Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I'm advised by the team here that a document to which you're directing your comments will be provided in good time before the next election. But a plan in and of itself sits alongside action. We have come off the back of a decade of inaction—no public housing being built and no social housing being built for a wasted decade. TAFE training was driven into the ground by this show, by the Liberals and Nationals. All of the capacity constraints were made worse and worse and worse and worse, and there was no cooperation with the states and territories—zero meetings with the states and territories over five long years. Mr Morrison and Mr Dutton pointed the finger of blame, but there was no cooperation on those questions. They say that it all went okay when they were in government. It's a bit like saying that the Rabbitohs went okay in 2014 because I was jogging around the Block in those days. It's just nonsense.

This show did nothing for a decade. We are turning that ship around with a very bold and ambitious program, and much of it is directed to housing supply. The negative Nancies over there who say no and are obsessed with negativity will of course say Australians can't achieve these targets. We say that cooperation with the states and territories and partnerships with private industry, the investment community—including Senator Bragg's enemies in the investment community and superannuation community—and the building industry is the work, led by a Labor government, that will produce results. This program is directed towards supporting 10,000 Australians every year to get a leg up.