Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to take note of the answers given today, I think the main point is that the government has been very good at building bureaucracies but very bad at building houses. The government made building more houses its central pitch for election, and we heard today—in the pre-prepared answer from the minister in response to a dorothy dixer—that the government had built more houses. That is factually incorrect. All you need to do is ask the Parliamentary Library, like I have, what the average number of houses built under the last government was and how many have been built under this government. The answer is, on average, about 190,000 each year under the last government, the coalition. Under this government, it has fallen to 170,000.

I believe the central reason for this is linked to the faith in this Housing Australia Future Fund agenda, which is a federal government bureaucracy. Minister Wong says it's not reasonable for us to ask questions about this because we voted against it. We did vote against it, and we voted against it because it's a bad idea that bureaucracies in Canberra can build houses in all parts of Australia. Nonetheless, that legislation passed a year and a half ago. I would have thought that in a year and a half the government's central housing scheme, the Housing Australia boondoggle, would have been able to sign a few contracts, dig a few holes and build a few houses.

What it has done is make announcements. In September, the Prime Minister made an announcement with the new Minister for Housing, Ms O'Neil, saying that they will build 13,000 houses. Minister Wong referred to this yesterday and today, saying that 13,000 houses are in the pipeline. At Senate estimates at the end of last year, when we asked Housing Australia how they're going in building those 13,000 new houses, the answer was that they had signed one contract. Since then, they've signed another 11 contracts, so now they have 12 signed contracts. Contracts are fantastic. It's great to have pieces of paper, and we have lots of paper here in this building. But what actually matter are shovels and the assembly of bricks and mortar. That is what counts. That is why we've made the point that it appears that the Housing Australia Future Fund is on a duck. It's on a duck. It's built no houses, and that is because the government have put all of their faith in bureaucracies when they should have been backing the market. They should have been backing builders and developers to build us out of this housing crisis Labor have created.

Question agreed to.