Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. How will the Albanese Labor government's ambitious housing agenda tackle housing challenges across Australia? What is currently blocking it?

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

I thank the member for Spence for that important question and for his support for our broad, ambitious housing agenda. It is ambitious, but importantly it's also achievable. The $575 million that we unlocked immediately means homes are under construction today because of the decisions that we made. The Housing Accord, in our first budget, meant another 10,000 affordable rental homes, matched by the states and territories with another 10,000 affordable rental homes. In our last budget, we had $2 billion for Housing Australia, to support more social and affordable homes, and changes to build-to-rent, again to encourage more rental homes to be built in Australia. Then of course there was our announcement last weekend of the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The minister will pause for a moment. The member for Deakin and the member for Wannon are now warned. If they persist with any interjections, they will leave the chamber. I'm not having any more of it.

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

The $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator, announced last weekend, is investments in social homes—that is, public and community housing—with the states and territories. And of course our Housing Australia Future Fund, which would build 30,000 social and affordable rental homes in the first five years of the fund, is central to our ambitious housing agenda, but it's clearly not the only thing that we are doing.

What we are, as a government, is we're about delivering, but what we won't do, as a government, is offer something that is impossible, and that's what we're asked to do in the Senate where our Housing Australia Future Fund is being blocked. We've got the Liberals and the Nationals who are blocking it, because, of course, they no longer believe in future funds, even though they set some up. And then, of course, we've got the Greens political party, who are blocking it for something that actually cannot be delivered.

Everybody in this place knows that in the Constitution it shows very clearly that we do not have the power to implement a rent freeze. Secondly, the experts and the evidence tell all of us that it would make the situation worse, that it will not work. Indeed, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute said:

It won't work because it will discourage new investment, so new supply won't be brought on.

Then, we've got Professor Graeme Samuel, the former head of the ACCC, who said:

… they should understand that the fundamental problem we've got is lack of supply.

He went on to say:

The moment you put a rental cap in place, you just simply exacerbate the supply problem.

On this side of the House, we want to get on with the job of building more homes and we want to deal with supply, as I outlined. We also, of course, want to support the Australians that are renting, and we're doing that through the National Cabinet with renters' rights. We did that in our last budget with our increases to Commonwealth rent assistance, the 15 per cent increase, the largest increase in more than 30 years. While we are delivering, those on the other side want to keep delaying and they want to keep blocking this important legislation. They can keep blocking it for things that are impossible, but we're going to keep on delivering for the Australians that need it most.