Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Hansard source

Knockdown-rebuilds—we see it all the time. It's a new home, but it's not increasing the stock of housing in this country. The government say, 'We're focused on supply,' but they're failing. They get an F for supply. No government has done as badly as them since the last time the Labor Party was in government.

To get back to what we saw over the weekend, Australians—I think rightly—said: 'Well, if you're bringing in 900,000 migrants, surely you're bringing in some of the people who actually build the homes. Surely you're bringing in some of the trades that build those homes.' But, no, we aren't. We find the 200,000-person increase in migration, year on year, to the September 2023 quarter—the increase by 200,000, to 550,000 people—was predominantly made up of students, not the tradies that are required to build the homes we need. So you don't have that countervailing support for the people that create this industry and build this industry.

In conclusion, where do we find ourselves now? We find ourselves in a dire situation. Labor's housing crisis is getting worse. There's no way you can spin the numbers. Labor's housing crisis is getting worse. We're at 10-year lows in the number of homes being built, we are at the lowest level of first-home buyers for over a decade and we have rents going up exponentially. And what's the plan? What's the policy from this government? The minister, after two years in office, will have the Housing Australia Future Fund established on 1 July, which we opposed. If I'm completely and utterly wrong and the minister's right, and her Housing Australia Future Fund works tickety-boo and is perfect, how many homes will come out of that Housing Australia Future Fund? Six thousand a year. So, at a time when they're bringing in 548,000 migrants, this minister's answer is to say, 'We will fund 6,000 homes for those 548,000 people.' I think it's very heroic to even think that they will meet their own targets. Since when has the Labor Party ever met a target like this, whether it's pink batts or school halls? You name it. But, even if I'm wrong and the minister delivers her meagre 6,000 homes, at the same time as the government is bringing in 548,000 migrants per year, what does it mean? It means misery for Australians and it means, quite frankly, our children will not have the same opportunity to own a home in this country as we had, and that is a shame on the government.

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