Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I'm really pleased to inform the House that our government's Help to Buy Bill has just passed the Senate. I want to acknowledge the work of my predecessor, Minister Collins, who developed this policy and set the stage for its passage through the parliament.

This is good policy in a proud Labor tradition. The Help to Buy legislation will help 40,000 low- and middle-income Australians get into homeownership. We're talking about cleaners, childcare workers, nurses and disability workers—hardworking Australians who are right in the guts of our economy, who we in the Labor Party believe should get the keys to their own home. And that's what Help to Buy will do.

We appreciate the support of those who have voted in favour of this bill, including the Australian Greens. I've had a little bit of constructive criticism to offer the Greens in recent days, but let's all agree: at least the Greens are showing a modicum of interest in housing policy in this country.

The people who have really tapped out of this debate—the people who have gone completely missing—are those opposite. We see barely a flicker of interest from those opposite in housing policy. Now, this is not a new approach. I want the parliament to remember that, for the almost-decade that those opposite were in power, for most of that time they didn't even have a Commonwealth housing minister—that's how much they had retreated from this discussion.

We have made a number of attempts to brief the shadow housing minister on the policy offerings that we've brought before this parliament. It's not that he can't find the time to come to the briefings; he won't even respond to our requests for a discussion. Those opposite—

See this speech in context