Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, 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 delivering more housing, and what is threatening that progress?

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

I want to thank the member for Boothby for this question and acknowledge the really significant housing expertise she's brought to our caucus in this term. It was absolutely fantastic too to be in her community of Panorama, where the member and I met Housing Australia Future Fund tenants. Every single one of those houses is being lived in by a person whose life has been transformed by our government's commitment to social and affordable housing.

I've said to the parliament before that we've got a housing crisis in this country that's been a generation in the making, particularly exacerbated by the decade of waste and neglect that we saw from the other side of the chamber. When we were elected in May 2022 we inherited a housing horror show. Let me take you through some of the numbers. The cost of building a home when we came to government was rising at 17 per cent. That is the highest rate in half a century. New builds were down, approvals were on a steep decline and, of course, all of our housing affordability metrics were getting worse. That's what you get when, for almost a decade, you have people sitting on the benches behind me who didn't even bother to have a housing minister.

In 2022, of course, this all changed. About half-a-million homes have been built in our country since we came to office, and the PM has led the National Cabinet push to commit to try to build 1.2 million homes over the coming five years. The incredible labour shortage that we inherited has dramatically improved—about a 44 per cent reduction in vacancies for construction workers. The planning reforms that we initiated at the state level are starting to bear fruit. We're making real investments in modern construction approaches, and we're starting to see those improvements that we're all looking for. Housing completions across the country are up, and approvals across the country are up.

Really importantly, we are starting to make headway on those generational investments that our government have made on social and affordable housing. We made a commitment to deliver 55,000 social and affordable homes around the country. Speaker, I can report to you that, as of today, we have 28,000 homes around the country in planning and construction—28,000. I want to contrast that with the approach of those opposite, who, as you know, did not build a single social and affordable home in their entire first two terms in government. We've got a plan to build 55,000 social and affordable homes. They've got a plan to build precisely zero.

I'm asked about threats. I think it's pretty obvious from here. The threat is actually sitting right in front of me. Coalition cuts are coming for housing. We know that, if they win the election, $20 billion in housing funding is going to disappear overnight. Of course, their housing policies, including their dud super-for-housing policy, are going to raise prices and build fewer homes, making the housing crisis worse. Like all of the social and economic problems facing our country, it's going to take a Labor government to address Australia's housing challenges, and that's exactly what we're doing. (Time expired)

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

I give the call to the Manager of Opposition Business.

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing.

Honourable members interjecting—

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

I'll take responsibility. That's my fault because I couldn't see the member for Brisbane. It wasn't the manager's fault. It goes from side to side, just like we did yesterday. We will hear from the honourable member for Brisbane.