Elizabeth Watson-Brown (Ryan, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. The median house price in capital cities across Australia has increased by $35,000 in the last three months as a result of the government's five per cent house deposit scheme. Modelling suggests this policy could increase house prices by 10 per cent in the first year alone. Will you admit that the Labor government is driving unsustainable house-price growth for the benefit of big banks and at the expense of everyday Australians?

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

I thank the member for her question. We've got a housing crisis in our country that's been cooking for 40 years. The simple problem is that, for that entire period of time, our country has not been building enough homes. That's why the $43 billion package, the historic package, that our government is implementing is focused primarily on building more homes for Australians. We're doing that by building 55,000 social and affordable homes—something the Greens political party did everything to stop us doing. We're building 100,000 homes for first home buyers and we're trying to push towards this national aspiration of building 1.2 million homes over a five-year period.

This is the main game: building homes for Australians. But what the Greens political party are really saying to us here is that, while we are doing that hard work of addressing the fundamental issues facing our country on housing, we are not going to do anything to help the young people of today, and that is a position that our government fundamentally disagrees with. One of the main issues that young people talk to all of us parliamentarians about is the challenges they face getting into the housing market. We've got lots of people in this parliament representing Sydney seats. In your electorates, the average young couple is saving for 11 years to get into the property market for the first time. Because of our expansion of the five per cent deposit program, we are bringing that back to two or three years. This is really meaningful support for people.

The Greens have got a lot to say about this program, but I want them to look the people who use it in the eye and talk to them about their issues, because we now have 190,000 Australians who have been supported into their first home because of our government's program—190,000 Australians that the Greens political party are saying should never have got government support to buy their first home.

The Greens played a disgraceful act of politics over the last three years. They came into this parliament day after day after day, saying that they were advocating for people who need housing support and at the same time doing everything they could to work with the Liberal Party to block more housing, to block housing support for first home owners—even to block better support for renters, which is one of the things they talked about most. I hope that in this new term of parliament the Greens have the opportunity to turn over a new leaf. We want to work across the political parties to get better action for Australians. That is exactly what the Australian people expect us to be doing.