Simon Kennedy (Cook, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Well, if it's not true, I'd invite the next member to address that directly and tell me how many homes you've built in the last 2½ years on this. Over this same time, net immigration has increased by 1.15 million people. There is the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator Fund—a fund for states to expand housing stock. Well, even the largest recipient of money from that, the New South Wales state government, are less than impressed, with their official social housing implementation report stating that the impact of the 1,500 additional homes from this program is small given the level of unmet need for the 57,000 people on the social housing waiting list.

Again, there have been more than a total of 1.1 million immigrants over this time but no houses built as a factor of their $32 billion of announcements. It's important to contextualise this number. I read an industry expert estimate that maybe they'll complete 40,000 by the end of their time in government. Actually, there were granny flat reforms in New South Wales in 2019 that actually led to a bigger improvement than that. That created 49,000 extra dwellings from granny fat reforms that cost the taxpayer zero—not $32 billion but zero.

What would the Liberal Party do differently? Firstly, we'd ensure that infrastructure funding was prioritised, meaning that state governments, councils and local communities aren't left footing the bill of a runaway migration program and population growth. Further, our plan will look to reduce housing pressures by freezing red tape, reducing migration and banning foreign investment. (Time expired)

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