Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to tonight to speak about the major housing crisis on the New South Wales North Coast. This includes a housing affordability crisis, a rental crisis and a homelessness crisis, and it's getting worse day by day. It requires urgent action from all levels of government, yet this issue has been fundamentally ignored by the Prime Minister and by the Liberals and Nationals.

Our region has seen the largest increase in house prices across the entire nation. House values in the Richmond-Tweed area climbed more than 36 per cent in the 12 months to June, and in Byron they climbed more than 50 per cent. In fact, it costs more to buy a house in Byron than it does to buy one in Sydney. The median house price in Byron is now more than $1.5 million. We've seen massive increases right across the region. For so many locals it means they're getting priced out of the market, and for first home buyers it means that first home is completely unattainable. It's practically impossible for them to get into the market.

The rental crisis is also incredibly desperate, and affordable rentals are almost non-existent. Every day, locals are contacting me, telling me how difficult it is to pay their rent. Often the prices are skyrocketing overnight, and often they're forced to move out because they just cannot afford them. When you look at all the community pages and social media you see story after story of desperate situations of people in crisis calling out for somewhere to live. So many long-term locals have been forced out because they just cannot afford a place to live. They are often living in their cars. It's that desperate.

The recent Domain September 2021 Rental Report shows that it is now more expensive to rent on the New South Wales North Coast than anywhere else in the entire country. It is more expensive there than in Sydney or Melbourne or Canberra. It is more expensive than any capital city or anywhere in the nation. This is how desperate the situation is. The average price in the Ballina shire is $650 per week, a 25 per cent increase in just a year. The average rental price in the Tweed shire is $678 per week, a 23.2 per cent increase in just a year. In the Byron shire the average rental price is $850 per week. That's an increase of more than 22.3 per cent in the past year. That means of course that the average rental cost on the North Coast is $726 per week. Compared to Sydney, at $585 a week, those figures are appalling.

Many essential workers are unable to find rentals. Everybody's Home, the national campaign against homelessness, cross-referenced rental data with the basic hourly wage of workers in disability support, aged care, child care, hospitality and supermarkets. Their calculation shows that an essential care or service worker would need to spend up to two-thirds of a normal working week's wages to rent an apartment on North Coast. So hardworking Australians who are there and who are essential to providing the services that our community needs simply cannot afford to rent a place.

As a result of the housing and the rental crisis, we are seeing so many people forced into homelessness. Our local community organisations do a remarkable job, but the demand on the services they have is just not sustainable. Many are saying that they're seeing people they've never seen before: working families who just cannot afford to buy groceries and cannot pay their rent. We're seeing so much pressure on those community organisations.

The Liberals and Nationals have been in power now for eight long years, and in that time housing, rental affordability and homelessness have gotten so much worse. We on this side have continually called for a national housing affordability plan, but shamefully, that has not happened, even as this crisis has got worse day by day, month by month. In contrast, we in Labor have been listening and constantly talking to people about the situation. We have listened. That is why we've announced our housing affordability plan. An Albanese Labor government will create a $10 billion housing future fund to build social and affordable housing, and the fund will create jobs, build homes and change lives. It's not just good social policy; it's also very good economic policy. Our plan will give more Australians a future. The fund will also provide affordable homes for those heroes of the pandemic who kept us safe, those frontline workers like police, nurses and cleaners, and it will provide housing for veterans and crisis accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence. These are such important issues for my community. Labor has listened and responded with our strong housing affordability plan

Only Labor will act to fix this. I say to the people of the North Coast: if you are serious about fixing the housing crisis, Labor is on your side and we will act.