Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Affordable housing is not something that all Australians have access to, and this has disproportionately affected high-risk communities such as women and children. Census data has shown that in my home city of Launceston 6.5 per cent of households are insecurely housed. This means that 6.5 per cent of the population are homeless, spending more than 30 per cent of their pay on rent or living in overcrowded houses. The wait time for social housing in Tasmania has blown out to over two years because we simply do not have enough houses to meet the demand.

The Albanese government took to the election a plan to address housing insecurity and lack of supply. The Housing Australia Future Fund Bill would establish the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, to be invested by the Future Fund Board of guardians to create returns which would fund affordable social housing. This fund would help to deliver 30,000 new social houses, provide $200 million over five years for housing in Indigenous communities, $100 million for housing for women and children impacted by domestic violence and women at risk of homelessness, and $30 million to build housing for veterans experiencing or at risk of homelessness.

Women across our country have spent decades contributing to Australian communities. But, instead of ensuring they have safe housing in the instances of domestic violence, job difficulty and job loss, divorce, illness and poor health, or the multitude of other reasons for which they may find themselves homeless, they have been abandoned by the Australian Greens.

And what have we seen again this week—in fact, for almost six months now? The Australian Greens are quickly going back to their old tricks. The Greens are not representatives of the Australian people, but rather are showing their true colours in this place. They have engaged in an axis of evil with the Liberal Party to stop the building of 30,000 social and affordable homes. They are a destructive political force who are willing to trash principles of strong government in favour of cheering on their small utopian base. While they engage in this small-minded politics, they are disadvantaging my Tasmanian community—those at risk of homelessness, looking for a home, and those who are already homeless, or women escaping domestic violence.

The Greens' vote yesterday to delay the building of 30,000 social and affordable homes across the country displays that they will not work in the national interest. They will not operate as adults in a political environment. They're not an adult political party. No, they are happy to operate on the fringe, with no intention to ever grow to the point of governing and making the difficult decisions. This is a good thing, because they are not capable of solving problems. They promise the world, deliver nothing and damage our country and its people in the process. I echo the words of the Prime Minister from the other place today. The Greens, he said:

… deal in protest; we focus on progress. They see issues to campaign on; we see challenges to act on. They want to build their profile; we want to build more homes.

We are sent to this place to serve the people we represent. Yet the Greens want to play games with the lives of Tasmanians who just want a roof over their heads. So, as the nights get longer and colder, and more and more Tasmanians do whatever it takes to stay warm, I hope the Greens think about the homeless Tasmanians when they head off to rest their heads on their pillows in their very warm beds in their own homes, that they can afford and they have access to, while, at the same time, they're leaving too many Tasmanians—and not only Tasmanians—homeless and at risk of not having a home, and not giving them the security which is a human right. Those people down there talk about that endlessly, but, when it comes to actually doing something, they go running to their buddies over there in the coalition—the 'no-alition'—and get into bed quickly with them! Maybe they think they're warmer in there—maybe that's what it is; maybe they just provide that extra comfort for them at night. But I can tell you: it is not comforting to Tasmanian homeless people and those at risk.