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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Deakin proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

This Government's failed policies creating a housing crisis for Australians.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What you don't hear in question time from this government is anything about the housing crisis facing Australians. What you see in question time from this government is a very self-satisfied Prime Minister and frontbench who basically come in here every day and tell Australians that they've never had it better. We hear the litany of statistics from the Prime Minister basically telling Australians that they are so fortunate to have us as a government. And they never mention the housing crisis as being failed.

The most recent example of that was in question time when we had the Prime Minister blatantly refuse to answer what I thought was a very reasonable question of the government, and that question asked: why on earth, in the last two years of the Albanese government, did we have the number of migrants coming to this country running at the very least twice and on some statistics up to four times as many homes being built? Think about that—twice to four times the number of migrants coming in than homes being built.

We saw statistics reported in the Australian last week from Simon Benson, who outlined that 900,000 migrants had arrived from the time this government won office until 31 December, and in that time, when 900,000 migrants arrived in this country, 265,000 homes were built. May I say, Madam Deputy Speaker, a figure of 265,000 homes is delving into record lows for this country. Under this government, under the Labor Party, we now see new home builds at their lowest level since the global financial crisis. We see the number of first home buyers at its lowest level for over 10 years. Since this government came to office, the rents that Australians are paying have increased by 26 per cent. Sadly, we see data that shows approvals are at their lowest level for over a decade. What that means is that, if the housing crisis is bad now, it is just getting worse. That's because approvals data is the canary in the coalmine for home builds later this year, 2025 and 2026. If homes aren't being approved now, they won't be getting built over the next two-year period.

What do we hear from the government in response? Obviously, we don't hear anything about it in question time. We have heard the minister talk about the Housing Australia Future Fund.

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

Supply!

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take that interjection, Madam Deputy Speaker. The Minister for Housing from the government says 'supply'. She says, 'We are concentrating on supply.' I don't think I'm verballing the minister. She said that very clearly across the dispatch box. Well, let me give the minister a report card. Let me give the minister a sense of how well she and the government are doing. The Australian Bureau of Statistics has highlighted the weakest quarter of construction in more than a decade, with a meagre 23,000 dwellings commenced in the September 2023 quarter. The housing minister says, 'We're focused on supply.' What does the report card say? What does the scoreboard say? It hasn't been worse for over 10 years, Minister, so you are failing your own test.

That's why this is just going to get worse. The truth is—for those in the gallery and those watching—the reason it will get worse is that the government won't admit there's a problem. The government say, 'We're focused on supply; that is what we're focused on,' yet they are failing badly. As I said, we have seen renters have their rents increased by 26 per cent, with absolutely no plan from this government on how you get more homes into the market. We also saw, on the weekend, a very fair assessment, I think, from the Australian people. They said, 'We are bringing in record numbers of migrants—900,000 migrants compared to 265,000 homes. Where on earth are those people going to live?' We know that all this is doing is pushing down vacancy rates. We now have a national vacancy rate of one per cent. It's no wonder that in Melbourne, in my home state of Victoria, when you see an 'open for inspection' for a rental the queues sometimes go around the block. When you bring in 900,000 people with no idea of where they're going to live, guess who suffers? It's the Australians who live here. It's the Australians who live here who suffer.

I'm a very proud product of migration. I come from a migrant family. I'm a huge supporter of migration, but it must be planned. You must have a clue about where those people are going to live. We often talk about infrastructure and migration and the fact that the infrastructure in our cities has to keep up with the ever-growing number of migrants to this country. Well, there is no more important social infrastructure in this country than a roof over your head. There is no bridge, road, tunnel or drain that is more important than a roof over your head. So I would say to the Minister for Housing and the government: you can't abrogate your responsibility and say: 'Well, that's another minister's responsibility. The number of people coming in is not my responsibility as housing minister.'

In the September quarter of the year we had 548,800 migrants, and in that time we had 176,000 homes built. But there's a kicker in those statistics, an important kicker: of the 176,000 homes built, at least a third—potentially up to half—are actually just replacements of existing stock, so a portion of those 176,000 are not increasing the numbers. So those figures are even generous to the government.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Knockdown-build.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Knockdown-rebuilds—we see it all the time. It's a new home, but it's not increasing the stock of housing in this country. The government say, 'We're focused on supply,' but they're failing. They get an F for supply. No government has done as badly as them since the last time the Labor Party was in government.

To get back to what we saw over the weekend, Australians—I think rightly—said: 'Well, if you're bringing in 900,000 migrants, surely you're bringing in some of the people who actually build the homes. Surely you're bringing in some of the trades that build those homes.' But, no, we aren't. We find the 200,000-person increase in migration, year on year, to the September 2023 quarter—the increase by 200,000, to 550,000 people—was predominantly made up of students, not the tradies that are required to build the homes we need. So you don't have that countervailing support for the people that create this industry and build this industry.

