Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Social Services) | Hansard source

This is a laughable motion from the government—absolutely laughable. You would be laughing if it wasn't so serious. If you call it an agenda, which I think is a very kind description, the Labor housing agenda is an absolute tatters. It is in tatters. The member opposite spoke about waiting lists in Victoria. Who's been in government in Victoria for nearly 10 years, with the primary jurisdiction of responsibility over housing? Have the courage to criticise the Labor government. Have some courage. Criticise the Andrews government. Amongst their litany of disasters, housing is another. What we haven't seen under this government is any cohesive plan for housing—any at all.

Listening to the member opposite you'd think that it's all going swimmingly and that this huge agenda is seeing a blossoming industry of new housing, new first home buyers and reduced rents. It's exactly the opposite. What we've seen since this government has been in office is first home buyers down, new home starts down and rents up. We saw the comical million homes announced in the budget in October. You're already going to miss the target. I would suggest that you say to your whip, 'Take that out of the Labor talking points,' because the million-home target is already in absolute tatters. It's gone. Forget it. You will not meet that—not even lofty—target. We built a million homes over the previous five years. They can't even meet the business-as-usual of recent history, of a million new homes over five years.

Then the member opposite talks about fault lines and the Housing Australia Future Fund, which really is a Ponzi scheme—a money-go-round, confected arrangement to try and ensure that the spending is not on budget. What we have here is a situation where, had this fund been set up last year, we would have borrowed $10 billion, paid about $400 million in interest on that borrowing and put it with the future fund, and then it would have lost money in its capital. It would have lost more than $100 million of capital—not $1 for social and affordable housing. If you're fair dinkum you have to put the money in.

We see, belatedly, the Greens forcing the Labor Party to put an extra two billion dollars in, but what is very concerning about that extra two billion dollars in the accelerator is that the Labor government can't point to one single project or new home that will be built. I would never be a cynic, but—for the cynics in the room—we have great concerns that that money will just be subsumed into business-as-usual housing budgets within the states. Quite frankly, we've seen it before. Unless the government can point to specific projects, specific new dwellings that are being built, then basically it's a blank cheque for a state government, and God knows if anything will happen.

The Labor Party has to have a moment of reckoning. Are they going to be honest and upfront and basically outline the great limitations that they see in housing—that they can't really move the dial—or are they going to keep making these ridiculous claims of a million new homes over five years as if that's some ambitious target, when we built a million over the previous five years? It's just business as usual, and they're not even going to meet that target.

Finally, they should stump up and be honest when members opposite start talking about the Housing Australia Future Fund—the $10 billion fund, which is how they always start it, that may or may not spit out $1 for social and affordable housing. That's the truth. Each and every year, it may or may not send $1 to social and affordable housing. That's the reality of it. It was confected for one reason only. If it is an absolute raging success and everything I say is wrong and it does deliver its paltry 6,000 dwellings a year for five years, how on earth is that going to assist with the 1½ million people you're bringing into the country? Even if I'm wrong and you are going to build 30,000 new homes—well done!

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