Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

I'd be the first to admit that Senator Babet knows a lot more about real estate than I do, but this is a significant and important issue that is confronting the nation. Over the course of this year, I've been in every capital city of the country, and I've been in a regional town in every state as well. There's not a place I haven't gone where housing is not a significant challenge that those communities are facing. But the Greens have failed to understand the reality. The one thing they have been is consistent, but that is consistently hypocritical on this issue over a long period of time. When you think about the challenge that we face in housing, the biggest issue is supply. There's not one organisation in this country that has done more over decades to oppose more supply than the Greens. That is their record. Senator Gallagher gave a good analysis in the chamber during question time yesterday of the Greens' record when it comes to increasing supply in this country. It's a shameful record. It's not only their federal colleagues; it's also their state colleagues and councillors that are responsible for that across the country. But I'll come to that a bit later. What is so important in this, and what the federal government have been doing since we came to power, is providing the national leadership and working constructively with states and territories, because we know how important this issue is. That's what you'd expect of a federal government led by Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, who knows that this is such an important issue for so many families.

So we're providing national leadership and working with all levels of government to deliver better housing outcomes. This has seen the Commonwealth, state and territory governments come together at the National Cabinet to commit to a better deal for renters which seeks to strengthen renters' rights across Australia, working in conjunction with states, which actually have some responsibilities in this regard. This includes developing a nationally consistent framework around requirements for genuine, reasonable grounds for eviction, moving towards limiting rent increases to once a year and phasing in minimum rental standards, among other changes to make rent fairer. On top of that, we've also increased the maximum rate of Commonwealth rent assistance by 15 per cent—the largest increase in more than 30 years. These are important steps that we are taking to support renters. But we know that there is more to do, and the community expect us to do more as well.

The underlying issue of affordability for buyers and renters is supply. That's why we also have a broad agenda to boost housing supply, including new incentives to boost the supply of rental housing by changing arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation. We're starting to see that come to fruition now. We also have an additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing through Housing Australia, and the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund finally passed to help build more social and affordable rental homes in perpetuity. Independent analysis by the Grattan Institute found that our supply plan could put significant downward pressure on rents, saving renters billions over the next decade.

But while our government has been focused on measures that will actually support renters and boost supply, the Greens political party have been out on their own in communities actively campaigning against the supply of affordable housing. We've seen the Greens housing spokesperson, the member for Griffith, oppose residential aged-care facilities in his own electorate. We've had the Leader of the Greens, Mr Bandt, come out and oppose the Social Housing Accelerator program in his own electorate where there's a plan to replace 196 outdated and uninhabitable dwellings with 231 modern energy-efficient homes, a housing increase of at least 10 per cent on that site. We've also seen the Greens member for Ryan campaign against a plan by the Uniting Church to subdivide an old chicken farm into sites for 91 new homes. This is the record of their federal MPs just this year, let alone the damage that they have done over decades in opposing new housing supplies in many parts of the country. We know that the Greens will come in here, move motions and grandstand, but what they are actually doing practically is increasing these challenges on the housing front in many communities across the country and making it harder for councils and states to do their job.

That is not the approach of the federal government. We want to make sure that we're working constructively with states and with councils because we know that the key to doing this is the federal government doing their part on ensuring that we're building affordable housing while also increasing supply so that we're giving more opportunity for more homes to be built that are not only social and affordable housing but for people who want to enter the market at the same time. That is the record of this government. That is a proud one to stand by, and we're sick of the political games from the Greens.