In conclusion, where do we find ourselves now? We find ourselves in a dire situation. Labor's housing crisis is getting worse. There's no way you can spin the numbers. Labor's housing crisis is getting worse. We're at 10-year lows in the number of homes being built, we are at the lowest level of first-home buyers for over a decade and we have rents going up exponentially. And what's the plan? What's the policy from this government? The minister, after two years in office, will have the Housing Australia Future Fund established on 1 July, which we opposed. If I'm completely and utterly wrong and the minister's right, and her Housing Australia Future Fund works tickety-boo and is perfect, how many homes will come out of that Housing Australia Future Fund? Six thousand a year. So, at a time when they're bringing in 548,000 migrants, this minister's answer is to say, 'We will fund 6,000 homes for those 548,000 people.' I think it's very heroic to even think that they will meet their own targets. Since when has the Labor Party ever met a target like this, whether it's pink batts or school halls? You name it. But, even if I'm wrong and the minister delivers her meagre 6,000 homes, at the same time as the government is bringing in 548,000 migrants per year, what does it mean? It means misery for Australians and it means, quite frankly, our children will not have the same opportunity to own a home in this country as we had, and that is a shame on the government.

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

Can I say to the member opposite who proposed this MPI that we are busy cleaning up the mess that they left us. Everybody in this country understands the time line around migration and fixing it and around housing and fixing that, and these things do not happen overnight. There's no silver bullet here. This takes hard work, something those opposite did not do. We've seen two reviews into migration, the Nixon and Richardson reviews, that said what a mess they left us in migration. Our home affairs and immigration ministers have been cleaning up that mess. They have been the ones making sure we rebalance our migration system so that we do get the skilled workers we need. Indeed, we are bringing in more skilled workers in construction than the former government did. We are working incredibly hard to turn this around. When it comes to housing, let's not forget that, every time we come into this place and introduce a housing measure, those opposite vote against it—every single time. Every single time we want to do something to provide more housing, they vote against it.

Of course, the member who was just at the dispatch box used to be the Minister for Housing, and when he was minister, particularly when it came to social and public housing but also when it came to housing generally, they always said it's a matter for state and local government. That was their attitude. The one thing they did was HomeBuilder—a good policy badly implemented. What did it do? Post COVID, it stuffed up the housing construction market; that's what it did. We had all these builders signing fixed-term contracts that they couldn't fulfil because of the supply chain issues. That's what they did. And we're busy cleaning up that mess too.

We on this side of the House want to work constructively with state governments and local government, and we want to help turn this housing challenge around. Just last night, with the state ministers, we had a ministerial council meeting where we took a decision to have outcomes: we're actually going to have a performance framework; we're actually going to judge how well we're doing. They had an agreement with the states and territories, and in five years they did not have one meeting with the housing ministers across the country. We've had seven in less than two years because we want to work with them to turn this around. That's what serious governments do; they do the hard work to fix the problem.

Unlike those opposite, we understand what an affordable house means. We are out and about visiting tenants of social and public housing, like the people I talked about in this chamber just this week—like Emma, who was at the new social and affordable housing that I opened in Prahran last Friday. It is 434 social and affordable homes, half social, half affordable. She said it had changed her life. She had spent years in insecure housing. When people get a home, they can build a community, they can get a job, they can get their friends and family together, they have pets, they have plans and they actually build a life. That's what having a home is about. That's what we understand on this side of the House.

That's why, when we came to government, the first thing we did was unlock $575 million that the former government had sitting there but did nothing with. What have we done? We've built homes already with that money. We have homes on the ground because we unlocked that immediately. In October, after getting elected in May, we expanded, improved and changed the First Home Guarantee Scheme. We've now helped more than 100,000 people into homeownership because of the changes we made. And we introduced our Housing Australia Future Fund—an election commitment that those opposite voted against and the Greens political party held up for more than six months. We finally got it through the parliament, and we actually got it up and running by November last year, and by the middle of January we had open tenders for the first round of funding. That tender round closed last Friday. I can say to the shadow minister for housing that he's going to be awfully surprised when he reads the paper today. He hasn't caught up with how many applications we're going to get for social and affordable homes to be built, to help Australians who need them the most.

In our first budget, we funded the National Housing Accord, with funding for 10,000 affordable homes. We set a national target for houses. Those on the opposite side said that target was too big, and then they said it was too small, and then they said it was too big; they don't know what they're talking about over there. We are doing considered, careful policy. We are pulling every lever we have available to us and encouraging the states and territories to do the same.

Last year we provided the states with $2 billion straight up for more social housing. That would build around 4,000 homes. Some of them already have tenants in them; they have been built and tenanted already. It's 10 months since we provided some of the states and territories with that money. For the states and territories that haven't given me a list of every single property they are building or have built, I have asked for it and I chase them up regularly because we want to get on with working with them to get more homes on the ground.

