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

I thank the member for Petrie for her question. We've got a really big housing challenge confronting our country, and one of the most important things that governments across the nation need to be doing right now is rebuilding our stock of social and affordable housing.

In the member for Petrie's electorate, we're building 330 new social and affordable homes. That's 330 on the pathway to 55,000 homes that we will build across the country. At the heart of this program is the Housing Australia Future Fund. This is a generational investment in social and affordable housing that our government is so proud to be making. A few weeks ago I visited a completed Housing Australia Future Fund project in the member for Petrie's electorate with her and Senator Mulholland from the other place.

In my role, my second-favourite thing that I get to do is visit construction sites and see how our home-building program is progressing. But my absolute favourite thing that I get to do is speak to people who are in homes that our government has built. I met three wonderful older women who call this Redcliffe site home, Lyndal, Margot and Marika. These women were kind enough to sit down with us and tell us the story of how they got into precarious housing and the meaning it has had on their lives to be out of that situation.

Marika told us about a period of her life when she was being pushed from rental to rental until she reached a period of sheer desperation. Her lease in private rental was coming to an end because her landlord wanted to lift her rent again. She had recently taken on the primary care role for her ex-husband, who was very ill, and she was at a point where she just did not know where to go. She told us that she was seriously contemplating a future where she would be living in her car while caring for someone who is bound to a wheelchair. That was until she was able to make contact with a community housing provider, who got her into a Housing Australia Future Fund home, and her life has completely changed because of this. She talked about the feeling of deep relief that she feels to be in stable housing for the first time in many decades, and she talked to us about how she walked through the front door of her new home every day and felt for the first time, 'I'm home.' The life of this woman has been completely changed by housing that our government has built. We're going to do that 55,000 more times around the country.

I'm asked about risks. We don't have to look too far because they sit opposite us. Every opportunity those opposite have had to vote against more social and affordable homes for our country, they have taken it. They want to scrap the Housing Australia Future Fund. They oppose the support that we're giving to people to get into their own home. Our focus is not on squabbling or leadership games. It's delivery, delivery, delivery of better housing opportunities for Australians.

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