Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am happy to be able to make a contribution today and to put on the record the work that this government has done over the last two years since we came into government. But it is a bit galling to have the Greens come into this chamber and bring a motion like this to level criticism at the government when they are the ones that have done a deal with the opposition to delay the future fund and the creation of real opportunities to provide housing for those who need assistance to be able to access affordable and social housing.

This is on the eve of legislation that will pass this chamber, the help to buy bill, that will be life changing. It is a piece of legislation that will help young people and first homeowners get ahead. Senator Pocock is right: everyone deserves to have access to a secure home. A lot of the issues that we face in our community now stem from the fact that there is not safe, secure housing available for everyone. That is why we have such a housing crisis in terms of homeless people. But what you need to do is work with the government of the day, not do dirty deals on the side to hold things up so that you can make political mileage to campaign around the issues where you put your own political party above those people that you decry as being a warrior for and wanting to do something about access to housing for young people. Of course, it's a fundamental right for young people to have that access. It doesn't really matter what age you are. If you don't have your own home and you aspire to have one then it is up to the government and the parliament to ensure that people have that opportunity to have that secure home.

We know that the regional first home buyers guarantee and the expanded Home Guarantee Scheme have already helped more than 110,000 people since 2022 to buy a home for the first time. We have brought in the Housing Australia Future Fund, putting in $10 billion to sustainably create social and affordable housing over the coming decade. That's more than any other government in history has invested in social and affordable housing. That's the Labor government. We have actually put our shoulder to the wheel, and we actually want to bring about opportunities for people to have a secure home.

The Housing Australia Future Fund is projected to deliver over 20,000 new social homes and 10,000 new affordable homes over the next five years. Not only are we investing in that but we're also investing, very importantly, in the infrastructure that is going to help state and local governments to be able to develop new land opportunities for these new homes to be built on. But this has to be done with the states and territories, along with local government, working with the Commonwealth government to bring this about.

Labor is investing in housing because we know—it's in the fabric of who we are as Labor people—how fundamentally important it is for the Australian dream to be able to own your own home. Not everybody is able to achieve that, so they need a helping hand. What they don't need is for people in this place to do their dirty deals to ensure that they can campaign to put their own self-interest and political interests ahead of those people who aspire to have access to their own home.

We have been in government for two years. We're cleaning up the mess of those opposite. We've brought down three budgets. The last two have been in surplus, and we're heading to another one. You can't do everything overnight. We cannot—and we don't believe in trying to—create utopia, which is where the Greens like to live all the time. But the one thing you can always be guaranteed about the Greens is that they will always put their self-interest first—anything for a social media grab.