Peter Khalil (Wills, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion is a really important one, and I hope we can get out of politicising it. I want to acknowledge the member for Macnamara for moving this motion on affordable housing, because it is a public policy area that is deeply personal for many of us. Without access to public housing I wouldn't be where I am today, and that's the truth. That journey, from a houso to a renter to a homeowner, also involved educational opportunities that flowed to migrants—my family—and their children. When governments got housing policy right, it made a real difference to our lives and our ability to make that contribution. I'm keenly aware that it was easier to make that journey coming of age in the 1980s and 1990s than it is right now, for a whole host of reasons that we're debating and talking about. It's why we have to get these critical policies right. It's why we have to put the politics aside and do the work necessary, instead of grandstanding on it, because it matters to all of us.

Access to good housing is a fundamental human right. It's a matter of basic dignity. We need a roof over our heads to be able to engage in our community, to fully participate at school or work, to look for and get a job, and to contribute. That, as I said, gave my family—my sister and me—an opportunity to pursue our education and give back to the country that had given us so much. That's a reality that I want for other Australians—for all Australians, actually—and I know this is the reality the Prime Minister and the new housing minister, Clare O'Neil, want for all Australians.

The issue of housing affordability and rental stress cuts very deeply across the country. It causes stress to people in my community of Wills—to the young family trying to manage alongside childcare fees, to the university student juggling study with part-time work and to the older Australian relying on their pension or their super. We have far too many Australians experiencing or at risk of experiencing homelessness. In fact, single women over 55 are particularly vulnerable to homelessness. It is unacceptable, in a country endowed with such wealth and opportunity, that many of our fellow Australians have nowhere to call home or are at risk of not having a home.

I recently met with Dini Liyanarachchi and Chris Sparks from Housing for the Aged Action Group—HAAG—a Melbourne based organisation that supports older Australians who are homeless or are facing homelessness. They talked a lot about older women, who are often forgotten and fall through the cracks, when we talk about vulnerable groups. They also raised elder abuse as not being spoken about as much when issues of family violence are raised. The group want interventions to focus on people who are at risk of homelessness before they end up actually sleeping rough.

I recently hosted a youth housing roundtable with Minister O'Neil. I think it was her first in her new portfolio. We heard about all of the poor rental conditions that people face, with invasive rental application requirements and stressful no-grounds evictions. A lot of the young people there described homeownership as being out of reach and said that they needed to make compromises, such as living at home with parents for longer to save for a deposit or putting studies on hold to afford rent or a bond. These are stories reflected across Australia, and they're unfortunately not new. Housing affordability is an issue that has been deepened by 10 years of inaction by the previous government, the coalition government. It's an issue that we, having come into power two years ago, are working every day to fix. It is front and centre in our mind to work on affordability and supply. Australia doesn't have enough homes, and we haven't for a while. Our priority is clear. Our objective is to build more homes for more Australians. We need to do this faster while also providing immediate support to Australians in need.

The government has an ambitious national target of building 1.2 million new homes by the end of the decade. We've added $6.2 billion in investment to build more homes. We've brought the total investment in new housing initiatives to $32 billion in just two years. We're supporting the building of new homes by growing our construction workforce—to the point that was made by the previous speaker—by $1.5 billion to states and territories for housing infrastructure works and more social housing. There are so many programs and policies that we've put in place in just a short time, including, of course, the $2.7 billion increase to Commonwealth rent assistance and the $1.9 billion increase at the budget—doubling it twice there. There's also the build-to-rent scheme, which we've introduced to boost the build of more homes to ensure Australians can have access to safe, secure and affordable housing. This $4.6 billion is money going into the pockets of one million Australians who are feeling rental stress.

I will say this in conclusion: this is something that we are working on every day. It's not about the politics. This is about building more homes and addressing what the issue is: supply, supply, supply.

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