Matt Gregg (Deakin, 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. How is the Albanese Labor government building more homes and addressing the housing crisis the government inherited?

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

I thank the member for Deakin for his question. I'm thinking back to the first speech he gave to this chamber just a few short weeks ago, when he spoke with such passion about his desire to see young people in his community have the opportunity to settle permanently in Melbourne's beautiful eastern suburbs. I know he's hugely proud of being part of a government that's tackling this housing crisis confronting our country from every single angle.

We're in the middle of a housing crisis that's been cooking in our nation for 40 years. For 40 years our country has not been building enough homes. Whether it's a generation of young people who feel locked out of the market or renters whose rent is going up too high too fast, the fundamental problem that we face in housing in this country is that we have a housing shortage. We delivered immensely on the housing agenda in the last term, and we're seeing real results for Australians right across the country. Just in the last term, 180,000 people around this country got into first home ownership with the backing of the Albanese government, and, in case you haven't heard, that program will be uncapped and available to every first home buyer in the country on 1 October.

It's not just homeownership. In that last term, a million households around the country got access to a 45 per cent increase to Commonwealth rent assistance, and, of course, Mr Speaker, you're well aware that we've got 28,000 social and community houses under construction at the moment. What we know about our housing shortage is that there's really only one way out of it, and that is building. We've got to build more homes, and that's the ultimate answer to our housing issues as a country. Since we came to office about half a million homes have been built in Australia. A lot of progress has been made on this front. Construction costs have stabilised.

We've got the opposition leader piping up here. I might remind her that, when she left office, construction costs in this country were rising 17 per cent a year. That's the highest in 50 years. That number has come down to 1.6 per cent, below inflation, where it belongs. We're seeing real progress on skills and apprenticeships.

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

The member for Fisher is going to cease interjecting.

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

Despite all the carping from those opposite, the proof is in the pudding, because year-on-year housing approvals in this country are now up 30 per cent since the same time last year. It hasn't happened by accident. You saw our government make some really important announcements yesterday on the supply side. We're building on our $43 billion housing agenda. We've announced a pause and streamline of the National Construction Code so we can let builders get on with building. We've also announced that we're going to fast-track environmental approvals for more than 26,000 homes. The Property Council said that these measures alone are going to unlock tens of thousands of new homes for Australians. We need to keep on building. That's the only answer here, and that's why that's exactly what our government is doing.