Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. How will the Housing Australia Future Fund help ease the housing shortage and strengthen the economy after a decade of neglect?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the question from the member for Blair. There's no harder working local member than the member for Blair, representing the suburbs of Ipswich and the communities surrounding. The member for Blair is part of a government that takes the big issues in our economy and our society seriously. There is no bigger challenge than the inflation challenge in our economy, and housing is a big part of that. That's why it is so important that the Housing Australia Future Fund will pass this parliament. Inflation is moderating in our economy, but it is still too high. That's why our highest priority as a government is to take some of the edge off the inflationary pressures in our economy without making those pressures worse. That's why we are rolling out billions of dollars of relief for Australians right around the country—energy bill relief, increases in government payments, dealing with some of the out-of-pocket health costs that people confront, getting wages moving again and making it easier to work more and earn more by making early childhood education cheaper.

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

The member for Casey will cease interjecting.

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

But a big part of our plan to combat the inflationary pressures that people are confronting is to build more houses in our economy and in our local communities as well. Our agenda for housing is a broad and ambitious agenda. The Housing Australia Future Fund is an important part of that, but it's not the only part of that, as the Minister for Housing ran through a moment ago. Whether it's the Housing Australia Future Fund or the social Housing Accelerator, these are all of the different ways in which we are pouring literally billions of dollars into building more homes so that we have more supply and we can start to make up for the fact that the wasted decade left us too far behind when it came to the building of social and affordable housing in our economy.

The first part is to build more housing and get more supply so that we can address this longstanding challenge in our economy. At the same time we're doing that, we're also making sure that we can take some of the edge off these high rents that people are paying for rental properties around the country. That's why we are proud to be rolling out the biggest increase in Commonwealth rent assistance in three decades. This housing challenge has been ignored in our economy for too long. Australians, particularly Australian renters, are paying the price for the wasted decade of missed opportunities that those opposite presided over. Our job—and we embrace this enthusiastically—is to work for Australia to continue to build new homes in our economy, in our communities, and we'll keep doing that despite the negative and nasty and angry politics played by those opposite.