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

I am absolutely thrilled to get this question from the member for Brisbane. Just recently, we ticked over 2,000 of her constituents who have gotten into their first home because of her advocacy and our government's backing—2,000 people in her community and many more to come. We've got a housing challenge affecting our country that's been cooking for 40 years. For 40 years, we have not been building enough homes, and all of the pain that Australians are in today in relation to housing really comes back to that problem, whether it's house prices rising too quickly, rents going up too fast or that really visible effect that all of us see in our communities—that rising population of people who do not have a stable roof over their head.

These problems are serious enough, but one of the things that is so concerning to our government is the fact that this is not a burden being fairly shared by Australians. What we see is that, without question, it is younger Australians and it is Australians on low incomes who are bearing the brunt of this. Speaker, I know that you talk to a lot of young people around the country—hopefully, all of us as representatives are speaking to our younger constituents—and so you will hear them talk about the fact that, for so many of them, housing is the defining problem in their lives.

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