Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It was interesting to watch, from the government benches, the opposition trying to ask questions earlier today about the pressures on Australians who aspire to own their own homes. They were trying to prevent Minister Gallagher, the finance minister, from answering the very questions that they put to her. That's very true, Senator Duniam, because of course while the Liberals and Nationals continue to use stories from Sky News and other media outlets for their own political gain, when it comes to supporting Australians—and this is what this government is about, getting actual outcomes for Australians and tackling the housing affordability crisis that's currently before the government and this parliament—their record says another thing.

This government has tried on numerous occasions to pass a piece of legislation that would go some way to addressing housing affordability not just in this place but also in the House of Representatives. But guess what? Those opposite have voted time and again against our piece of legislation, our bill, as have those members on the crossbench, particularly the Australian Greens. It's the hypocrisy from those opposition that I do want to draw attention to because they keep coming in here and trying to make the point that this government somehow is not taking the issue seriously enough. We are, and I implore you and your colleagues to get behind our bill, a piece of legislation that we took to the last election. We have a clear mandate for addressing housing affordability in this country, and those opposite could help improve the housing affordability bill and ease the pressure on many Australians, many families, by supporting our reform for the Australian Housing Future Fund.

The fund, for the benefit of those in the gallery and also for those who might need to recollect what it is, is a $10 billion fund for investment in long-term social and affordable homes. It's a fund that will continue to invest any gains earned and a perpetual fund that will keep reinvesting to make sure that the planned 30,000 homes turn into 40,000, 50,000, 60,000 homes and more in the future. Why is it that those opposite keep pressing the no button? When will they eventually concede that, apart from the government having a mandate for this piece of legislation, it's something the Australian people want and deserve?

The fund will support the construction, as I said, of 30,000 new social and affordable homes in the first five years, and it will be the single biggest investment from any federal government in this space for more than a decade. The government plans to increase the supply of housing and also to increase its support of the housing sector, as many policy experts in this field have pressed and argued for, for many, many years. Housing ministers across the country have met about this issue. State governments, territory governments and the Commonwealth government have all come together arguing we need to do more. In the interim they had no other option but to announce an extra $2 billion for the states and territories as a short-term measure to address the housing crisis. But we want a long-term fix. This government is all about delivering for the long term. Despite all the support from the experts and those in the sector, the urgent call for this long-term investment is still desperate. But why is it that the coalition with the Greens keep blocking this legislation? They're teeming up to defeat this legislation, and now the government has no other choice but to reintroduce this piece of legislation in the House of Representatives.

It's also important to note that, while the government continues to pursue the passage of the housing fund through the parliament, we're also pursuing a range of other policies to improve housing affordability and ease the pressure on households. I want to go through some of them in the 40 seconds I have left. There's the new $2 billion Social Housing Accelerator to deliver thousands of new homes across Australia. There's the National Housing Accord, which includes federal funding to deliver an extra 10,000 affordable homes over five years. There's up to $575 million in funding to unlock the National Housing Infrastructure Facility with homes already underway. There's the increase in the maximum rate of the Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent. There are also an additional $2 billion in financing for community housing, new incentives to boost supply of rentals and a $1.7 billion one-year extension on the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement. I call the Liberals to get behind our reforms.