Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ghosh, for the question. We know the extent to which so many young Australians are worried about their capacity and opportunity to enter the housing market. We also know more young Australians do want to own their own home. We are committed as a government to ensuring that we enable more Australians to have safe and secure housing, including young Australians, because it is at the heart of the hopes of so many young Australians to have the homeownership that has been enjoyed by the generations who have gone before.

That is why we have a comprehensive plan designed to build more homes, including for young Australians, because—unlike some of the comments we've heard in this place, from both the coalition and the Greens—we understand that bringing more houses into the housing supply is one of the ways in which you ensure that young Australians have an opportunity for home ownership. More homes mean more affordable homes.

Instead of condemning young Australians to continued challenging, long queues for rental properties or increasingly having deposits out of reach, we want to see, and support, young Australians owning their own homes. That is why we announced yesterday that we will build almost 14,000 social and affordable homes across Australia, part of the largest investment in social and affordable housing in a decade. Of course, this goes alongside the largest increase to Commonwealth rent assistance in more than 30 years. And, of course, there is the shared-equity policy, which will help an additional 40,000 low- and middle-income Australians own their own homes. Young Australians, like early-career nurses and early childhood education workers and teachers, would all be able to buy a home through this program.