George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Well, Senator Cameron, for a start, the Minister for Finance has explained precisely what he meant by those remarks in his answer to the question from your colleague Senator Singh. But dealing, specifically, with the question of housing affordability, of course we understand that housing affordability is a challenge for Australians, particularly young Australians. I have two young adult children of my own, so I don't need to be told—and nobody in this chamber, I dare say, needs to be told—that housing affordability is a challenge for young Australians. So the government is determined to address it.

Of course, one of the best ways in which to address the issue is to create more jobs and, as I have told you and your other colleagues in this chamber during the course of the week, at the moment, as a direct result of the policies of this government, we are enjoying the strongest growth in jobs since the GFC, with 240,000 new jobs created in the last financial year and some 60,000 jobs created in the past month alone. As well, the 2017-18 budget contained a housing affordability package, including a range of measures designed to improve housing affordability for Australians. Let me run you through them. First of all, we will reform the National Affordable Housing Agreement and the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. This will provide around $1.3 billion a year, distributed to the states and territories on a per capita basis. The payments made under that scheme are indexed and ongoing. Secondly, a homes— (Time expired)