Then there was the National Cabinet decision last year—a historic agreement with the states and territories where we agreed on a new, ambitious national aspirational target to build not one million homes but 1.2 million homes. We put money on the table for the states and territories to reach that target; we put $3.5 billion on the table. The minister for infrastructure and I will, in the coming week, open up the Home Support Program, which is half a billion dollars for local and state governments to do the necessary planning and infrastructure so we can get more homes on the ground. As part of the National Cabinet decision we got an agreed national blueprint to do the planning and zoning reforms, to do the reforms that are necessary at the state and local government levels so that we can add to supply. That is critical.

Then we have been working right across the board to make sure that we can get Help to Buy up. We got the states and territories to agree to Help to Buy, our shared-equity scheme, so that we can, once and for all, have a national shared-equity scheme. We've seen how valuable these are, particularly in the state of Western Australia, with Keystart. We're talking about up to 40 per cent government equity for new homes and 30 per cent for existing homes. That, too, will drive supply. But those opposite came in here and voted against that just as they voted against the Housing Australia Future Fund. Now we've got the Greens saying they won't support it either. So, when we want to get more people into homeownership and to support low-income Australians into homeownership, we're getting people saying no.

Through National Cabinet, we also agreed to renters' rights, to have some national consistency for renters so that renters in the country, no matter where they live, understand what their rights and obligations are in terms of them and their properties. We want to encourage more longer-term leases and renters' rights around the country. We also, in our last budget, had the largest increase in Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years, a 15 per cent increase to the maximum rate. We are, at every opportunity and at every level, using the levers that we have available to us. We have now invested more than $25 billion in extra funding for the states and territories, across the country, for social and affordable housing, for housing supply and for investments for renters.

We are taking this really seriously. We have now announced investments that will build more than 60,000 social and affordable homes. But, importantly, we need to add to supply. There was research done that said that our National Cabinet agreement for renters would put downward pressure of tens of billions of dollars on increasing rents because of that agreement—if the states and territories meet the national target. We want them to meet it, and we're working with them to meet it because we know how important this is. There is a lot of work to do, but you don't do this overnight. We're working as quickly as we can with other jurisdictions.

But those opposite don't have a policy on housing—actually, correction. They do have one: raid your super. Even those on the other side have said that what this will do is push up house prices. That's it. They have a policy that will push up house prices. Indeed, the current Leader of the Opposition said in 2017:

… you don't want to fuel prices, you don't want to create a situation that's worse than what we've got at the moment.

Quite right. The shadow finance minister, the then minister for superannuation, said it would probably push up prices. Interestingly, even last night, the newly appointed shadow minister for homeownership told the ABC that their super policy could push up prices. So you raid your super, you push up prices, you've got no super left and the house has gone up in price. Seriously, those over there have no ideas for how to get more Australians to have a safe and affordable place to call home.

We are doing the careful policy work, working with the other tiers of government to turn this around. As I said, we are busy cleaning up their mess in migration. We're busy cleaning up their mess in terms of housing and housing supply. We're busy building more social and affordable homes for the Australians that need them most, and those on the other side should get out of the way and support our policies.

Jenny Ware (Hughes, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for Deakin for bringing this matter of public importance, 'This government's failed policies creating a housing crisis for Australians', to this place today. Since this government was elected, the problem of housing affordability in this country has grown to the point that it is now beyond a crisis, and this is because of many of the policies that this government has introduced.

It's a national shame, because in Australia we value homeownership very deeply. It is a deep part of our nation's story. We are a country that was built largely on a classless system, and that classless system was built on the notion of homeownership. The founders of our modern country came over here and, particularly from the 20th century onwards, recognised that the way to have a different system to the class system that existed in the United Kingdom was for most Australians to be able to own their own homes. A home provides stability for families, provides social cohesion, builds stronger communities and provides security in retirement.

At the moment, younger Australians particularly have been failed by this government, especially in my home state of New South Wales. We are denying the millennials and also generation Z the opportunity that those who went before them had. For example, in Sydney about 40 years ago the median house price was five times the average salary. Today that ratio is closer to 12 times. So, even if these younger people do all we've asked of them—finish school, get an education, get a job—it's still going to take them, on average, about 12 years to save for a deposit.

Whether it be homeownership or rent, housing is now almost completely unaffordable in this country, and the problem is largely due to supply. We have failed to build the number of houses needed, particularly over the past 20 years. This government has spoken about addressing supply. It has said it will deliver 1.2 million new homes over five years. That's the promise from this government. That's 240,000 new homes each and every year. That came out of an announcement from National Cabinet towards the end of last year, and a couple of weeks later Labor New South Wales Premier Chris Minns, the Premier of the most populous state in the country, said, 'New South Wales now can't meet its targets.' If New South Wales can't meet its targets, the federal government cannot meet its targets. But I will say this about Premier Minns: at least he was honest about it.

