Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Hopefully, I'll get a tick from Senator McGrath. I'm not quite sure I'll get the same tick as my colleague Senator Ciccone. One thing that is quite clear is that you can't continue to deny that we have a housing crisis in this country. You have to stop playing politics with it! Our kids, our families, and our communities deserve better. Housing coming in for people suffering from domestic violence, housing coming in for those that are veterans, housing coming in for those who are disadvantaged, housing coming in for those that are First Nations people—you have a social responsibility for people throughout this country to support the bill on housing. You have a responsibility not to criticise the social housing accelerator but to say to those people in New South Wales who are getting $610 million worth of funding, to those people in Victoria who are getting $496 million worth of funding, to those people in Queensland who are getting $396 million in funding, to those people in Western Australia who are getting $209 million in funding, to those people in South Australia who are getting $135 million in funding, to those people in Tasmania who are getting $50 million in funding, to those people in the Northern Territory who are getting $50 million in funding and to those in the Australian Capital Territory who are getting $50 million why you are against proposals and why you are questioning the strategy to make sure the social housing goes ahead under this proposal that's been put forward and will continue to be generated by this government, along with the premiers, right across the political divide across this country.

It points out that the criticism of that accelerator program is a criticism at the heart of what you don't have and at the heart to say that we need to make sure that Australians have the opportunity to be in homes, to be in housing and to have an opportunity to have a roof over their heads, one that they can call home, and deliver it for their families and their local communities. That cohesion that a house brings is something that the Greens and those opposite are stopping. They are stopping our kids from getting homes. They are stopping the most disadvantaged from getting homes. They're stopping veterans from getting home. They are stopping people from across this country who have been let down by those opposite for the past decade. Because this crisis has been here for over a decade, and this crisis is being accelerated by the way the Greens have voted and by the way that those opposite keep voting on the resolution about housing within this country. It's time to stand by your community rather than, in some cases, play petty politics and attempt to wedge. For the others, get out of your ideological quagmire.