Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Albanese government are happy to take credit for the work of the previous coalition government. The works at Bangs Street that commenced in February of 2022, on the Homes Victoria website—that's what we see from those opposite.

When MPIs come up, they're very quick to criticise the coalition, saying nothing happened, yet they're very happy to turn up to the openings that were funded under the previous coalition government. It's very, very awkward for this government, and the Australian people have worked that out. They've worked out that it's a government that is big on spin but not on delivery. They gave this Prime Minister a chance. They didn't know much about him. He ran a very small strategy. They knew that he didn't know the cash rate during the election. They knew that he didn't know the unemployment rate. What they found out today is that this Prime Minister doesn't know what a per capita GDP recession is. We saw him pad three minutes on that.

That's the problem for the Australian people—when you have a housing crisis, when you have an economy that's struggling, when you have a Prime Minister that's not across the detail and when you have a Treasurer that's not across the detail and not prepared to make the hard decisions because he's worried about getting the support from the backbench. We know this Prime Minister is not only not across the detail; he can't be trusted. He said at the last election, 'My word is my bond.' And he broke that bond because he was referencing the stage 3 tax cuts which he flipped on. We could also reference has broken promise on electricity—a $275 reduction that he promised 97 times before the election and 30 times after the invasion of Ukraine. But, when he won government, he then referenced Ukraine as a reason he had to break his promise. There's no consistency from this government. This is the problem; it creates this housing crisis.

As the Australian Bureau of Statistics have highlighted, this is the weakest quarter of construction in more than a decade, with construction of a meagre 23,058 dwellings commenced in the September 2023 quarter, over 12 months into the Albanese Labor government. That's their responsibility; that's their failure of leadership.

BuildSkills Australia are saying that we would need 90,000 extra construction workers in the next three months for this government to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029. I tell you what, Member for Fisher, I don't think they're hitting that 1.2 million home promise.

The real tragedy is that it's communities that suffer. My community has seen housing become harder and harder to get. Rents are going up. Prices are going up. All we have from this government is poor leadership. They're making bad decisions that make it worse.

Members opposite are happy to blame the coalition while, at the same time, taking credit for our work and for policies that we have delivered. This government isn't actually delivering any new houses; they're claiming credit for the work of the coalition. It shows the lack of character and the lack of integrity of this Prime Minister that he will break his word. The real question for the Australian people is—when it continues to get tough, they know they're going to be abandoned—what is the next broken promise from this Prime Minister?

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