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

Just this one project alone is going to change the lives of hundreds and hundreds of people who desperately need housing in her electorate, and we're damn proud to be making it happen.

We've got a housing crisis in our country that's been cooking for 40 years, and for all of the complexity that's a part of this debate, there's one simple thing that we desperately need to be doing, and that is building more homes for Australians—and that is exactly what our government is doing. We've amassed an historic $43 billion, and the majority of those dollars is going straight into building more homes for Australians. We're seeing really big impacts with these investments. There have been 520,000 homes built since we came to government. We're rolling up our sleeves and doing something that the Commonwealth has not done at scale for decades, and that is building homes ourselves: 55,000 social and affordable homes—5,000 are already completed and 25,000 are actually in planning or construction right now.

Of course, we've seen that fantastic leadership from the PM. He has stood up; he hasn't washed his hands of the problem like this opposite but has said, 'We are going to work together across the three levels of government to build 1.2 million homes over a five-year period.' We know there is more work to do, and that's why we're getting on with it. We're getting on with delivering this absolutely massive agenda.

The member for Barton asked me about some alternatives, and there are some quite terrifying alternatives out there. The worst that we see is that exhibited by those opposite, who sat for nine years and did pretty much absolutely nothing about a housing crisis that was building before their eyes. Now, we're getting a little bit of backchat, so let me remind those opposite of the record here. Not only have they spent the last three years trying to block and delay all our critical programs, but over a nine-year period—Speaker, you're not going to believe this—do you know how many social and affordable homes they built? It was 373. How many homes did they build in the whole state of Victoria in nine years? It was zero. How many homes did they build in the whole state of Queensland? It was zero. How many homes did they build in the whole state of Western Australia? It was zero. The only silver lining is that we've finally found a net zero target that the coalition can get behind!

We're getting on with the job of delivering, delivering, delivering. That's our priority in housing every single day. (Time expired)

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