One of the main policies the government has failed on is economic policy, for example. The government's failure to grasp inflation, to get inflation under control, has led to 12 interest rate rises in a row. That means that with the average mortgage of $750,000 a family is now needing to find another $24,000 each year just to be able to pay their mortgage. This has of course also led to an increase whereby property owners, to cover their own mortgages on investment properties, have had to increase rents, Also, the shortage of rental properties has meant that national median rents have increased by 26 per cent under this government's watch.

We've also seen a government that has failed to address some of the major issues in the building and construction industry, which is now on its knees. We have record construction insolvencies. The ABS has highlighted the weakest quarter of construction in more than a decade. According to Build Skills Australia, we need an extra 90,000 construction workers in the next three months just for the government to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes. So this is not going to happen.

I've just heard the minister saying that state and local government are completely separate entities. The minister has the ability to incentivise state and local governments to provide better housing choice, to look at very innovative projects. For example, I've got Tiny Solar Homes in my electorate. I'd invite the minister to come and have a look at them. We've got companies doing amazing things in airspace development—building homes in airspace on existing developments. These are the sorts of things the Labor government should be looking at to address housing in this— (Time expired)

Sally Sitou (Reid, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What an extraordinary matter of public importance we are debating today. It's not the content that is extraordinary, because I think we all agree that housing is important. What is extraordinary is the member who is moving this MPI, the member for Deakin—the former housing minister. That he is the one who is moving a motion for debate on housing is pure irony—so much irony that Alanis Morissette should rewrite her song—because this housing crisis has been brewing for years and years. And who was the housing minister for many of those years? It was the member for Deakin. In his time as the Minister for Housing, he could not even be bothered to convene a meeting of all the state and territory housing ministers. We know that the issue of housing affordability is complex. It involves local council, development approvals, state and territory planning policy, and support for infrastructure projects. Yet the member for Deakin, in the years that he was the Minister for Housing, could not bring himself to get everyone together to establish a national housing plan.

So let's look at the track record on housing of those opposite. A pretty basic part of public policy is understanding the problem. Whether it's monitoring supply or demand, you've got to be able to measure the scale of the challenge. That seems like a fairly uncontroversial point—but not for those opposite. Under the Abbott government those opposite abolished the National Housing Supply Council, the very body charged with giving us that vital information.

For those keeping score on how bad those opposite were on housing: they were lazy and couldn't convene a meeting of all housing ministers. They were inept, abolishing the body that was providing us with a better understanding of the housing affordability challenge. Now we've got the real winner of bad housing policy. What is it? Raiding your superannuation, your retirement income. It is such a bad policy that respected economist Saul Eslake described it as 'one of the worst public policy decisions of the 21st century'. I think he undersold how bad it is, but it's pretty bad, because what their housing policy does is turbocharge demand for housing while doing nothing to address supply.

But don't take my word for it and don't take the word of Saul Eslake. Let's hear what former Liberal finance minister Mathias Cormann thinks. This is what he had to say:

Increasing the amount of money going into real estate by facilitating access to super savings pre-retirement will not improve housing affordability It would increase demand for housing and, all other things being equal, would actually drive up house prices by more.

So their one housing policy won't do anything to assist with housing affordability; it will drive up prices.

After nine years of neglect from those opposite, this is a government on this side of the House that is finally showing leadership on housing. We are tackling it from four angles. One is providing direct assistance to the most vulnerable through a record increase in rent assistance and the establishment of the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund to build more social and affordable housing that Australia needs.

The second thing we're doing is boosting housing supply by working with state governments through the Housing Accord to set a national target to build 1.2 million more homes over the next five years. We're investing an additional $1 billion in the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to finance building more homes, and we've changed tax arrangements to encourage investment in build-to-rent accommodation.

The third thing we're doing is providing institutional reform and leadership, because, finally, we have a minister for housing who is willing to convene a meeting of all the housing ministers and who has set up the first National Housing Supply and Affordability Council.

The fourth angle that we're taking is providing assistance to first home buyers, getting them a foot on the property ladder through our Help to Buy scheme and expanding the Home Guarantee Scheme. This is a government that cares about addressing housing affordability, and we're doing just that.

Sam Birrell (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Our house, in the middle of our street. I remember way back then, when everything was true and when we would have such a good time, such a fine time'—Madness. I'm referring to the band that actually recorded that song, although it might apply to the policies of those opposite as well. Way back then, when a lot of young Australians could buy their own home, we didn't have a cost-of-living crisis and supply was closer to keeping up with the number of people coming into the country. But that's not the case now.

