Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Minister for the Public Service) Share this | Hansard source

I reject the assumption at the end of that question—that it is making the situation worse. I would say that what's making the housing situation worse is not having agreement in this chamber around a range of policies that could be implemented to support the construction of new housing, support people from renting into housing and support investments in other housing options. That's the handbrake. That's the block that's happening at the moment.

We as a government are doing everything we can to ensure that, for the areas that the federal government has control over, we are moving them all in the direction of additional supply of housing. We acknowledge that those who have mortgages are under stress. That's what happens when you have interest rate increases during a period of high inflation, which is why we have also been looking at ways to support people who are in that position with effective cost-of-living relief. We have been putting in place agreements with the states and territories around housing and homelessness. We have agreements on a social housing accelerator. We have put in a billion dollars to help support enabling infrastructure because local governments tell us that not having that infrastructure is a handbrake for them on getting more housing developed. We have the states and territories agreeing to review their planning requirements, to accelerate the capability to get more housing supply in the system sooner. We've made announcements about the Housing Australia Future Fund. We have the Help to Buy and Build to Rent bills that are stuck here. We have the home owner guarantee scheme. That's been very popular. It's supported over 100,000 people into homeownership.

On every single level and every measure you look at, we are doing what we can to increase the supply of housing in this country. It was not a problem that occurred overnight. (Time expired)