Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Deputy Speaker. I congratulate you on your elevation to the Speaker's panel. May you deliberate fairly and fearlessly in your important role.

I'm very pleased to speak on this important motion about housing. I have been taking some notice of the opposition's remarks throughout this debate—not that much, as the member for Hawke has pointed out, but some. I think it's important to make a couple of observations. First of all, for those opposite to come into this place and lecture the government about action on housing takes a particular bit of gall, because they decided when they were in government that investment in social and affordable housing was a matter for the states. They didn't want to have anything to do with it. They washed their hands of any investment in social housing. They took themselves away from the table and didn't invest a penny in the construction of social housing. You'd think that, after spending a decade in government, their keystone policy—to ensure that more people can buy a home—wouldn't be released in the final hour before midnight before the election, after the former member for Goldstein announced some policy that they then decided they were going to adopt. That policy was, of course, raiding one's own superannuation in order to pay for a home.

I'm not sure if those opposite have ever had a conversation with a young person. The average superannuation for young Australians who are looking to get into their own home is not the hundreds of thousands of dollars that you may need in order to try and get a deposit; it's often $15,000 to $20,000. A lot of young people are casual workers or haven't been able to build up the sort of superannuation that you would need in order to get a deposit. Those who were the former government—they're the opposition right now—are only interested in basically saying to young people, who don't have much superannuation, 'You can just raid what little superannuation you've got to not be able to pay for a deposit in and of itself.' So the policy doesn't really make any sense. It's also unfair and won't do anything to improve supply of housing, which is so desperately needed.

Let's just say for one second that you did want to help people get into the housing market. The Help to Buy schemes are working really well across the country. State governments are working through these schemes quite successfully, and the Albanese government has announced that we want to have a national Help to Buy scheme. That will allow people on lower and middle incomes to get into the housing market with something like a two per cent deposit. The government would help take equity and look to partner with people in order to bring down the total cost of a mortgage. It's a pretty straightforward financial model, and it's one that has worked in the past.

What did those opposite do—the so-called bastions of home ownership, as they like to pat themselves on the back for being? They teamed up with the Greens—the Greens!—to block Labor's Help to Buy scheme. If you were serious about trying to get people into the housing market, why would you make it harder for people who can't afford the five per cent or 10 per cent deposit to get a mortgage? Why would you try to prevent people who can afford only a two per cent deposit from getting into the housing market? That says that those opposite are more interested in coming into this place and playing politics than in actually helping people to get into the housing market.

We have a different approach. We want to invest in the homes that Australians need. We've got a huge program of investment to finally bring the federal government back to the table, in terms of the investment in social housing, to ensure that there is investment to increase supply across the housing spectrum for home owners, renters and those in affordable or social housing. We don't want people being pushed from rental stress into the social housing system, which we know is a real and constant pressure that Australians are facing, with the cost-of-living pressures. So we want to make sure that there is enough supply. We also want to make sure that there is investment in domestic and family violence shelters so that people who do have a change of circumstance in their own home are able to get to somewhere else safely.

Of course, those opposite didn't support the Housing Australia Future Fund, which was to invest in all of these things. We're going to keep investing in the homes that Australians need. We're going to keep investing in the housing market, and we're going to allow more Australians to own their own home—unlike those opposite, who just come in here and play politics.

See this speech in context