Basem Abdo (Calwell, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) on 1 October 2025, the Government expanded the 5 per cent deposit scheme to all Australian first home buyers, three months ahead of schedule; and

(b) more than 220,000 Australians have now bought their first home with a small deposit of 5 per cent or less thanks to the expanded 5 per cent deposit scheme;

(2) acknowledges that this housing challenge has been 40 years in the making, thanks in part to underinvestment and under-delivery of previous governments; and

(3) commends the Government's $45 billion housing agenda, which is focused on building more homes, making it easier to buy, and making it better to rent.

I welcome the opportunity to move this motion on Australia's housing challenge. Housing has become one of the defining pressures on the lives of Australians. For many, working hard, playing by the rules and building careers hasn't translated into securing a stable place to live. I hear it from young people who did everything that they were told would set them up for success—study, steady work and disciplined saving—yet they doubt they'll ever own a home. I hear it from parents who were able to buy early in life and now worry their children won't have the same foundation of security. I hear it from renters absorbing relentless increases and facing tough choices about where they live, how far they commute and what they go without. I know it from family. I hear it from my community. I've seen it from firsthand experience.

This challenge has been building for decades. As it intensified under the coalition's decade of neglect, the Commonwealth stood back, abandoning the responsibility of meeting the challenge through leadership and national coordination. We recognise that a challenge of this scale, built up over decades, will not be solved overnight. Under the Albanese Labor government, the Commonwealth is back at the table, marking a significant change in federal involvement in housing. Our ambitious $45 billion plan for housing is focused on three areas to ensure that hard work once again delivers the security of a home—building more homes, making it easier to buy and making it better for renters. It is the boldest, most ambitious and substantial housing agenda pursued by a Commonwealth government since the postwar era, and it is being rolled out right across Australia and in my own community.

Labor's five per cent deposit scheme reduces one of the biggest barriers to ownership. It allows eligible buyers to enter the market sooner without waiting years to save a 20 per cent upfront deposit. In Calwell, the impact has been clear, with real progress on the ground and on delivery. Since Labor came to government, 3,912 people in my electorate to date have purchased their first home with a five per cent deposit. That means 3,912 households and families no longer stuck on the sidelines trying to chase a moving target—thousands of families who have secured a home and begun paying down their own mortgage. It is the fundamentally life-changing reality of homeownership—a set of keys, a stable roof over their head and, finally, a measure of certainty about where they will live in the years ahead.

When it comes to home building, we've got an ambitious national target of 1.2 million new homes to address the key issue of housing supply. To help Australia get there, we're cutting red tape, delivering new infrastructure and training more tradies right across the country. Lifting housing supply depends on having the skilled workforce to build it. It's why we're backing skills training for tradies with practical measures to grow the pipeline of qualified tradies needed to get more homes built. There are 1,765 apprentices in Calwell, many benefiting from apprentice support payments. We're back in the game of building more social and affordable housing, working with the state government to deliver 121 new and refurbished social homes in my community.

While we're getting on with the job of delivering for communities like mine, helping thousands achieve the dream of homeownership, the coalition have given up on them and opposed every single measure. They voted against Help to Buy. They opposed our build-to-rent plan, the 80,000 new and affordable long-term leases and our $10 billion plan for 100,000 new homes reserved for first home buyers. They voted against five per cent deposits and they opposed secure rentals, smaller mortgages, building new homes for first home buyers and lower deposits that are right now helping tens of thousands of Australians into homeownership. While we build more homes, support first home buyers, back our tradies and provide cost-of-living and rent relief, those opposite have opposed the measures that make it possible. Where they have chosen obstruction, we remain focused on delivery, expanding supply, strengthening opportunity and backing the aspirations of Australians. I commend the motion to the House.

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