Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing. In question time on Tuesday, when the minister quoted the publication Domain, had he also read these Domain stories: 'HomeBuilder might be the most-complex least-equitable construction jobs program ever devised', and 'HomeBuilder: eight ways that $688 million could be better spent on housing to stimulate the economy'? If this is what a real estate publication thinks of this scheme, isn't it time to rename it 'home blunder'?

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

The shadow minister wants to bring out quotes. Well, I've got a lot of quotes for the shadow minister. On the day that the shadow minister and shadow Treasurer came out to criticise this policy, they said that the Master Builders Association had criticised the policy. So, they were relying on the Master Builders Association, which was a surprise to the Treasurer, the Prime Minister and I because the head of the Master Builders Association was with us when we announced this policy, and said the following:

Master Builders Australia believes that the Federal Government’s announcement of the HomeBuilder scheme today will be a massive relief to the 1000s of home builders and tradies around the country.

Are you listening, Shadow Minister?

HomeBuilder will be a lifeline for an industry facing a valley of death in the coming months. It will mean more new homes, more small businesses and jobs are protected and provide a stronger bridge to economic recovery for our country.

It goes on and on. I'll continue if we've got quotes. We've got a home builder, Jesse Zielke, from Bundaberg, who said that on the first Saturday after the HomeBuilder was announced, the response they had for their house and land packages meant he said the following:

We're been gearing up. I've employed three people this week in various roles.

I've been in contact with subcontractors, suppliers to make sure that we could handle it.

It's certainly going to be a boost locally—

to jobs and the industry. It goes on and on. The Domain article that the shadow minister referred to referred to the fact that house and land packages throughout this country increased last Saturday by up to 70 per cent.

What does new home sales mean? It means what I said earlier this week, that the hundreds of thousands of jobs in the residential construction industry are protected. I know the shadow minister probably hasn't come across a tradie—he's been here a bit too long in the halls of Canberra—but hundreds of thousands of tradies such as carpenters on building sites, bricklayers, plumbers and in regional Australia the timber mill workers who make the frames and trusses, the manufacturers who make the bricks and the glass and the tiles will be protected. We estimate there will be 20,000 new homes and 7,000 substantial rebuilds. We have seen evidence that those 20,000 new homes is overwhelmingly supporting new home buyers. So the Labor Party has opposed the first Home Super Saver Scheme, the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme and now HomeBuilder. The coalition is the party of home ownership in this country and residential construction jobs.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lalor is now warned. I've asked her to stop interjecting on numbers of occasions this week.