Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As a Victorian, I come to this place after almost five months of not being here. In that time, Victoria has been under immense pressure, and Victorians have done something absolutely remarkable. In fact, Victorians have done something that has been the envy of the world—that is, turn around a second wave. But, in that second wave, Victorians were instructed to stay at home. Victorians were instructed to only leave their house for certain reasons, and they complied. In fact, when the number of cases in Victoria was rising so quickly, Victorians even had a curfew.

But, as all members know, you cannot stay at home if you don't have one, you cannot stay at home if your home is not a safe place to live, you cannot stay at home if you've got insecure or casual work and you cannot stay at home if your living arrangement is temporary or insecure. This pandemic has highlighted yet again the need for housing and the need for a more comprehensive approach to housing and homelessness, not just at the extreme end of the spectrum, where people are rough sleeping, but well before then, where people experience insecure work, where people experience rental stress, and where the affordability of homes and a safe place to live is disintegrating in Australia.

This pandemic was an opportunity; it was an opportunity for the government to take something that has been in the too-hard basket for too long and to actually come forward with a serious plan not just to tackle homelessness but also to tackle housing affordability in this country. Added to that, the coronavirus highlighted the need for housing, the coronavirus gave us the explicit instruction that we all need to stay home, and the coronavirus brought forward an economic downturn that we have not seen in decades. This coronavirus has brought forward economic hardship that requires intervention in order to get this economy going again.

Throughout history, the very policy that has brought economies out of downturns and out of recessions has always been a serious housing reform. Historically, after the Great Depression, FDR invested in social housing and invested in people having more secure homes. After World War II, the Curtin and Chifley Labor governments proudly brought forward a massive plan and program of investment in housing. Most recently, after the global financial crisis, the Rudd government made huge investments in social housing. Investing in housing is investing in our economy, it is investing in our people, and it is giving people the certainty and the structure to rebuild their lives. But housing affordability has been creeping up on Australians, and this government has not taken it seriously and it has remained in the too-hard basket.

We need a proper and comprehensive plan to tackle the housing crisis in this country, and the only thing the government has actually bowled up has been the HomeBuilder program. Building houses is not just about those who are living in them; it is also about those who build them. Construction jobs, especially in Victoria, are looking grim. The Master Builders Association has highlighted the downturn and the slowdown in residential construction especially, and it was happening well before the pandemic.

The government's answer to the housing and construction crisis was to put forward a small program that was very specifically targeted at already large-scale renovations; it is subsidising large-scale renovations. The take-up of that program has been very, very small. It has not been enough to turn around the construction industry and it is yet another example of the government doing some good things. The government does do some good things. The housing financial corporation is a good thing. There have been some affordable houses built by this government. But some good things on the side is not a replacement for a proper policy and strategy to tackle the housing and homelessness crisis in this country. Doing some stuff is not the same as having a comprehensive policy, and that is typical of this government. They do stuff but they don't actually tackle issues. On their watch, housing is becoming more and more of a crisis in this country. The coronavirus presents us with an opportunity to fix it, but this government has not done enough.