Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for this amendment. I have had a good discussion with her about it. She knows that this scheme is specifically targeted at low- and middle-income Australians. I appreciate where she's coming from with this amendment. I think the amendments from the crossbenchers are well-intentioned, but, as I pointed out, we have to consult with every state and territory on amendments because of the way this scheme would work. The disadvantaged and low-income people that it would support are people that otherwise wouldn't get into homeownership, and we would expect that a large proportion of those would be women. Certainly, in our reporting, we intend to report on the types of cohorts being supported. I wanted to let the member know that in Western Australia's Keystart around 66 per cent of the shared-equity participants have indeed been women. We won't be supporting the amendment.

See this speech in context