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

My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to help more Australians into homeownership after a decade of neglect? What challenges does the government face?

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

I want to thank the fantastic member for Macquarie for her question.

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

Order! Can the member for New England and the minister for infrastructure not have a conversation? It's completely disrespectful. The minister has the call.

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

I want to thank the fantastic member for Macquarie for her question. I think most of us in this chamber know that her community's been profoundly and persistently affected by bushfire and flood, so she has this real interest in housing construction. But she also represents a lot of young people in the Blue Mountains and surrounds who have a really simple aspiration, and that is that they want to get the same housing opportunities as their parents and grandparents were given. The Albanese government, because of the advocacy of people like the member for Macquarie, is doing everything that it can to give it to them.

Australians are doing it really tough right now, and housing costs are a really big part of that problem. We've got a housing crisis in our country that's been cooking for 30 years and a party opposite me that spent a decade sitting on the Treasury benches and doing absolutely nothing about it. Now, Labor's made a change here. We have an ambitious, $32 billion housing agenda which is helping build more homes, helping renters get a better deal and helping more Australians get that dream they have of homeownership.

Part of the mix here is our help-to-buy legislation. This is going to help support 40,000 low- and middle-income earners get into homeownership. We're talking here about childcare workers, about aged-care workers, about nurses. This is a bill for them. These are Australians who need and deserve the help of government. Now, who on earth would stand in the path of 40,000 deserving people getting into homeownership? It is the unholy antihousing alliance that has been built in this parliament by the coalition and by the Australian Greens. Every time in this parliament we have offered the opportunity for the Liberals and the Greens to come together and help us address the housing crisis, they have chosen playing politics over making progress on this issue. The Greens have teamed up with Peter Dutton to oppose homeownership.

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

Order. The minister will refer to members by their correct title.

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

The Greens have teamed up with the Liberals to oppose homeownership. They've teamed up with the Liberals to oppose the building of more social and affordable homes. And it's not just on housing; the Greens have teamed up with the Liberals to oppose environmental protections and economic reform.

We're coming around the straight into the election, and I want Australians to remember they are going to have a real choice at this election when it comes to housing—between a party of pessimism, a party of protest and a party of progress: the Liberal Party, which has a horrible track record when it comes to housing and is motivated only by nasty negativity; and the Greens party, which is more interested in waving placards than getting real Australians in the housing they deserve. We're taking a different approach as a government. We've done the hard graft and we're going to build the homes that ordinary people are going to rely on.