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

Well, this is a budget that does nothing for small business. The Council of Small Business Organisations itself says it was forgotten by the government in the budget. It does nothing for growth; there is no agenda for growth. This confirms that we are living through a period where the government has no ambition for Australia's future and wants to push any challenging issue under the carpet.

Perhaps the most disappointing aspect is the recitation of old rhetoric from now four budgets, where the government has promised now four times that it will deliver housing policies, which have clearly failed. Four times the government have announced, in four budgets, a housing agenda which is yet to build a single house. It would be hard to choose, when you go through the dreadful budget speech of Mr Chalmers, which quote is the worst, but I'd have to say that it's probably this one here:

Our $33 billion plan will help build 1.2 million new homes before the decade is out.

This is a target—1.2 million new houses—which, as any and every economist and housing specialist and even the Treasury itself has shown, the government has no chance of ever meeting.

It shows how out of touch this government is that every time we meet here in Canberra we hear how great things are and how this government, the Labor government, has done such a great job. We hear that people should be so happy and fortunate and people should come to Canberra and give their thanks to Mr Chalmers and Mr Albanese for doing such a great job. But one of the reasons that younger Australians are so squeezed and so annoyed about housing is that housing construction has collapsed under this government. This government has presided over a collapse in housing construction and a massive influx of immigrants. One million people have come into the country in the last couple of years, and housing construction has collapsed. There are a million new people and only 160,000 new houses a year. You don't need an economics degree, a PhD or a school-leaving certificate to work out the mathematics. A million more people all need somewhere to live. You can't live nowhere. They need houses, and this government has collapsed the building of new houses. Tradespeople, builders, developers—they all know. If you're not sure, I can tell you, because I asked the Parliamentary Library. Under the last government, on average, 195,000 houses were built every year. The peak, of 210,000 houses, was in 2018. Under this government, we're down to 170,000 houses. There are a million more people and we're heading south on housing construction, yet we hear, in the budget speech, 'We're going to build 1.2 million new houses.' There is no trajectory that anyone can show us or that will ever be realised. So this is a bizarre budget full of untruths.

Perhaps the silver medallist here is his quote about the Housing Australia Future Fund:

The first two rounds—

Mr Chalmers says—

of the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund are helping build … 18,000 … homes …

Well, guess what? After 18 months of operation, how many houses has the HAFF built? Is it 18,000? Is it 14,000? Is it 12,000? Is it 5,000? Is it a hundred? It's a duck. It's on a duck.

I believe, when you read the budget speech, the most striking thing is that the Labor Party think that the Australian people are stupid and that Labor can roll out this rubbish every year they have a budget and commit to things and promise things that they know will never materialise. Meanwhile, in the real world, people can't afford to buy a first house or a first flat because housing construction has collapsed and migration is through the roof. This is a callous and cold budget, the government should be ashamed, and now the Australian people get to have their say.