Homeownership has never been further out of reach, and loan and construction data points have gone down to the lowest level of activity since the GFC in 2008. What's causing this? What's causing the homeownership crisis and housing crisis that we're debating today? Well, it's the cost of living, obviously. The cost-of-living crisis doesn't help when you're trying to save for a home. If interest rates are going up, electricity prices are going up, food is going up, and your disposable income is going down, down, down, then it's very difficult for young people to save for a home.

There's supply. We've talked a lot about supply, and it's not getting better on the ground, that I can see, in my electorate of Nicholls. Even though the government says, 'Oh, we're working on supply; we're working on this; we're putting this into place; we're doing this,' all I'm seeing is added bureaucracy.

To be fair, the added bureaucracy is not just from the federal Labor government. In my state of Victoria, it's from the state Labor government. And if you want to come and see what a poor government looks like, get a flight to Melbourne and have a look around!

Now, the problem is that it takes a long, long time to turn a paddock that has been zoned residential into something that someone could pour a slab on. Sometimes it's six to eight years. That is not helping with supply. The causes are ridiculous bureaucratic delays: red tape, green tape—every kind of tape you can imagine. Developers are telling me it's so hard to be able to develop new estates, with the services and all of the things. It should be much easier. The federal government should be supporting state and local governments to streamline these processes. Instead of putting money into building new homes, put the money into making sure that state and local governments have the ability to streamline their approval processes, and we'll see more houses get built.

Labor has some ambitious targets, but I don't see any credible plan to achieve them. There are some plans that I think are fairly dubious. I mean, take Help to Buy—I'll go back to Madness for a while: 'Our house, was our castle and our keep'. Well, under the Labor plan Help to Buy, 'our house' will be the Albanese government's castle and their keep—that's how that's going to work!

I think there are a lot of good ideas that can be put forward. One constructive idea I want to throw out there is the rise and rise of modular housing development. There's a company in my electorate of Nicholls that's aiming to set up a factory that will build modular houses and go out and drop them on blocks and plug them in. I think that's a great advance and a way we can get more people to have a roof over their head. With modular building, you take away a lot of the delay and cost that come from having to be out in the elements to build, as you're doing it in a controlled environment. So I'm really excited to see this company called JMB Modular Buildings set up their facility in Nicholls. I just hope that they can fast-track their housing build and reduce the costs of actually building the houses. But can the governments reduce their planning and bureaucracy delays so we can get more houses on the ground? 'Our house, in the middle of our street'—we need more houses and more streets. (Time expired)

Carina Garland (Chisholm, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would really encourage the member for Nicholls to speak to the Minister for Industry and Science, Minister Husic, who spoke about modular housing just yesterday in this parliament. So I really would encourage the member to reach out, because, on this side of the House, unlike on the other side, we do understand that safe and affordable housing is central to the security and dignity of all Australians. I genuinely don't believe those opposite do think that this is the case, and the evidence we've seen, with the wasted 10 years with the gift of government, just demonstrates that.

We have acted and will continue to act on putting in place short-, medium- and long-term plans to tackle the challenges left behind after a decade of very little action by the former Liberal-National government. We have already committed more than $25 billion in new housing investments over the next decade. This includes the single biggest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade, with the Housing Australia Future Fund now established. This will help the government's commitment of 30,000 new social and affordable rental homes in the fund's first five years.

We're a collaborative government, so we're working with states and territories to help them meet the ambitious new national target to build 1.2 million well-located new homes over five years from July through our $3 billion new homes bonus and $500 million Housing Support Program. This builds on the Housing Accord, which includes federal funding to deliver 10,000 affordable homes to be matched by states and territories. We're delivering immediate action like the $2 billion social housing accelerator for around 4,000 new social rental homes across the country in partnership with the states and territories. This is on top of an additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing through Housing Australia.

We've unlocked up to $575 million in funding from the National Housing Infrastructure Facility, with houses already under construction across the country. A further $1 billion has now been committed to this facility, and Housing Australia has already supported 4,937 new homes since our government came to office. If it sounds like we're doing a lot of work, it's because we are, unlike what happened under the watch of those opposite, when they wasted 10 years in government, which is such a great shame.

We're also delivering new action to help Australian renters, expanding opportunities for homeownership, without requiring people to steal from their retirement savings for the future, and we're bolstering frontline homelessness services. We've led the way on renters' rights, securing a better deal for renters, and, for the first time in Australia's history, we're coordinating progress towards a nationally consistent policy to require genuine reasonable grounds for eviction. Renters are benefitting under other work we're doing with state and territory governments, as we support them to change standards, including limiting rental increases to once a year, and minimum rental standards. We're helping to ease the pressure on Australians feeling the pain of rising rents by increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent, because it's really important to understand that many people in our country also rent. We're offering new incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation.

