Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Community Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the senator for his question. As I said yesterday and have said before in this place—and I thank the senator for reminding all of us in this place of the government’s contribution in this regard—housing affordability is an issue that continues to affect particularly people who are paying off their own homes. It also applies to the area of rents. We have stated quite clearly in this place that the principal levers for making adjustments in this area lie with the states and territories. As I said yesterday, we have made a huge investment. Put simply, we invested a billion dollars a year over a 10-year period. I went into this very carefully yesterday, so I am surprised to get this question again today. That $10 billion—that is $1 billion a year—should have purchased 36,000 houses. Can you imagine if we had 36,000 extra houses for public housing? We would not have the housing affordability crisis that we have today. We provided $9.6 billion but we have fewer houses today than we had in 1996, because we invested in state and territory Labor governments and we asked them to commit to providing 36,000 houses and we did not get one extra house. I have to say that to come into this place and say—