Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Once upon a time, Australia was the place of the great Australian dream—that is, to own your own home. I've been involved in the construction sector all of my adult life, apart from the time since I came into this place eight years ago, whether as a chippy, a carpenter, a builder or a construction lawyer. Australians want to be able to own their own home, but under this government that dream has become a nightmare. I was reading this morning in the paper that CoreLogic data has revealed—listen to this—that, if you want to buy a house in Sydney, you need to have an average income of $238,000. If you want to own a home in Brisbane, you need to have an average income of $175,000. That's under this government. Mortgages, rents—everything has gone sky high under this government for so many people. Homelessness used to be a thing that, thankfully, was virtually unheard of on the Sunshine Coast. Now, sadly, we have many people living in their cars. It is heartbreaking.

Let's have a look at some of the promises that Labor have made. Labor have promised to build 1.2 million homes in just five years. We've heard that the Property Council of Australia, MBA—Master Builders Australia—and the HIA have all said that, on current trends, this government is going to fall short by somewhere between 300,000 and 400,000 homes. That's falling short by at least a quarter of what they said they were going to manage.

Under this government's signature housing policy, the so-called Housing Australia Future Fund, how many homes have been built? I'll give you a hint: it's zero. I've built more homes than this federal government has built. Isn't that hard to believe? A small regional builder has built more homes than has this federal government, and it wants to spend billions—$32 billion. Zero, crickets, doughnuts—that's what this government is all about. It's all about the promises and never about the delivery. Home starts for detached homes over the last 12 months have plummeted by 10 per cent.

Labor also promised to build up our skilled workforce, and that was the subject of much of the discussion in question time this afternoon. But, under this government, the number of commencements for apprenticeships has fallen by 12 per cent. The number of completions of apprenticeships has fallen by eight per cent. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to work out that, if you want more homes to be built in the future, you need to be training more apprentices today, yet, under this government, we're seeing fewer young people being attracted to the trades and we're certainly seeing fewer young people complete their trade apprenticeships. Why? Because this government and former Labor governments have had a fascination with ensuring that all young people go to university. If you want to go to uni, great. Knock your socks off. But this government and its predecessor Labor governments have made doing a trade almost a crime. This is the Labor Party. This is the party of the working people, yet they have set up this idea that you're a second-class citizen if you do a trade. I know, because I've been in the industry all of my working life, and the hypocrisy that drips from this Labor government about the importance of trades is disgraceful.

If you look at why Australians are paying so much for housing today, it's supply, it's supply and it's supply. Under us, under the coalition, if we're elected, we'll invest $5 billion to build another 500,000 homes by investing— (Time expired)

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