We've significantly expanded the Home Guarantee Scheme, which under our government has already helped more than 100,000 people into homeownership. We're working with states to deliver the Help to Buy scheme, supporting up to 40,000 low- and middle-income families to purchase a home of their own. We are doing so much, and I suspect I'm going to need more than the five minutes allowed in the debate today to talk about all of the action our government are taking to ensure that people have a safe and affordable place to call home, including the work we're doing to ensure that we have a national plan to end homelessness, as part of our $1.7 billion National Housing and Homelessness Agreement.

What's really important is that, instead of blaming migrants, for instance, for the housing crisis in this country that those opposite oversaw for a decade, we are actually taking responsibility as a government to build houses. We're getting on with the job, as I described. We don't sow division and fear in our communities. Many of us, including, I note, the member who brought this MPI to the House, represent multicultural electorates, and it would be irresponsible for us to blame them for the housing crisis left behind by those opposite. So we're taking action.

Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In the nearly two years since this government were elected, they've produced failed policies that have created a housing crisis for now desperate Australians. Homeownership, especially for first home buyers, has never been further out of reach. The Gold Coast, my home town, has always been a place of aspiration, a growing regional city known for our standard of living and quality of life. But under the Albanese Labor government, generations of prosperity and sustainable growth are at risk. Labor is crushing the dreams of aspirational young families in suburbs like Gaven, Pacific Pines, Ormeau and Pimpama. I say to those young Australians: don't write off your dreams; vote for the coalition at the next election, because we are here for you.

The number of first home buyers is at the lowest level since the Prime Minister's mentor, Julia Gillard, was equally failing Australians on every major issue back in 2008. Lending for new homes is now at a shameful 20-year low. And it's not at all surprising that there's no confidence in the construction sector, when Labor has presided over 12 interest rate rises. Interest rates are up, inflation is up, construction costs are up and the ambitions of Australians are being hit the hardest. The dream of a first family home is well and truly out of reach for many, and the few first home buyers that are in the market will be lucky to find a home in a price bracket that they can afford.

Under Labor, our standard of living is collapsing. Net disposable income is going backwards, and fast. Since the last election, the average $750,000 mortgage is now costing an extra $24,000 a year in repayments. But for those renting, perhaps trying to save a deposit for a home, things are also grim. Average rent has risen by 26 per cent, to an average of $580 per week. The great Australian dream is becoming unattainable, and this government has no plan to fix it. Labor simply has the wrong priorities, and they are failing to deliver for Australians.

Despite all of the government's posturing that they are here for working-class families, what they actually do is raise taxes on family cars and utes. They have decimated the skills and training sector, and they make Aussies compete for housing in a market with record-high migration levels. Labor's big Australia has grown even bigger, with migration reaching a new record, of 548,000 arrivals over the last year. This is 1,500 new arrivals every single day. Net migration is outstripping new home construction by a factor of four. Labor has broken the record for the greatest number of migrants to arrive in a 12-month period, beating its own record from the year before. Australians are struggling to find a place to live and struggling to pay the rent, and they're rightfully asking: 'What about us? Where will all these new people live? How can I compete with dozens of other people inspecting a new rental?' The government isn't focusing on delivering for Australian families. I remind the House of the Prime Minister's famous declaration to the Australian people prior to the last election: 'Labor has real, lasting plans for cheaper mortgages.' Shall we chalk that one up as another broken promise, alongside the broken promises on tax cuts and cheaper power bills? There have been two giant failed policies: the widely condemned failure of the Help to Buy scheme and the Housing Australia Future Fund that Labor tried to deliver.

Do you know who's missing from the chamber this afternoon? The Greens. An MPI on housing, and the Greens can't be bothered turning up, despite this being directly in their wheelhouse. The Greens want the government to own your home. Labor want the unions to own your home. The coalition want you to own your own home. So, with so much evidence mounting up that Labor won't get anywhere near the promise to build 1.2 million homes over the next five years, when will the housing minister admit that Labor's policies aren't working? An impending 200,000-home shortfall, confirmed by industry, is proof of yet another broken promise. At a time when Australians need leadership, certainty and a roof over their head, they're being let down by this government. Australians have seen one failed policy after another, one broken promise after another, and we're in the middle of a devastating housing crisis with a government that can't deliver a plan.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a mum, I'm used to cleaning up other people's mess, and I think that actually makes me highly qualified for this job. I certainly do this in my house, and I do it in this House. That's thanks to a decade of Liberal inaction and messed-up priorities. Inland Rail, commuter car parks, $5 billion on subs we never got, and let's not forget the $20 billion spent on consultants. It goes on and on, as far as the eye can see. That's what we're cleaning up.

