David Moncrieff (Hughes, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities. What is the Albanese Labor government doing to address the generational housing challenges facing Australians, and how will it progress this work in a second term?

Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaker, I congratulate you on your re-election as the Speaker of this House. I look forward to three more years of a very-well-run parliament. I hope we didn't get things off on the wrong foot, Speaker!

I am a part of a Labor caucus today which has now heard nine firsts features of the incoming class of 2025. We are humbled, we are amazed and we are inspired by these remarkable people who join us in this parliament, and I include in that the member for Hughes, who has asked me this question. Almost every one of these new MPs spoke about housing as a core concern in their electorates and about their immense pride at being part of a government which has such a massive housing agenda. The Albanese government is partway through a critical national project. We are implementing a now $43 billion agenda to improve the housing opportunities that are faced by Australians. Last term, we took the Commonwealth from being, really, a negligent bystander on this critical national problem to being easily the boldest and most ambitious Australian government on housing since the Second World War. We're making it easier for people to buy, we're making it better to rent in this country and we are building more homes.

That has had real implications for Australians in our first term. In our last term, 175,000 Australians took advantage of our five per cent deposit program, getting into their first home for the first time. More than a million households around our country benefited from our 45 per cent increase to Commonwealth rent assistance. About half a million homes were built in Australia over the last term. We've got 28,000 social and affordable homes under construction in our country right now.

In our second term, we will build on those foundations. We're going to go further. We're going to go faster. We're going to go bigger. In this second term, we'll deliver more help to first home buyers. Soon, every single first home buyer in this country will be eligible to get government support to get into their first home. We'll build more homes, including 100,000 homes that will be set aside exclusively for first home buyers, with no competition from investors, and we're working with the industry at the moment to address one of the biggest challenges that we face in housing, which is that is too hard to build a house in our country today. The Commonwealth has some control over this, and that's something we're working on towards the August productivity roundtable.

Housing is going to be an absolutely foremost priority of our government in this second term, and indeed it must be for the whole parliament. Housing is in crisis in our country. Every single one of us is duty-bound to spend our time and energy trying to find real solutions to the problems that we face. My door is open to everyone in this parliament, from every party, from every part of our country, to help us work together to make a difference to the lives of Australians.