Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. How is the Albanese Labor government helping to ease cost-of-living pressures, particularly for those Australians who are trying to buy a home? And what is standing in the way of that assistance?

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

I want to thank the member for Solomon for that great question. We do know that some people are doing it particularly tough at the moment, which is why we're working to deliver real assistance to help ease cost-of-living pressures for Australians.

Through our plans to boost wages and our new tax cuts, we want Australians to earn more and to keep more of what they earn. Come 1 July, every Australian taxpayer will receive a tax cut. That's 13.6 million Australians getting a tax cut. The vast majority will be getting a bigger tax cut under Labor's plan.

We also have a plan to help Australians who want to buy their first home or buy a home. Our Help to Buy shared-equity program will be life changing for tens of thousands of Australians. It will provide a pathway to homeownership for people who have been locked out. It is targeted and aimed at low- and middle-income earners deliberately because we know that many renters could service a mortgage, but they can't get the deposit.

Help to Buy will help these low- and middle-income Australians get over the hurdle of a deposit and enjoy ongoing savings thanks to smaller repayments. Eligible participants will only need a two per cent deposit for the program. The government will then support them with an equity stake of up to 30 per cent for existing homes or 40 per cent for new homes.

We know that Help to Buy will be critical for many Australians, because we have heard from them about what this will mean. Like Chris from Canberra, who said, 'Without Help to Buy he would not be able to afford a property for many years.' And like Gemma from Sydney, who said, 'Help to Buy would completely reorientate my life.' And then there's Stephen from Brisbane—I'm not sure if it's the member over there. I doubt it. He said that he has enough savings to buy through shared equity but not without this help from the government. These are real people who need this real assistance to get into homeownership.

But what do we have? We have those opposite and those over here who are blocking this. Those opposite and their friends in the Greens are teaming up again to again stop Australians from getting into housing. They've already teamed up to delay the Housing Australia Future Fund that will deliver—

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

The member for Deakin is warned.

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

30,000 social and affordable home for those Australians that need them most. And now they're joining forces to keep low- and middle-income Australians locked out of homeownership.

We have a mandate to implement this program. We took this to the last election. The party over here, who claim that they want to support more Australians into homeownership, should be supporting it. Indeed, we've already helped more than 100,000 Australians into homeownership through the expanded and improved Home Guarantee Scheme.

This week they have a chance in this place to support getting more Australians into homeownership, and they should be supporting the 40,000 Australians that will benefit from it.