But, in addition to their threadbare legacy, whether it be energy, health care or skills shortages across the economy, we can now add housing. Their waste was, as the Prime Minister said, radioactive: it takes forever to clean up. Housing is no exception. But the federal government is back at the table after a decade of being absent. We are here to work with the states and territories and indeed with local councils to solve this housing crisis, because we can't afford not to. Housing is foundational. It is a prerequisite to security and to prosperity. Right now there are far too many Australians, in Higgins and elsewhere, who are spinning their wheels in search of a roof over their head. The answer is supply.

The number of dwellings peaked in 2016 and supply has been in freefall ever since because the Liberals vacated their role of leadership. What does housing supply actually look like? I have had the privilege of seeing this in action. This is what happens when the federal government steps in. With $400 million, the Albanese government has helped build social and affordable housing in my own electorate. I had the privilege, with the housing minister, Julie Collins, and the state housing minister, Harriet Shing, of opening 434 homes in Bangs Street, Prahran. These are a mix of social, private rental and specialist disability homes. Do you know what? They are beautiful. These are warm, bright, modern homes. They have European laundries, induction stovetops, seven-star electric energy ratings, beautiful wooden floors, built-in wardrobes and bathtubs and showers—people should have the luxuries.

I had the privilege of speaking to Emma. Emma is an 80-year-old woman who has been on the public housing waiting list for about three years. She finally got this home and she felt like she had hit the jackpot. She has moved in, she cares for her cat and she is connected to her community. Why? Because we want to see homes built in areas where essential services are present, as well as public transport. Places like Prahran in the inner city are ideal in that regard. How are we doing that? We're doing that by incentivising, dangling a lot of carrots—$25 billion worth of carrot—in front of the states.

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a lot of carrot.

Michelle Ananda-Rajah (Higgins, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's a lot of carrot. Thank you, member for Bennelong. That's going to be over the next 10 years. One of those carrots is the $3 billion New Homes Bonus. This is a performance-based provision of funding to the states to stimulate housing. In addition to that, we have the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator. This money was released to the states in June last year. They have two years to disburse these funds. I gather that the applications are now rolling in and the minister is going to be signing off on those.

But let's not forget the Housing Australia Future Fund. This was delayed through an unholy alliance of the Liberals and their new besties, the Greens political party, and it was stopped for six months. Six months is not trivial when people are living in tent cities, many of them in Liberal Party electorates. They have the temerity to come into this House and lecture us on what we are not doing for housing. We are cleaning up your Liberal legacy because you vacated the space.

You are now doing your constituents a disservice by also blocking the Help to Buy Scheme—a shared equity scheme that can put young Australians and low-income earners into homes right now. All you have to do is vote yes. That shared equity scheme means that the government will stump up 40 per cent of the purchase price for new homes and 30 per cent for existing homes, significantly reducing mortgage repayments and the deposit. Don't lecture us; just vote yes.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, member for Higgins, for the contribution. I appreciated the contribution about Bangs Street in Prahran. That sounds like such a great project, a wonderful initiative in Prahran that's open this year, as the member said. I thought I might quickly jump on the website and do a little bit of research and have a look at Bangs Street. When did the early works for the Bangs Street social housing project, which the member for Higgins is happy to talk about, start? They started in 2021. Who was in government in 2021, Member for Fadden? It might have been the coalition government. I'm referencing the official Homes Victoria website. When did construction of the Bangs Street social housing project, which the member for Higgins just referenced as such a great project, start? It started in February 2022.

Member for Fisher, who was the government in February 2022? Was that the coalition government? Wow! There we go, people at home. We have just summed up the one moment the Albanese government.

Government members interjecting—

Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There's too much noise in the chamber.

Aaron Violi (Casey, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Albanese government are happy to take credit for the work of the previous coalition government. The works at Bangs Street that commenced in February of 2022, on the Homes Victoria website—that's what we see from those opposite.

When MPIs come up, they're very quick to criticise the coalition, saying nothing happened, yet they're very happy to turn up to the openings that were funded under the previous coalition government. It's very, very awkward for this government, and the Australian people have worked that out. They've worked out that it's a government that is big on spin but not on delivery. They gave this Prime Minister a chance. They didn't know much about him. He ran a very small strategy. They knew that he didn't know the cash rate during the election. They knew that he didn't know the unemployment rate. What they found out today is that this Prime Minister doesn't know what a per capita GDP recession is. We saw him pad three minutes on that.

That's the problem for the Australian people—when you have a housing crisis, when you have an economy that's struggling, when you have a Prime Minister that's not across the detail and when you have a Treasurer that's not across the detail and not prepared to make the hard decisions because he's worried about getting the support from the backbench. We know this Prime Minister is not only not across the detail; he can't be trusted. He said at the last election, 'My word is my bond.' And he broke that bond because he was referencing the stage 3 tax cuts which he flipped on. We could also reference has broken promise on electricity—a $275 reduction that he promised 97 times before the election and 30 times after the invasion of Ukraine. But, when he won government, he then referenced Ukraine as a reason he had to break his promise. There's no consistency from this government. This is the problem; it creates this housing crisis.

