Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Clark for his question. I know that he, like many people in this place, is concerned about those Australians who are struggling to find safe and secure housing, particularly affordable housing at the moment. We certainly understand that safe and affordable housing is central to the security and dignity of all Australians. We want every Australian to have the security of having a roof over their head but, of course, we're dealing with increasing housing affordability costs. Far too many Australians are being hit by increasing rents, and far too many Australians are still struggling to purchase a home. Sadly, far too many Australians are facing, or at risk of, homelessness today.

The situation is completely unacceptable, which is why, of course, we've hit the ground running to deliver on our ambitious housing reform agenda that we took to the election. It was a very significant reform right across the housing system. Indeed, we want to make it easier for Australians to buy a home. We want to increase the supply of housing to reduce overcrowding and to reduce rents. We want to improve access to social and affordable housing, and we want to address the needs of those who find themselves at risk of homelessness or who are indeed homeless. Importantly, we want to ensure that investments and reforms are both long term and sustainable.

To this end, we've brought forward the start of the Regional First Home Buyer Guarantee to 1 October, and that will allow up to 10,000 eligible Australians to enter into homeownership sooner and help ease the pressure in the rental market in our regions. We've acted quickly to unlock up to $575 million through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to invest in more social and affordable housing sooner. Of course, we're doing that while we wait for the Housing Australia Future Fund, which is our significant $10 billion investment that will build 30,000 new social and affordable homes in the first five years.

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