Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy President. I was. This side of the chamber wants to stack people and families into homes, and that is why we are very proud of the HomeBuilder program, because it will support up to a million jobs indirectly and 140,000 jobs directly. Homes are in the DNA of the Liberal Party. How do we know that? Because in our party's opening speech from our founder, Robert Menzies, he mentioned the word no fewer than 23 times. I am going to quote this because it is worth remembering. As Robert Menzies said:

I do not believe that the real life of this nation is to be found either in great luxury hotels and the petty gossip of so-called fashionable suburbs, or in the officialdom of the organised masses. It is to be found in the homes of people who are nameless and unadvertised, and who, whatever their individual religious conviction or dogma, see in their children their greatest contribution to the immortality of their race. The home is the foundation of sanity and sobriety; it is the indispensable condition of continuity; its health determines the health of society as a whole.

This party is proud to support jobs and it is proud to support our building industry, which will help our carpenters, our builders, our brickies, our electricians and our small traders. It will help architects, it will help home designers and it will help engineers.

The Morrison government has also helped this year with the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme to help eligible first home buyers purchase a modest home with a deposit of as little as five per cent, allowing them to get into the market earlier. Australian first home buyers have now reserved all of this year's First Home Loan Deposit Scheme guarantees, and that is a good indication of how our younger people want to get into housing because, as I have said previously, housing is where the home is, it is where the heart is and it is where the family is. There is no greater indication of our support of the Australian people than supporting people into homes. This side of the chamber is about supporting people into homes; that side of the chamber is about homelessness. This side of the chamber is about lower taxes; that side of the chamber is about higher taxes. This side of the chamber is about jobs; that side of the chamber is about no jobs. Most of all, this side of the chamber is the party of free choice, whereas that side of the chamber is the party or the side of total control.

I'll pick up Senator Gallacher here. We on this side do support community housing. We have over $1.3 billion in the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation program to support the delivery of 1,500 new social and affordable dwellings and the refinancing of a further 5,000 existing dwellings. On top of that, we also provide rent assistance on top of the Newstart allowance, which is another way we support housing in this country. We will work with the states and territories on HomeBuilder. They are expected to be well placed to administer the HomeBuilder program, as most already administer similar first home buyer schemes, including the First Home Owner Grant and stamp duty concessions, through their respective state or territory revenue office.

The government's focus on the health and wellbeing of Australians is why it supports homeownership. We are seeing success on that. This is the party that will increase the level of homeownership. By doing that, we will improve the health of Australians. When we were going through the COVID crisis it was great to have a home to go back to and have support. It's interesting, actually, that we get feedback from people about how much they enjoyed spending time at home with their children—heaven forbid! Anyway, I'll leave it at that.