As the Australian Bureau of Statistics have highlighted, this is the weakest quarter of construction in more than a decade, with construction of a meagre 23,058 dwellings commenced in the September 2023 quarter, over 12 months into the Albanese Labor government. That's their responsibility; that's their failure of leadership.

BuildSkills Australia are saying that we would need 90,000 extra construction workers in the next three months for this government to meet its target of 1.2 million new homes by 2029. I tell you what, Member for Fisher, I don't think they're hitting that 1.2 million home promise.

The real tragedy is that it's communities that suffer. My community has seen housing become harder and harder to get. Rents are going up. Prices are going up. All we have from this government is poor leadership. They're making bad decisions that make it worse.

Members opposite are happy to blame the coalition while, at the same time, taking credit for our work and for policies that we have delivered. This government isn't actually delivering any new houses; they're claiming credit for the work of the coalition. It shows the lack of character and the lack of integrity of this Prime Minister that he will break his word. The real question for the Australian people is—when it continues to get tough, they know they're going to be abandoned—what is the next broken promise from this Prime Minister?

Jerome Laxale (Bennelong, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Australians are sick and tired of politicians playing politics with housing. The Greens do it in the federal parliament when they block the Labor government's housing policies, and they do it in local government when they vote against affordable social housing in our communities. Unsurprisingly, the Liberals are here today doing it too. Get this: the Liberals in my electorate, with a full majority on the local council, opposed their own council's plan to address the housing crisis whilst also opposing the state government's plan. Their choice is no plan.

With this MPI here today, the federal Liberals are playing politics as well, choosing to blame this government and, despicably, choosing to blame migration for the housing crisis that we're in. I cannot stress how disgusted I am that the Liberals repeatedly choose to focus on migration as the reason for the housing crisis we are in.

I'll break down why I think their attack on migration is despicable. Firstly, the housing crisis existed before the last federal election. Economists, academics and industry are all in agreement that the housing crisis exists today because of decades of poor housing policy and missed opportunity. I am all for having conversations about housing policy and how to solve this crisis, but it's naive at best and wilfully misleading at worst to imply that this crisis is new and that it exists because of migration. Economist Chris Richardson put it well when he said: 'It's not that we've messed up migration; it's that we've messed up housing, but we've messed up housing so much.' Maiy Azize, of the Everybody's Home campaign, called out the fallacy of blaming immigration for the housing crisis, labelling such accusations as nonsense. And there's no better evidence of those opposite's disdain of the facts than looking at what happened to our housing market during the pandemic. You'll recall, Deputy Speaker Georganas, that borders were shut during the pandemic. Throughout the pandemic, when our borders were closed, Australia witnessed some of the highest increases in housing prices within the OECD. According to CoreLogic's home values across Australia, prices leapt 25 per cent in the two years to the end of February 2022, and, since the pandemic, rental prices have increased by 32 per cent.

The facts show that soaring housing prices and diminishing affordability are not tied to migration rates. We have a housing crisis today because of a lack of supply, poor planning laws, a skills shortage, supply chain issues and a historical lack of investment in social and affordable housing. Yet those opposite choose to ignore all of that, and they focus their gaze on migration and migrants—and it's not right. Punching down on migration and migrants will not solve the housing crisis.

I grew up in Seven Hills, in Western Sydney. Both my parents were born overseas. Both my parents didn't speak English when they came here. Both my parents came to Australia for a better life. Both my parents worked hard, employed people, paid taxes and made our country better, and nearly all their friends and all my friends have near identical stories. In my entire life, in 40 years spent here on this land, I've not yet met a migrant family that hasn't made our country better. And when the Liberals come in this place and choose migration as the reason for the housing crisis, it makes me angry. I see it as an attack on me, an attack on my family and attack on migrant families in my electorate of Bennelong. There are people out there who will jump on this language and attack migrant communities and blame them for a crisis that is not of their making. Blaming migration for the housing crisis is dangerous and irresponsible, and it undermines the absolute truth about the role migration plays in modern-day Australia. The truth about migration is this: it makes our country better, it makes our country stronger and it makes our communities safer.

Instead of attacking migration and playing politics, I encourage the Liberals and Greens to support the government in our genuine attempts to resolve this housing crisis. Pass our Help to Buy legislation, which is stuck in the Senate. Stop voting against our policies, like you did with the Housing Australia Future Fund. And tell those in your parties to work with the state and local governments who are seeking to address supply. To the Liberals and the Greens: stop playing politics with housing, and work with us to make this the parliament that takes meaningful action on the housing crisis.