Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Housing. Will the minister please outline to the House how the Morrison government's HomeBuilder program will create jobs and provide a boost to the economy as we come out the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic?

Michael Sukkar (Deakin, Liberal Party, Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Longman for his question. He is a champion for all of the people in his electorate who are employed in the residential construction industry and is a great supporter of the HomeBuilder program. The HomeBuilder program, I might say, for the member for Longman, has, as I said earlier today, seen huge interest around this country. We have seen sales of house and land packages increase by up to 70 per cent. New homes mean more jobs and protecting jobs in the residential construction industry. In fact, the HomeBuilder website, through Treasury, has seen 250,000 hits in just the last week.

It will please the member for Longman, and indeed all of the members on this side of the House, to know that the highest amount of interest has come from Queensland. Many Queenslanders are seeking to utilise this opportunity. If you receive the $25,000 HomeBuilder grant as a first home buyer in Queensland, you can add the state government's $15,000 grant on top of that, meaning that first home buyers in the member for Longman's electorate will receive $40,000 in assistance to purchase their new homes.

Given the shadow minister wants to rely on quotes, there are a number of typical case studies that highlight this point. We have Tom Petersen and Kim Backman—and this goes to the Prime Minister's point earlier. They have said:

We've been talking about it for a little while, just trying to scrape together enough cash for a deposit … But that's been made a little bit easier now.

They said:

We figured we'll get a new build if we can, and with all the incentives around, that's made it possible

So, by providing the HomeBuilder grant of $25,000, the biggest single grant of its kind by a federal government, we will see first home buyers getting into the market. We will see first home buyers purchasing the typical house and land package or apartment. We will see people undertaking substantial rebuilds—a knockdown and a rebuild. The Treasurer has said we expect to see 7,000 of those. That will support hundreds of thousands of jobs in the residential construction industry.

To highlight my point about how much interest the HomeBuilder scheme has created for many, many buyers in the market, I note that Julian Coppini from the Oliver Hume group told Domain the following:

The initial response to the announcement of HomeBuilder has been extremely positive … We are seeing a combination of previous buyers who had delayed their purchase as a result of the uncertainty around COVID-19 coming back to market, combined with buyers who are in the market purely to take advantage of the HomeBuilder grant and other incentives.

The Western Australian Labor government have also backed in HomeBuilder with a $20,000 grant. The Tasmanian government have backed in HomeBuilder with a $20,000 grant. This will support people in the member for Longman's electorate and around the country. (Time expired)