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

My question is to the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. How will the Housing Australia Future Fund help build more social and affordable homes? What will the impacts be on people who need it most if the Housing Australia Future Fund is further delayed?

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to thank the member for Macnamara for that important question and say it was great to be with him in his electorate to meet tenants of an affordable rental property in his electorate that was made possible through federal government money, and what a great success it is—and it shows that it can be done. As I was getting up to answer this question, we heard from those opposite, 'Why aren't you building the houses?' We aren't building the houses from the Housing Australia Future Fund yet because, of course, people are delaying it in the Senate, because people over there voted against it.

But we have heard the pleas from workers on the front line—people who deal day in, day out with people who have no safe, affordable place to call home. As Everybody's Home pointed out, even 'full-time breadwinners are now living in tents'. The news is full of stories of people who are finding it tough—families sleeping in cars, young people having to choose between paying the rent or buying food.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Deakin is continually interjecting on the minister. He'll be in the same boat as the member for Barker. So just cool it with the interjections.

Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all in this place hear stories from people who are dealing with rising rents, who are forced to couch surf or who are contacting our electorate offices and have nowhere to go. This is what our Housing Australia bill is about; it's about people. So I say to the members in this place who seem to have forgotten that: please don't just write to me about social housing and homelessness; get your senators to vote for more social and affordable housing. I say to the member for Riverina, the member for Bradfield, the member for Hughes: go back to your electorates and say you stood in the way of more social and affordable housing for your constituents when you write letters to me. Say that to them.

We introduced our Housing Australia Future Fund to help people—to build tens of thousands of social and affordable rental homes for some of the most vulnerable in our community. Our housing agenda is ambitious because it needs to be. I want to remind members in this place that the Housing Australia Future Fund will build more social and affordable homes in its first five years than were built over the past decade from the combined contributions of the Commonwealth and state and territory governments. That is what we're talking about. There's a substantial number of homes for people in need—for women and children who are fleeing family violence, for older women at risk of homelessness and for veterans who don't have a safe, affordable place to call home. For the people that need help, we want to do it with the Housing Australia Future Fund. I say to the Liberal senators and the Greens senators: please don't stand in the way. You can not address our housing challenges by standing in the way of real action. This is not an opportunity to delay action, because there is a cost to delays, and the costs are being borne by the people that need our support the most. (Time expired)