Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

There is a significant lack of accessible housing in Australia. In the last 10 years, less than five per cent of housing, both public and private, has been built to an accessible standard. This is quite simply unacceptable. Disabled people have a right to live in a safe place and have somewhere to call home, just like everyone else.

There is so little accessible housing in this country right now that there are hundreds of disabled people who are under the age of 65 living in nursing homes. One of the reasons for this is the absence of accessible housing options. At the national meeting of building ministers on 30 April this year, the states and territories agreed to include a minimum accessibility standard for rental housing and apartments in the 2022 National Construction Code. The standard is based on the silver standard of the Livable Housing Design Guidelines. This reform to the National Construction Code, which will require all new homes across Australia to be built to a minimum accessibility standard, was brought about by none other than Rebecca Vassarotti, the ACT Greens Minister for Sustainable Building and Construction. This is a major breakthrough, for which the minister should be congratulated.

In Queensland, the Liberal-National opposition housing minister wants to block these important changes, changes that will ensure that more disabled people have an accessible home to live in. That's right. The Liberals right now, in Queensland, want to make it so that there is no need to implement the standards in that state. It's an absolutely unacceptable position taken on behalf of their mates in the construction industry that don't want to do the work. The standards set out in the construction guidelines should be the baseline and not the ceiling, but it is an excellent start for which the minister should be congratulated.