Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Gorton for her question. She is an extremely powerful voice for housing action within our caucus. She's coming from a very particular perspective. Not only does she represent one of the great growth corridors in Melbourne—housing is a massive issue in her constituency—but we have here a member of a younger generation who faces housing opportunities radically different from those of their parents and grandparents. She has talked to me again and again about her desire for our government to step in and do every single thing we can to help young Australians get better housing opportunities.

That is why our government has made an historic expansion for homeownership support for young people. Since 1 October, every single first home buyer around our country is eligible to get into the housing market with a five per cent deposit and our government's backing. This was, of course, an election commitment made by our prime minister at our campaign launch. We said that we'd do it by 1 January, and guess what? We've delivered it three months earlier than we promised—delivery, delivery, delivery! If our government sees that we can deliver support to Australians faster than we promised, we will make it happen.

This policy is already having life-changing impacts for people who live in the member for Gorton's electorate, in my electorate and the electorates of every person around this chamber. We have now helped 190,000 Australians get into their first home because of our expansion of this scheme. It is amazing. I talked before about the situation for young people who live in Sydney.

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