Sam Rae (Hawke, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. How is the Albanese Labor government supporting more Australians into apprenticeships and more apprentices to become tradies to reach the ambitious goal of building 1.2 million homes after a wasted decade?

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

I want to thank the member for Hawke for his question. He is a hugely powerful advocate in this parliament for a better housing deal for our constituents because it matters so much to the people that he came here to represent.

In Hawke, as in Hotham and as in every part of our country, Australians are doing it tough. Housing costs are a really big part of this picture. We hear it from our constituents. We all talk to young people in our electorates who describe that intense feeling of despair they feel when they've just missed out on another rental application. They talk about the fact that they don't know when they're going to get secure and affordable housing over their heads.

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

The member for Page is now warned.

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

We talk to young families who a generation ago or a generation before that would absolutely have been in homeownership already but today are stuck in a rent trap with that dream of homeownership going further and further away.

At the core of all these issues is actually something quite straightforward: Australia has not been building enough housing in this country for more than a generation. That's why our government is working with the states to build more homes, because the more homes we build, the more affordable housing will be for all Australians.

If we're going to build more homes, we're going to need more tradies. We're going to need more plumbers, more sparkies, more tilers and more bricklayers. Yesterday the Prime Minister announced that a Labor government would continue its transformative support of TAFE, with a commitment to deliver 100,000 fee-free TAFE places every year. This is absolutely massive. It will permanently remove this cost barrier to training for 100,000 people in our country every year.

As a Labor government, we know that when we offer Australians opportunities like this, they grab them with both hands. Since we introduced fee-free TAFE in 2023, more than half a million people have taken up this opportunity of free training, with 35,000 of those in occupations which are critical to construction and housing. We stumped up another $86 billion to work with states and territories to fund another 20,000 fee-free TAFE and VET places in courses critical to construction and housing.

We arrived in office to find our country in the grips of the worst labour shortage that we've experienced in our country since the Second World War. Part of that problem was the decade of neglect and cuts that we saw to education, to training and to apprentices. If that has a familiar ring to it, it's because this is what we can expect from the Liberals if they get into office, what they're offering on housing.

The latest tabulation shows that the Liberals now are planning to cut $19 billion from our government's commitment to housing. What a bizarre and inexplicable thing to do, to cut housing funding in the middle of a housing crisis!

We're taking a different approach: a bold and ambitious $32 billion housing agenda—

building more homes, getting a better deal for renters and getting more Australians into the dream of homeownership.

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

The member for Fisher has been getting a pretty good go; he is now warned.