Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I appreciate the way in which all members have come to this debate. We all agree that housing affordability is a huge issue in this country; however, unlike the previous member, the member for Brisbane, we don't treat this as a debating society. We aren't talking about political philosophy here; we're talking about pragmatic solutions to actually address the housing affordability issue.

I like the out-of-the-box thinking that the member for Brisbane is proposing, and if this was a reality show where we tried to pit idea against idea, sure, we'd bring out this out-of-the-box thinking. But, of course, there are constitutional issues with the policies that he proposes. There's also a reality issue with the policies that he proposes. Who does he think builds developments? Who does he think builds homes? There are private-sector developers, and we don't want to badmouth them and kick them out of this country and have a total government takeover, because that is not what is going to make a material difference on the ground when it comes to getting more homes built. That will probably delay homes being built, because you would have to set up a whole system of government funded builders and developers to go out and start building, and that takes time.

He and I both recognise the real challenges of housing affordability in this country. It is especially pronounced in Sydney, the city that I lived in. Sydney is ranked as the world's second-least affordable market, after Hong Kong, and housing affordability is one of the biggest challenges for Sydneysiders. But it hasn't always been this way. When my parents came to this country more than four decades ago, they worked hard and were able to buy a home within five years of coming to this country. Our family's success was possible because they had the stability of housing, but that stability is out of reach for so many people in Sydney now.

So how did we get here, because a problem this big does not spring up in two years? It's a problem that has been brewing for years and years. As the previous members who have spoken on this issue have pointed out, the key challenge is that we are not building enough homes. We're not building enough affordable, social and private housing. We are not building enough of all of it—the whole gamut. We are here in this situation because of a decade of complete and utter failure from those opposite. At both the federal and New South Wales levels, coalition governments have failed us because, when they were in government, they showed little to no interest in addressing housing supply, and that is what has left us with this critical shortage.

Fortunately, we now have Labor governments at the federal and state levels in New South Wales that are laser focused on addressing housing affordability. In our first federal budget, the Treasurer announced our ambitious goal of building one million new homes over five years. Through the Housing Australia Future Fund, we are making the biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade. In our second federal budget, we boosted homelessness funding to state and territory governments and increased rent assistance for renters while putting rent reform on the agenda for National Cabinet. In our most recent budget we announced $6.2 billion in new investment to build more homes and support Australians. In this budget alone there has been more investment in housing than in all nine of the federal coalition budgets combined. That is how seriously we take this issue.

In Australia we like to build big things: the Snowy Hydro scheme, the Sydney Harbour Bridge. I think that the next big project for us ought to be building more social and affordable housing. It will make a difference in people's lives. Finally we have a government that is willing to step up to the challenge—not only to step up to the challenge but to help people build more homes and to enable them to get rent and afford to buy.

See this speech in context