Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When I was growing up, the phrase 'the Australian dream' meant something, and it meant something to everyone; it was understood. It meant owning your own home. The Australian dream conjured up pictures of a house on a quarter-acre block with, perhaps, a hills hoist in the background and some kids and a dog running underneath a sprinkler on a hot summer day.

Owning a home was a symbol of success, and it became part of our national identity. The Australian dream, at that time, was both aspirational and achievable. These days, the phrase 'the Australian dream' has evolved to encompass other facets of what it means to be Australian. What hasn't changed, however, is the need to have a safe and stable place to call home. Right now, that's tough because housing is hard across our country. It's hard in my community. Housing is hard whether you're looking to buy your very first home or you're looking to rent for your family.

The realities of the housing market mean that there are barriers in the way of home ownership for many Australians. Owning your own home has become a life-defining challenge for many. Despite hard work and diligent saving, many people cannot afford to buy their own home. Labor wants a generation of Australians who feel left behind on housing to have the benefits and security that having your own home brings. It's the foundation of the extensive work this government is doing in supporting Australians to get into homes of their own. Australia's housing crisis wasn't created overnight, and it wasn't created in the last three years. It's been gathering momentum for 40 years, when not enough houses were being built. Then it took a decade of neglect from those opposite to really solidify it.

In the suburbs of Moreton, I've spoken to young people who are concerned that they will never be able to afford to buy a home of their own. They've spoken to me about teaming up to buy a house. I've listened to gen Xers who are worried that their kids won't know financial security in their lifetimes and who can't afford to help out and get them a foothold in the property market. I've seen the pressure pile onto renters as they struggle to both find a place to live and afford increasing rent costs. I've spoken to community groups who are supporting rising numbers of people experiencing homelessness. Fixing this mess will take time—anyone who tells you it can be fixed overnight is being disingenuous—but we have to start now, and we have to go hard if we're going to make a difference. That's why the Albanese Labor government is taking unprecedented steps to resolve it with an ambitious and multifaceted approach. Our $43 billion agenda is focused on three main drivers: firstly, building more homes; secondly, making it better to rent; and thirdly, making it easier to buy.

The page in front of me says that the coalition have no ideas when it comes to solving the housing crisis, but I don't actually think that's true. I think the coalition do have ideas when it comes to solving the housing crisis, and we know what those ideas are because the coalition put forward a proposal that the way to solve the housing crisis is to raid your super—to take from the money set aside for people's futures and use it to fix a housing crisis that they were instrumental in causing. What we now know about raiding your super is that it has monumental impacts on young people's futures, because we know that not only does it have the potential to cripple people's nest eggs; the vast majority of economists have said that it simply won't work and will place enormous inflationary pressure on the system. That is what the coalition's solution is to fixing a housing crisis. For most of the decade of neglect, they didn't even have a housing minister. Their contribution to the housing pool was a total of 373 social and affordable homes. That's an average of 41 houses built per year. Their lack of interest didn't change during the last parliament, and, in fact, they put all of their energy into teaming up with the Greens political party to block Labor's housing initiatives. They voted against Help to Buy, and they promised to abolish the scheme.

It doesn't look like things have changed much this term. They are simply not interested in supporting first home buyers to turn their dreams into a reality. The shadow housing minister described Labor's five per cent deposit announcement as 'bizarre and ridiculous', laying bare their contempt for young battling Australians. The only thing that's bizarre and ridiculous when it comes to housing is the fact that those opposite have continually failed to act and have continually neglected to take action when it comes to putting supports in place and giving the support needed for young people to get into their first homes, for families to get into their first homes and for people who are struggling to rent.

The headline news about housing last week was that the Albanese government has moved to help first home buyers get a home of their own faster. We have moved our plan forward by three months so that first home buyers can buy a home with a five per cent deposit from 1 October this year. The scheme will be uncapped so that every first home buyer can access its benefits. There are no income limits and no limits on places. We are increasing property price caps so that they are in line with average house prices, and this increase broadens the scope from small apartments, units or homes a long way from where people work.

The benefits speak for themselves. A five per cent deposit slashes years off the time required to save for a deposit. It will save prospective buyers thousands of dollars in lenders mortgage insurance, not to mention rental payments, whilst saving. We want people to be able to spend their hard earned dollars not on someone else's mortgage but on their own. We're backing the five per cent deposit scheme because we know it works, and, on average, there are 6,000 more first-home-buyer loans a year under this government, in comparison with the former government.

Housing Australia tells us that over 230,000 Australians have already bought their first home because they've accessed the scheme. I'm excited to see how much this number grows now that eligibility has been expanded. We've supported one million households with nearly 50 per cent rent assistance increases. Since May 2022, new housing approvals are up by 30 per cent, and half a million homes have been built. There are 28,000 social and affordable homes in the planning and construction phases.

As the Minister for Housing said, we know the long-term solution to address the housing crisis in our country is to build, build, build. Labor's comprehensive approach to this involves funding the development of infrastructure needed for housing—those are the roads, that's the sewerage, that's the energy and those are the water connections needed for new developments and more social housing.

Labor is training the workforce for this for free, with more free TAFE places in the construction industry so we can train the tradies that we need to build these homes. In my local electorate of Moreton on Brisbane's south side, we are the proud home to the largest trade-training centre in the entirety of the Southern Hemisphere. This is not only a place where people will have access to free TAFE but also a place where people will build those homes of the future and get the skills they need to be able to do so.

The government is also focused on cutting the red tape that can cause delays in building houses. Participants in Labor's recent Economic Reform Roundtable were in broad agreement that the regulatory burden on builders needs to be decreased. This will be a fundamentally life-changing reform for prospective first home buyers. We know it's tough; we know we need to take action. That's why Labor is throwing the kitchen sink at the housing crisis. Labor are the only ones who can invest in the means for young people, for families— (Time expired)

See this speech in context