Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Hansard source

Today we see that great Australian dream that every young Australian wants, the dream of owning their own home, slipping further and further away under the incompetence of this Labor government. And it is a sad, sad reality for young Australians today that that dream is getting more and more expensive for them to have the chance to realise. And what is the government doing? How many houses have they built? We had the Prime Minister in question time yesterday or the day before saying, across the table, 'I don't build homes, mate.' No, you might not build homes, but you should be facilitating the building of homes. The aim is 1.2 million homes, yet none have been built. It's all very well to have this fanciful dream of 1.2 million homes, but if your practical policies do not lead to those 1.2 million homes being built then, especially for young Australians, those who are struggling with rents at the moment, that reality of ever, ever being able to move into your own home just disappears further and further from you.

That is why we want the government to look at what we successfully did when we were in government. We actually got homes being built in a number of ways. Those opposite can frown—look at the facts. We actually did—we had more homes built under us, especially in the last three to four years, than had been built decades before, because we had policies which actually meant that people were incentivised to build and build and build and build and build. Yet, what has happened since the Albanese Labor government got in? They changed those policy settings. They said: 'Oh, we've got to consult. We've got to dream up new policy approaches. We've got to bring the states on board.' And what's the reality? Not one single home has been built.

A division having been called in the House of Representatives—

Sitting suspended from 10:51 to 11:06

As I was saying, in 2021 we had record levels of first home buyers, we had higher numbers of home builds, we had higher approvals and we had significantly lower rents. So the sad reality is that the government's approach is not working. All of those key indices are down and are getting worse.

What is exacerbating this problem is not only their failed housing policy, which is not working; in 2023 we saw 547,000 people come to this country. So, under the government's policies, we haven't seen one home being built, yet we've seen record levels of people coming into this country. So the imbalance is completely and utterly wrong. I must say that, when I look locally in my electorate, we're starting to see those pressures play out. I'm seeing people write to me saying that rents are becoming unaffordable. I'm seeing local builders saying to me they cannot get the development approvals quickly enough to get the homes built. And we're seeing the timber providers of the homes in Australia—AKD in my electorate provides over 20 per cent of that timber—saying that the demand is not there for that timber at the moment.

So everywhere there seems to be failure when it comes to getting our housing policy right. The Australian people need to know that housing will be a key plank of our policies at the next election, and we will be doing everything we can to make sure that young people can realise their dream of owning their first home and that rents start to come down so that they don't have to face these unsustainable increases that we're seeing under this government.

People's ability to have a roof over their head is essential to their wellbeing, and none of these policies that have been outlined in this motion are working. We need to go back to the policies that were working, that were seeing record levels of first home buyers entering the market, not the lowest levels we've seen in years. That is what the approach that we will take will be— (Time expired)

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