Susan Templeman (Macquarie, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing and for Homelessness. How is the Albanese Labor government's Homes for Australia plan helping improve housing affordability, and what could block future progress?

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

I want to thank our terrific member for Macquarie. I know that she knows that we're working to address the housing challenges that we inherited from those opposite. Our $32 billion Homes for Australia plan will help boost our country's housing supply and ensure that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home. Indeed there was more than $6 billion for Homes for Australia in the most recent budget, including a $1.9 billion increase to the Commonwealth rent assistance. This is the first back-to-back increase in more than 30 years to help the nearly one million households who are doing it tough right now.

But of course we know the best way to deal with housing affordability is to add to supply, and that is what we're focused on. That's why we're working with all tiers of government and the housing sector to meet the ambitious national target of 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade. We've put billions on the table to help the states and territories boost their supply and to reduce the red tape, including through the $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator. This investment is already helping Australians into homes, like the one our Prime Minister visited in Sydney last week. Across New South Wales now more than 700 people have a safe, affordable place to call home thanks to funds from the Social Housing Accelerator. This is life changing for those people, and it shows what is possible when you work with the other tiers of government.

Of course we all need to have our shoulder to the wheel to meet this national target, and last week, at the housing and homelessness ministerial council, the states and territories signed up to a $9.3 billion new housing agreement. It is only by working together that we will boost supply and provide more help for homebuyers, more help for renters and more help for Australians who need a safe, affordable place to call home.

This is in stark contrast to those opposite. They didn't want to work with the states when they were in government, they're saying they're not going to have a target for building homes, they voted against the Housing Australia Future Fund and they conspired with the Greens to hold it up for at least six months. Now we have the shadow minister coming in here today saying that homes won't be built under the fund—the fund that they voted against. They opposed the Help to Buy bill in this House. That will be coming before the Senate shortly. And they don't have a plan for housing at all other than the rehashed thought bubble which we got from the Leader of the Opposition. We got not one new dollar for one new home, but we did get 'raid your super for housing' again. It's something that he knows will drive up house prices and something that he knows won't build a single home. And, of course, we know it will wreck people's retirement. While they're full of negativity, we're going to get on and build the homes that Australia desperately needs so that more Australians have a safe, affordable place to call home.