Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I was recounting to the House what Mr Kuyken told me about his business, C&M Kuyken: ‘At the moment I’ve got roughly three big contracts on the go. Usually at this time of year we’re a bit quiet, but now there’s a lot more jobs out to tender. I’ve put on another two carpenters and an extra apprentice, who started work two weeks ago. I’ve also put on another four to five painters over the last three months because of all the work around.’ Now, this is a small family business, a small local business. This is the effect for their business of the government’s stimulus package.

This is a story that is being repeated across the country. I have been talking to builders in inner-city Brisbane, Western Sydney, Adelaide, Perth, South-East Melbourne, right across the country, and these people are putting people on instead of laying them off. That is not to say that things are not still tough in the construction area; of course they are. But imagine how tough they would be if this package had not gone through. Imagine how tough they would be if we were not building 20,000 new homes and fixing up almost 50,000 homes in social housing spending alone.

See this speech in context