Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's pleasing to hear that those opposite understand that supply is critical to the issue of housing, and it's a generation-made problem that we're facing today. It's interesting to hear that they understand that supply is key to that. Yet they spent the second half of our first term in government blocking supply and blocking measures from Labor that would have driven supply. It is fascinating.

We're all here today to talk about the five per cent deposits that this government have created for new homeowners and have brought forward, to 1 October, changes where the caps will better suit each state or city, and to talk about how things work. It's also to celebrate, in my case, the 1,880 participant households that have already used this system and the 3,140 individuals who are reflected in those households. That is the secret to adding to supply. This is about saying to a generation of Australians who feel left behind on housing that we want them to have a home of their own, with the security that brings, and to support young Australians do just that.

I might take a moment, Deputy Speaker Chesters, to talk about what this means for single parents. We'll be continuing the Family Home Guarantee that helps them buy a home with a two per cent deposit. This is extraordinarily important in a community like mine. We'll be delivering this three months early, from 1 October. This crisis wasn't created overnight and it won't be fixed overnight, but real progress is being made, right across the country, as is seen in the electorate I represent.

In the first term, we took the Commonwealth from being a negligent bystander under the coalition to being a bold and ambitious government under Labor—more bold and ambitious since the Second World War. But let's be clear: the job isn't done. It's still too hard to build and too hard to buy in this country. This announcement is about allowing all first home buyers to buy their own home with just a five per cent deposit or the Family Home Guarantee, where a single parent could secure their mortgage with a two per cent deposit. Of course, as has been referenced, this is also about people not having to have that insurance that could cost over $30,000 on, say, an $800,000 home. This means people will get out of their rental into the situation where they're in their own home, so they can stop paying rent and start paying their mortgage. It means less time to save for that deposit. So rather than saving over many years for a 20 per cent deposit, it might take only two years to save for a five per cent deposit, depending on what you're earning and in which part of our great country you're living.

If we look at my community, where the median house price is $600,000, we're talking about a five per cent deposit being quite attainable for the young people that I represent—not just those I represent but those who come and join us in our affordable housing area, in the city of Wyndham, from outside of Wyndham. They will also be able to come and buy one of the new homes that go up every week in the area I represent. On the way, they can save about $30,000 in mortgage insurance and they could pay up to a quarter of a million dollars towards their own loan, rather than paying rent across that savings period.

It's important to note that we are bringing this good news to the parliament after decades of neglect in the space of addressing housing or the Commonwealth being a partner to the community in housing, and after having both the Liberal-National coalition and the Greens block our work, in this space, across the last few years. They didn't support our 100K homes for first home buyers, they voted against Help to Buy and promised to abolish the scheme before the last election. They've given up on homeownership. This government is just getting started. Now they're attempting to raise taxes on builders and scrap 80,000 new rentals in the process.

In a community like mine, the people who manage to get the five per cent deposit and get into the market will be forever grateful. They will remember that moment when they secured that home loan, just like most of us across the country do. I distinctly remember securing the home loan and buying my first property with my husband at the time. It was a great moment. It meant that we could stop renting. It meant that we were going to be moving into something and start paying that mortgage down. It was a fantastic moment. Of course, properties then were more accessible in terms of our incomes and what the property prices were. This is something that is going to support young people that I represent and support young people across the country to become homeowners who pay off the capital as well as the interest, making sure that they join the ranks of people who own their own home. We've already seen that on the ground in electorates across the country. The number of young people who have already taken up this opportunity is actually really impressive.

I look forward to seeing more and more—particularly, if I think about it, the two per cent deposit for single parents. I think this is an incredibly important part of this legislation and one that not many people are paying a lot of attention to, but, as someone who, as a single parent with three children, was paying off a mortgage and working part time, this would have been a game changer for me. I'll go back and share that situation with the House. When I became a single parent, I was talking to someone at the credit union that held my mortgage about the changed circumstances and how I was quite sure that I was capable of meeting those mortgage payments on my own. The manager stepped out, having heard me in this conversation, and said: 'Can you come in? I just want to have a quick chat?' He said to me, 'Let's just pay it for 12 months, and then we'll look at it,' because the instinct of a bank is to tell a single parent that they can't afford to do this. I'm proof they can afford to do it. A two per cent deposit will allow people to get into the space where they're given that opportunity to put a roof over their head and the heads of their children in a home that they own and that they can't be removed from because someone wants to sell the property.

The two per cent deposit for single-parent families is absolutely a critical part of this process. It will see single parents in my community, whether they be mums or dads, get a roof over their head and the heads of their children, through a government that's prepared to back them, help them and assist them by creating a space where they can do that with a two per cent deposit. That is something that I think will be achievable for a lot of the people in that circumstance in my community.

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