Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you—

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Order! The House will come to order. The member for Tangney will be shown the same courtesy as every other member today.

The member for Herbert will leave the chamber under 94(a).

The member for Herbert then left the chamber .

When I'm talking about courtesy, that is not the time to interject.

Sam Lim (Tangney, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing. How is Labor's Homes for Australia plan helping address housing affordability, and what is standing in its way?

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 Tangney, and the member for Tangney would know that 87,000 people in his electorate this week got a tax cut to help them with the cost of living. He also knows housing affordability is a serious issue in his electorate and, indeed, around the country after what we inherited from those opposite when it comes to the housing challenges.

We need to build more homes in Australia. We don't have enough homes and we haven't had enough homes for a long time because of what we inherited from those opposite. That's why we have a national housing target to build 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade. We've backed up this ambitious target with $32 billion in new housing initiatives from the federal government, on top of what the states and territories are doing. This $32 billion Homes for Australia plan will help us train more tradies, turbocharge construction and streamline planning to build the homes that Australia needs.

We're working with all the tiers of government, including some of the local government people that are here today. We're also working with the state governments, the construction sector and the community housing sector to meet this shared national target. We all have to have our shoulder to the wheel if we're going to achieve this target. It is ambitious, but we need to be ambitious to turn around the housing challenges.

We know that boosting supply is the answer to this. Indeed, our historic National Cabinet meeting in August last year made some decisions around planning and zoning and reforms that will help with that. The independent analysis of our supply plan by the Grattan Institute found that it would put significant downward pressure on rents that could save renters $32 billion in payments, when it comes to rents. That's how you deliver real cost-of-living relief, not by pushing up energy prices with risky nuclear reactors—and it's also not by blocking housing legislation in the parliament.

What have we seen again in the last week or so? We have seen those opposite, with their friends in the Greens political party, block yet more housing in the Senate. Indeed, they want to block homes of every kind—to block social and affordable homes, as when those opposite blocked the Housing Australia Future Fund and delayed it, with the help of the Greens, for months. We could have homes under construction today under the Housing Australia Future Fund, if it wasn't for those opposite and the Greens.

Indeed, they want to block our Help to Buy scheme. The Prime Minister said today that we've got support from the Queensland LNP for a shared-equity scheme, but we've also had it from the Liberal state premier in Tasmania and the former Liberal premier in New South Wales, who all support shared-equity schemes. But apparently those opposite don't support shared equity anymore.

We want to build more homes for people to buy, more homes for people to rent and more homes for Australians that need a safe place each night.

Max Chandler-Mather (Griffith, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Prime Minister, the Greens will pass your build-to-rent plan if Labor guarantees, in law, that 100 per cent of the apartments built under this scheme are genuinely affordable. But an analysis of build-to-rent projects in Sydney found that rents for a two-bedroom apartment were 27 per cent above market rent, which means a two-bedroom apartment in Marrickville, under Labor's scheme, could be over a thousand dollars extra a week in rent. Will Labor work with the Greens to ensure tax handouts don't go to developers to build apartments that no-one can afford?

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens political party, of course, did vote with the coalition to delay the Housing Australia Future Fund, and they did vote with the coalition to block build-to-rent, just in the last fortnight.

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

The member for Griffith has asked his question.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That would have meant 160,000 new affordable rental homes as a result, and they voted against it.

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

The member for Griffith will cease interjecting or be warned.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I mean, if the Leader of the Opposition votes with the Greens any more times, he's going to have to get a hyphen in his surname! It just keeps going. You guys, over in the Senate, blocked build-to-rent, delayed the Housing Australia Future Fund and voted with the coalition to block Help to Buy, which is sitting in the Senate as well. Of course, one of my local members in Grayndler has claimed, as to going forward with the Minns Labor government's efforts to build more housing in Sydney, that the Greens member for Balmain is out there saying that building more homes is unlikely to have a meaningful impact on the housing crisis. It is unbelievable that they oppose every single measure.

Indeed, the member for Griffith is supporting a campaign against new homes. He claimed, on Insiders,that planning changes that allow more housing won't change a thing.

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

The member for Griffith is warned.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He went on to say, 'That won't change a thing, because what we know right now is that the planning system is not the barrier to fixing the housing crisis.' I tell you what: when you look at each of the states and all of our capital cities, we know that planning is a big problem. But, of course, one of his colleagues—the member for Brisbane, who's not here today—has opposed an apartment building in his inner-city electorate because it would, to quote him, 'have a substantive impact on the views of existing nearby residents', and then, where there's another development that would turn an empty sand and gravel factory into 381 apartments, it's because there would be too many car parks associated with it. He is also concerned that the height of the building would impact the 'unique character of this heritage neighbourhood'. And the member for Brisbane's justification for opposing this very sensible build-to-rent scheme was that developers would build the buildings. That's what they put in their media release.