Jon Sullivan (Longman, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing. How has the government’s decision to boost the first home owners grant been received by the community?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Longman for his question. The government recognised the importance of a strong and stable housing market and acted very early and decisively to commit $1½ billion to the first home owners boost. The homeowners boost was increased to $14,000 for existing homes and $21,000 for newly built homes. The increase in the grant has been very well received by the broader community and by the housing industry. The Reserve Bank, in its statement on monetary policy released recently, said that recent falls in interest rates in the fiscal stimulus package, which includes an increase in the first home owners grant for purchases of existing and new dwellings, are expected to boost conditions in this sector in the coming year.

On the visits I have made to a number of members’ electorates, we have had very good early indications of increased interest in the residential construction area. Recently I visited the member for Longman’s electorate and met builders and developers in Caboolture at a meeting that the member for Longman organised. Those builders, developers and others told me that they had certainly seen a lot of renewed interest from first home buyers, particularly in the smaller, more modest homes that they were able to build in some of those areas. I met also with builders, architects and real estate agents in Launceston recently during the visit that the member for Bass organised. Again, they are seeing very high levels of inquiries and certainly a spark of interest. In Seaford Downs in Kingston and Bianco Constructions in Port Adelaide—all these places—our members of parliament have been engaged very actively with constituents in their electorates. Builders, developers and construction supply companies all report increased activity and interest, and we are very hopeful that, over time, this will translate into increased sales. We have seen on the weekend in Sydney reports that Landcom sold 46 house and land packages in Sydney recently, while in the previous nine months activity had been, as they said, dead. More recently one development in Newbury sold seven out of eight available properties in just one weekend. So we are seeing the beginnings of increased interest returning to the market.

Many first home buyers are considering bringing forward purchases that they intended to make. We have seen a lot more traffic through places like HomeWorld in Kellyville, the Home Buyer Show in Sydney and in other places. All of them report a degree of increased traffic. In fact, in HomeWorld in Kellyville I spoke to a very lovely young third-generation builder there, Michael King, who told me that his dad and his grandad said to him that they had never seen a quieter time in the building industry. Yet, in the hours after we made our announcement, they were already receiving increased numbers of phone calls and, certainly in the first weekend after the announcement was made, they were seeing a lot more young couples, a lot more people going through looking at his display homes. They are very hopeful that they will see that translate into increased sales. I am very pleased to report that the legislation to support the Economic Security Strategy is being introduced today into the parliament.