Jim Chalmers (Rankin, Australian Labor Party, Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to my friend the member for Bendigo for her question. This government understands that one of the biggest challenges in our economy which we are addressing is housing supply. That's because a shortage of homes is pushing up rents in our economy in unacceptable ways and adding to our inflation challenge. That's why building more homes is central to our first two budgets and central to our economic plan as well. The Housing Australia Future Fund is an important part of our efforts, and we need to see it pass through the Senate as soon as we can.

The Housing Australia Future Fund is a $10 billion fund to build 30,000 social and affordable homes in the first five years. It's part of our broad and ambitious housing policy over the course of two budgets. In October we had a National Housing Accord as well as another $575 million under the NHFIC to unlock an additional 5½ thousand new dwellings. In the May budget, we had new tax breaks to increase the supply of rental homes built to rent; we had an increase to the NHFIC cap by $2 billion to support the construction of more homes; we had increased eligibility for the first home buyer guarantee and the regional first home buyer guarantee; and we had extra funding for the states and territories via the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement, in addition to the biggest increase in Commonwealth rent assistance in around three decades.

The Housing Australia Future Fund is not the only part of our housing policy, but it's absolutely an important part of our housing policy. So much of what we are doing addresses or responds to consideration of issues raised with us in good faith in the course of recent weeks and months. I pay tribute to the housing minister for her work with crossbench colleagues.

We have low expectations of those opposite. They made a mess of housing, and now they refuse to help clean it up. That's standard across the economy. We need better here from the Greens. It's time to end the ambit claims and political games being played on housing in the Senate. I say to the Greens: don't put the politics of product differentiation ahead of a policy outcome which would make a difference to the lives of the most vulnerable people in our country. Don't do in the Senate what you do in your electorates, which is to give speeches about social housing but then oppose it when it really counts. If the Greens want more social housing, voting against a $10 billion housing fund is a pretty bizarre way to go about it. I say to the Greens and I say to everyone in the Senate: if you want more social and affordable housing, it's time to actually vote for it.

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