Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Bradfield for bringing forward this matter of public importance and for her contribution today. I want to personally congratulate the member for Bradfield on her election to this place and thank her for her thoughtful contribution and for bringing this motion. There probably isn't a more important or difficult problem that we all collectively need to solve as a parliament and government than our housing sector and homes for Australians. Every single Australian deserves a safe and secure home to live in. Every single Australian deserves a place that they can call home, a place that they know they can return to at the end of the day where they will be free from violence or the threat of eviction and where they can be themselves and decompress and have the foundations of their life.

That is something that we have sought to assist Australians with and to improve, but, as the member for Bradfield quite rightly points out, there is a lot more work to be done. I know that across my community in Macnamara, where we have a beautiful combination of people who are fortunate enough to own their own home, people who are paying off a mortgage and the almost 50 per cent of my electorate who are renting as well as a huge, amazing and beautiful community of people who live in social housing, every single home matters and every single person deserves their own home.

But the truth is, as the member for Bradfield rightly points out, there are not enough homes being built and there are not enough homes catering for the different parts of the country that require different types of housing. I would say to all members in this place that the approach that the member for Bradfield has outlined in this matter of public importance is the right one. It's one where we come to this chamber, into this place, and put forward ideas around the need to find new ways and creative ways to build homes and also to invest in the ways that we know work.

The Housing Australia Future Fund is working. It is an amazing program with an annual expenditure of around $500 million, which is almost fully allocated. There will be another round in the not-too-distant future that will allocate the majority of the Housing Australia Future Fund. That fund goes to supporting community housing organisations and housing providers in the construction of new homes. The fund is responsible for the construction and development of thousands of homes around the country, and it is done on a basis where there are monthly grants or availability payments made to organisations.

Now, why do I make this point? The whole model behind the Housing Australia Future Fund is not just to provide low-interest loans to help cover the cost of construction; it's to help organisations pay off those loans over a period of time. Most of the contracts are done over a 25-year period. So, for the next 25 years, community housing providers are going to get a payment to help pay off their build and the housing that they built under the HAFF.

The policy the coalition proposed at the previous election would have meant that those payments would be cut off at the election. It is still the policy of the coalition and the opposition to scrap the Housing Australia Future Fund. Make no mistake: the consequence of that would mean every single program funded under the HAFF would have their funding cut and contracts broken. It would leave thousands of homes without funding. It would leave organisations and community housing organisations completely bankrupt. It would mean that, across the country, thousands and thousands of people—families, and women and children fleeing domestic violence—would have the funding that helps support their housing completely cut off. It is so serious that those opposite need to take this moment to reflect on their policy position on the Housing Australia Future Fund.

This is a policy that needs to be embedded into this parliament and into governing in Australia. For the next 25 years, for all of the contracts under the Housing Australia Future Fund, it is essential that this parliament—across both sides of the chamber, no matter who is in government—supports this program. The member for Bradfield makes an extremely valid point—that we need to constantly look at ways to expand it. Absolutely. But I would say to each and every member in this chamber that we need to also protect the policies out there supporting Australians who are living in social housing.

For the coalition to have a policy to scrap the HAFF is not only dangerous, it is cruel and it would put thousands of Australians on the streets as well as make organisations who are doing incredible work default on their ability to manage their finances. I would urge them, in the interests of those people, to take this moment, consider their position and turn it around. If the last election taught us anything, it's that Australians know how serious this challenge is and they want builders, not blockers. Australians know that, in terms of housing, we need to be builders, not blockers.

If you want to know the best evidence of that, the people who tried to block housing policy in this place are no longer here. We now have two fantastic members for Deakin and Griffith in this place replacing the two blockers from the last parliament—two people who were the housing spokespeople for the Liberal Party and the Greens who, together with their numbers in the Senate, held up the Housing Australia Future Fund and held every single piece of housing policy that we had including the build-to-rent program and the tax breaks that they are now trying to scrap via a resolution in the Senate. They were, at every turn, blockers, not builders.

We need to take a different approach. Every single home matters. It's easy for people in this chamber to stop the construction of houses. It makes a big difference to those who get the keys. It makes a big difference to the people that the member for Bradfield is talking about as to why we need to be in here building as many homes as possible. It's why we have set up policies that are going to be there supporting organisations for not just this year but decades to come. It's why we need to continuously be asking ourselves what we can do to help build more.

When it comes to first-home buyers, I remember speaking to thousands of people across my electorate. In the election campaign, people were coming up, and you ask that question: 'What matters to you? What do you care about?' Many hundreds of people came back to me and said, 'We'd love to be able to buy our first home.' That's why we are committed to building 100,000 homes across the country that will only be available for first-home buyers, and they won't be competing with investors or developers. When you look at renters across the country, people who are in that period in their life where renting is what they want to do, we want to make sure that those tenures are secure. We want to make sure that renting is available and it's affordable for people, and that's why we're giving tax breaks to the construction of 80,000 rental properties to ensure that there are more options across the country for people who are renting.

When you think about social housing and people who require social housing and when you combine policies like the Housing Australia Future Fund, the NIF or many of the other things that Housing Australia is managing, they are the houses, the homes and the refuges that Australians rely on. They are the homes that are relied on by people who are looking to this place and looking to their government to ensure that they have a safe place. That is why we have that policy. You look at all of the different things that we are doing to try and help first-home buyers and people who are renting to have a better deal and to make sure that there aren't no-fault evictions. It's to make sure that people who, for whatever period in their life, need a safe place to go to—their home isn't safe or for whatever reason—have one. Often, through no fault of their own, they've come into circumstances where they require a home. This government and our parliament need to be there for them. We need to come to this place with the attitude of how we can do more, how we can invest in more and how we can be the people who are building homes for the future.

I congratulate the member for Bradfield for coming to this place and putting forward positive suggestions. It's absolutely what we should all be doing. I look forward to working with her and anyone else in this parliament—especially our outstanding minister, who cares deeply about ensuring that every Australian has a safe place to go home to. But make no mistake. Ultimately every single home matters. Our homes matter, our constituents' homes matter, and the homes of people who have situations in their life that might change in an instant through no fault of their own really matter. It's our job to be builders not blockers. Builders not blockers—that should be the philosophy and the guiding principle of this place, and I would say to anyone who is considering being a blocker, as there were a few blockheads in the previous parliament, 'Now is the time to put away that sort of attitude and get onboard,' because every single home matters. Every single Australian deserves a safe and secure place to call home, and every single Australian deserves to feel safe at the end of the day.

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