying to do something about it. They promised to reform the planning system and didn't. They rezoned urban activation precincts across Sydney and New South Wales, saying that affordable housing would be provided, and it wasn't. Then they actively opposed local government plans to force developers to build affordable housing. We see the same thing happening today here in this parliament. It's a different level of government, but it's the same old Liberals and the same old politics. The Liberals here on one hand are complaining about the housing crisis that they exacerbated, yet they are actively opposing policies to address it. They voted down the Housing Australia Future Fund. They criticised the Housing Accord. They criticised state Labor governments' attempts to address housing supply. They criticised our fee-free TAFE program, which is addressing huge shortages in construction workers. And then, probably worst of all—and we just heard it from the member who just spoke, the Member for Lyne—they backflipped their views on bringing in skilled workers to help address skill shortages and now instead choose to blame migrants for the housing crisis that they created.

The housing crisis has been around for a long time. It didn't just happen because of last year's migration levels. It didn't happen when the Albanese government was elected. It's been around for a long time, and it exists because of decades of inaction by lazy politicians. It exists because the Liberal federal government hadn't adequately funded housing supply. It exists because the last Liberal federal government didn't care about housing or work with the states to deliver it. It exists because Liberal state governments have blocked schemes to deliver more affordable housing. It exists because politicians keep on playing politics.

The housing crisis existed before the last election, and Australians elected us to help address it. We were elected on the promise to deliver: Help to Buy, the Housing Australia Future Fund, investments in social and affordable housing. Since my election I have been inundated with calls and emails from constituents about the cost of rents, the lack of housing supply and the growing cost of housing. These are people who work hard, who contribute to our communities and who simply seek a place to call home.

Whether it be young professionals striving to enter the property market, families yearning for a place to raise their kids or seniors seeking dignified retirement living, the lack of accessible and affordable housing options is a growing social crisis. It's a reality that cannot be ignored. It's a crisis that demands action. Yet whenever this majority Labor government, a government that was elected with a mandate to address the housing crisis, proposes a policy to address the housing crisis, we're met with bad-faith actors in this place who are more interested in playing politics with this crisis than delivering solutions for our country.

I have outlined the Liberal's record on this. The Liberals now have a third coalition partner to play politics with. The Greens political party, here in this place, are working hand in glove with the Liberals and Nats to block, delay and vote down policies to address the housing crisis. They may say different things, but the results are identical.

I say to the Greens and the Liberals: you can't say you want to help renters when you oppose policies to address housing supply. You can't say that you want more people to own a home when you block shared equity schemes like this. This two-faced politics is a betrayal of the people who supported you, and it's putting politics ahead of progress.

The Help to Buy scheme isn't just about bricks and mortar. It's about giving people hope and giving them an opportunity to own their own home. It's about helping renters who are unable to save a deposit. It's about getting someone into the property market for their first home.

Just like the Liberals, the Greens also say they want housing action, yet their actions in this place say the absolute opposite. The Greens alongside the Liberals are blocking progress all while claiming to champion the very causes they hinder, and they use strikingly similar measures to do it: they spread misinformation, they sow doubt and they politicise, which all result in less action to fix this crisis. Their claims that measures like Help to Buy will inflate housing prices are misleading. The reality is that these initiatives are tightly targeted—a bit too tight, if you ask me, but anyway—and have been endorsed by experts who say that impacts on pricing would be modest, if there would be impacts at all. Sound familiar?

The Greens and the Liberals are peas in a pod. Just like the Liberals, the Greens have made quite the habit of using misinformation as a tool to sow confusion, obstruct progress and further their own politics. All that leads to is Australia's housing crisis to become worse.

In February 2024, the Member for Griffith falsely stated that the Greens negotiated an additional $3 billion for public housing, with the government conveniently omitting that this allocation was not a result of negotiations. And just in this House moments ago, the leader of the Greens claimed that Labor's cost-of-living tax cuts only changed because of the Greens, when this decision was made squarely by the Labor cabinet and then by the Labor caucus. It's just the Greens taking credit for things.

Just like the member for Dickson misrepresented the reality of the impact of vehicle emission standards, the member for Griffith misrepresented the reality of vacant properties from census data. No, Max, we don't really have a million vacant homes. Just like the Liberals, when they ignored departmental analysis and advice, the Greens failed to acknowledge the complexities surrounding unoccupied properties, ignoring research indicating various reasons for vacancy including holiday homes and temporary unavailability.

The Greens, the Nationals and the Liberals will do anything in their power to stop this government from addressing the housing crisis, but we are determined to do something about it. It's why I was elected and it's why we're in government. Help to Buy will support the purchase of up to 10,000 properties per year over four years.

Australians, including citizens in Bennelong, are fed up with politicians playing political games with essential policy that will help them. Whether it's the climate wars or the housing crisis, people don't want politicians to come in this place and use their time here to obstruct. They want this place to work constructively and in good faith to find solutions to their issues, and they're fed up with the Greens' and Liberals' selfish and shortsighted tactics. They are tired of their obstructionism, which only serves to exacerbate the housing crisis and leave countless families struggling to find a place to call home.

I'm proud to be part of the only party in this place that is prepared to do something about housing and ensure that as many people as possible can achieve the great Australian dream of owning their own home. I'm proud to be part of a government that has already delivered the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the $3 billion Social Housing Accelerator scheme and the most significant increase to the Commonwealth rental assistance in 30 years.

At its core, Help to Buy is yet another policy designed to help with the housing crisis. It will help renters into home ownership, it will help renters who cannot save enough for a deposit by only requiring two per cent of the purchase price and it will help people who can't afford to pay off a big mortgage, because the government will provide an equity contribution of up to 40 per cent.

This policy is here to help renters own their own homes, and yet the Greens and the Liberals want to oppose it. They want to oppose it because it's all politics for them. Despite their grandstanding, we're determined to get on with this job. I commend this bill to the House.

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