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

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

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question. She is an incredible advocate for her local community and we are very lucky to have her representing the eastern and south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne.

We have a housing crisis in our country which is affecting the lives of millions of Australians. It's renters who are copping too many rent increases that are too high. It's that experience of being a renter where people aren't getting the security they need, especially if they have children and pets. It's that sense that home ownership is slipping away for a generation of young people who deserve so much better from their country.

For a decade the Commonwealth stepped back and basically refused to engage in the housing issue in our country. We are taking a different approach. Today our country is led by a Prime Minister whose entire life trajectory was reshaped by the access he got in his childhood to safe and affordable housing. So, of course, under the Albanese government, we are backing the housing game. In the two years since we were elected, we have invested $32 billion in this critical national challenge. I want to give you a sense of the profound difference in energy and focus that housing is getting under our government. Our government invested more in housing in our last budget than was spent in the entire nine years that the coalition were in power. I really want people to hear this: we spent more in one budget than was spent in the entire nine years that the coalition governed this country.

In the big picture, the answer to Australia's housing problems is that we need to build more homes in our country. So the Prime Minister has sat down with the states and said, 'We need a bold and ambitious goal of building 1.2 million homes across our country over the coming five years.' But we also recognise, of course, that people need help now. That's why you've seen our government execute on these two back-to-back increases to Commonwealth rent assistance. That's the first time this has happened in 30 years. I also want to point to the support the government has offered to first home buyers. Under our government 110,000 first home buyers have been helped into the market through the Home Guarantee Scheme.

We cannot build the kind of response to this crisis that's needed without a new kind of partnership with states and territories. Next week I'm doing something that didn't happen for the last five years that the coalition were in power, and that is bringing together the state housing ministers. We're going to sit down together in Western Sydney and work out how we can turbocharge our response to this crisis. This is an incredibly dynamic group of ministers.

Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a revolution!

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

Order!

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll take the interjection, because the Leader of the Opposition says it's a revolution. It would have really helped us if something had been done about this problem in the 10 years that those opposite were in power. Now they come into the parliament, make a lot of complaints and stand in the path of progress in the Senate.