Maria Vamvakinou (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to address the supply of new housing in Australia to ensure more Australians have access to an affordable and secure home?

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Calwell for her important question. She, like many people in this place, knows that far too many Australians don't have a safe, affordable place to call home and that we all should be doing more. And that's what we saw in last night's budget from the Treasurer. The Albanese Labor government is committed to addressing the cost-of-living pressures by making housing more affordable.

Last night's announcement of a once-in-a-generation housing accord agreed by each tier of government, by investors and by industry is a national commitment to work together to address the systemic problems in the housing market. We know that working together is the only way to get this done. We need all three tiers of government, using the levers available, to invest in more affordable housing right across the country. Indeed, our National Housing Accord is an aspiration, from 2024, to deliver a million new homes in five years—a million new homes for more Australians to have a safe, affordable place to call home. It will deliver $350 million to 10,000 new affordable homes, and this will be matched by the states and territories for a further 10,000. So that's an additional 20,000 affordable homes, and that comes on top of our election commitments that we have already announced. There's the Housing Australia Future Fund—30,000 social housing and affordable homes right across the country. Our Housing Supply and Affordability Council will play an important role as part of the Housing Accord, working with the different tiers of government, particularly the state governments and the federal government, on what additional levers need to be used to get more supply on the ground faster. The accord will help drive private investment, including from superannuation funds, to get more homes on the ground sooner.

This builds on our incentives to get more people into their own home, with the Help to Buy Scheme and the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee. And of course there's our recent announcement, coming out of the Jobs and Skills Summit, to widen the remit of the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to unlock $575 million for more social and affordable housing sooner.

We want to unlock the NHIF to get more houses on the ground now; then we've got the Housing Australia Future Fund, with investment returns coming in the second half of next year; and then we've got the Housing Accord, with more affordable homes across the country for 2024. This is a systemic reform to housing in this country. It is showing leadership for the first time in a long time from a federal government. It is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to get this right, and we will work to get it right so that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home.