Daniel Mulino (Fraser, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm pleased to rise to speak to this motion. Affordable housing is one of the most important challenges that we face as a nation, and this government is taking action on a number of fronts to deal with this. As the motion alludes to, this is an issue that has arisen over a long period of time, and it reflects actions taken at all three levels of government. It's the complexity and the structural nature of this issue which have made it so difficult to deal with. Now, I want to deal with the fact that this is not just a long-run problem; it's a complex economic challenge, because it involves both supply-side and demand-side dimensions, and it's only when you deal with both of those that you can make real progress with this issue.

What are some of the supply-side issues? Well, obviously Australia has not been constructing enough houses for a long time. There are a number of aspects to this. One of the issues is local government planning. There's inertia and there are undue constraints at the local government level. Federal governments have some limits on what they can do at that level, but I applaud the Treasurer and the Minister for Housing for bringing all three levels of government together—the federal government, state and territory governments and peak local government bodies—to deal with this in a coordinated way. I also applaud the fact that there was money in the last budget for the last-mile initiatives, which are often critical barriers to getting major approvals over the line.

In addition, there are workforce issues. This is an area where Australia has been facing increasing constraints. It's also an area where the government has been taking considerable action in recent years. For example, over the first three budgets of the Albanese government a considerable amount of extra money went into training additional people for the construction sector. That included an additional 15,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places in the last budget alone—$62.4 million for that. There was also considerable assistance for apprenticeships, where there had been a significant drop-off in the years preceding this government's coming to office. Also, in the previous budget, there was $26.2 million for 5,000 places in pre-apprenticeship programs over the two years to 2025.

I've been seeing the outcomes of this in my own electorate. I was at an event, on behalf of the Minister for Skills and Training, at MEGT in my own electorate to celebrate that firm's 700,000th apprentice in its decades of operation. It is one of many examples in my electorate of people obtaining qualifications and of young people starting out on careers where they will have so much to do over the coming decades. But we need more, and it's great to see more and more people going into that pipeline.

Of course, there's also the funding and finance side of the supply side, and this government has $32 billion worth of initiatives, including billions of dollars going into the community housing sector, the HAF and many other funding and financing arrangements. That will do a considerable amount to support more housing.

There's also, of course, the demand side. In my opinion, the supply side should be the priority, and the supply side has been the priority of this government in its first three budgets. But I believe that, in addition to that, targeted demand-side measures are appropriate in some circumstances. For example, Help to Buy measures are an appropriate way to help young people in particular overcome some of the generational barriers to obtaining a housing deposit. The Help To Buy Scheme that this government has put forward is a material measure that will help many thousands of people get their first toe on that ladder of homeownership over the course of their lives. For so many people, they can service a loan, but they can't pull together the deposit, so Help to Buy is a very important element of the suite of policies that we need to consider. There are other measures, of course, like the billion dollars for women in particular fleeing family violence, giving them assistance in the short run for emergency housing options. That's a series of measures that will provide material help—$5,000 for many people who are in that very vulnerable situation.

The member for Macnamara has raised an extremely important issue. It's a multidimensional issue. It's an issue which has arisen over a long period of time and it's not going to be solved overnight. It's going to require both supply-side and demand-side responses, and I've set out a few of the key ones. It's also going to require coordinated action across all three levels of government. I commend the member for raising this motion and for the opportunity to highlight some of the government's actions in this area.

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