Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Treasurer. Housing is a critical need, but the industry and now the RBA are saying that record public non-energy infrastructure is putting pressure on inputs and wages and that homebuilding is becoming uneconomic. With productivity in the sector stagnant, something's got to give. What is the government doing to slow non-essential infrastructure spending and allow capacity to return to the sector so we can get on with building homes?

Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Wentworth for her question. I know that she won't mind me also shouting out to my friends from the BAPS community who are in the gallery today. I wear this nadachadi in your honour, as you know. I wanted to shout out to, in particular, my friend Jaynesh, who's had a few health challenges in recent times. It is so wonderful to see you here, my friend—to see you healthy. It was lovely to see you on Saturday as well for India Day. I welcome you all. You are a reminder of the wonderful contribution that our faith communities make in the local areas that are represented here in the people's house.

I say to the member for Wentworth that I do acknowledge and understand the legitimate concerns that she raises about the pressure in the building industry, whether it's residential housing or large-scale infrastructure. The government's view is that we need to build housing and infrastructure, not housing or infrastructure, and that one can enable the other, and we're focused on both. Here I want to give a shout-out to the infrastructure minister and the housing ministers, old and new, for the great work that they are doing to try to manage the pressures that the member for Wentworth legitimately raises.

There's a number that really jumps out of the most recent CPI data, as the member would appreciate, and that is the 5.1 per cent inflation when it comes to the construction sector. The construction sector is a big part of the CPI basket, and 5.1 per cent is obviously too high. This is the issue that the member for Wentworth is rightly identifying.

I think there are three things that matter most when it comes to managing these pressures but also attending to this productivity challenge that we've had in our economy for too long, something that the member for Wentworth has raised in other forums as well. The first thing is to manage the infrastructure pipeline in an intelligent way. The infrastructure minister manages that $120 billion pipeline in a way that makes sure that we can actually build what we are committed to building. The minister has done a heap of good work in that regard. Some of that involves difficult decisions around reprofiling, retiming and resequencing different projects, but it's important work and we take it very seriously. The second thing is managing the skilled migration program in an intelligent way. Again, that's a big focus of this side of the House. Thirdly, and most importantly, I think, it's about skills. If you could fix one thing that would help us to build more infrastructure and more housing—not more infrastructure or more housing—it would be to train more Australian workers in this really important sector.

Here I want to acknowledge the new skills minister but also, after his wonderful valedictory yesterday, the outgoing skills minister for the work that he has done on fee-free TAFE, working closely with the PM and others. We need more workers in this sector. If we get more workers and train them better they will be more productive and help us build the housing and the infrastructure that local communities right around Australia, including in your own community, desperately need.