Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister representing the Prime Minister, Senator Brandis. I refer to the report by the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, which reveals that 1.3 million Australian households are unable to access private market housing or are in rental stress, and this figure is predicted to rise to 1.7 million in 2025. Can the minister explain to the millions of Australians in need of housing support how the Minister for Finance can claim, 'By any measure, inequality has not worsened in recent years'?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, Senator Cameron, for a start, the Minister for Finance has explained precisely what he meant by those remarks in his answer to the question from your colleague Senator Singh. But dealing, specifically, with the question of housing affordability, of course we understand that housing affordability is a challenge for Australians, particularly young Australians. I have two young adult children of my own, so I don't need to be told—and nobody in this chamber, I dare say, needs to be told—that housing affordability is a challenge for young Australians. So the government is determined to address it.

Of course, one of the best ways in which to address the issue is to create more jobs and, as I have told you and your other colleagues in this chamber during the course of the week, at the moment, as a direct result of the policies of this government, we are enjoying the strongest growth in jobs since the GFC, with 240,000 new jobs created in the last financial year and some 60,000 jobs created in the past month alone. As well, the 2017-18 budget contained a housing affordability package, including a range of measures designed to improve housing affordability for Australians. Let me run you through them. First of all, we will reform the National Affordable Housing Agreement and the National Partnership Agreement on Homelessness. This will provide around $1.3 billion a year, distributed to the states and territories on a per capita basis. The payments made under that scheme are indexed and ongoing. Secondly, a homes— (Time expired)

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, a supplementary question.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Can the minister confirm that the Turnbull government believes wasting $122 million on an opinion poll for marriage equality is a better way to spend Australia's taxpayers' dollars than providing more than 2,000 new last-resort beds to women escaping domestic violence?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator, you ask me about domestic violence. No government has spent more or increased expenditure more to address the issue of domestic violence than this government has through programs like the Women's Safety Package, through programs like the third action plan to prevent violence against women and their children and by, through my own portfolio, the additional funding that was announced in the budget—announced by Senator Cash and me, as a matter of fact—in Brisbane, the week before the budget, for domestic violence services at women's legal centres. So now there is more money being invested in that sector by this government than by any Australian government before. We are very proud of the Women's Safety Package. We are very proud of the support we give for women's legal services, and those who operate those services well acknowledge it.

Stephen Parry (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron, a final supplementary question.

Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The government cut $44 million a year from homelessness funding in the 2014-15 budget. How does this 'show the way forward for a fairer country', as the minister claimed yesterday in question time?

George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know an old socialist like you, Senator Cameron, tends to be a little bit out of date but, rather than talk about the 2014 budget, why don't you get a little bit more contemporary and talk about the 2017 budget, the Turnbull government's budget?

Under the Turnbull government's 2017 budget, we invested an additional $375.3 million over three years into homelessness services. Senator Cameron, if you chastise us for, in a budget three years ago, cutting that amount from homelessness services, why don't you congratulate the government in the most recent budget, the 2017 budget, by increasing homelessness services by $375.3 million?