Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is for the Minister for Housing and Minister for Homelessness. Today's data from rental affordability index shows that only two per cent of rentals are affordable for essential workers, like teachers. The New Homes Bonus was supposed to incentivise new homes and help fix this, but, with just the ACT likely to meet the target, the effectiveness of this incentive is under question. Will you consider restructuring the bonus scheme so there are interim payments to help the states do critical rezoning, speed up approvals and build the infrastructure they need to actually deliver these targets?

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

I thank the member for Wentworth for her question. It's a really good one, and I think it reflects the real seriousness with which she engages in the housing debate. For many of the wonderful people on the crossbench here, housing is a critical issue in their community, and they work collaboratively with our government, and the member for Wentworth is one of them.

The member for Wentworth asked about the situation facing Australian renters, and I agree with her. This is a really critical concern for our government. We've got a housing crisis in our country that's been cooking for 40 years, and the people who are bearing the biggest brunt of this are people in rental accommodation. They're feeling it in rents going up too fast and too frequently. They feel it in the lack of power they have in negotiating with their landlords, and a very distressing share of the nation's renters tell us they are actively fearing becoming practically homeless, and that should not be happening in a country like Australia.

One thing that the member for Wentworth has been constructive on, when working with the government, is understanding the crux of this issue facing our rental population—that is, for the 40-year period, our country hasn't been building enough homes. For a long time in Australia, the Commonwealth government washed its hands of this problem. For most of the time those opposite were in government they were so checked out of housing that they didn't even have a housing minister to negotiate with. We have changed that, and one of the main ways that we're engaging with states and territories is through something called the National Housing Accord.

Instead of saying that our government wouldn't take any responsibility, the Prime Minister has stepped up. He's sat down with state and territory leaders across the country, as well as with local government and the private sector, and said, 'If we want to make a change here, we need to make a difference to how our housing system works.'

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

I'll hear from the member for Wentworth on a point of order.

Allegra Spender (Wentworth, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On relevance, the question was specifically about the New Homes Bonus.

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

The minister was asked a question regarding the home bonus, and the minister was also asked about restructuring to help the states deliver the target. I'll caution her to make sure her answer is being directly relevant. It was a fairly specific question that the member for Wentworth asked, and, if the minister could provide more information regarding that, I think that would assist the House and help with the standing orders as well.

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

The reason I'm talking about the National Housing Accord is that the $3 billion New Homes Bonus, which the member asked me about, sits at the end of the National Housing Accord. We are in constant negotiation and discussion with the states. We've got a problem in our country that it's become too hard, too difficult, too expensive and too lengthy to get a home built, and the states are critically important to solving that problem and have more power over that, frankly, than the Commonwealth does. That's why they are such key partners of ours.

The $3 billion incentive the member asked me about sits, as she's mentioned, at the end of the accord targets, and of course the states are always keen to see that money flowing to them faster. But I would say to the member regarding the $43 billion package that sits across all our housing policies—whether it's building more homes, getting renters a better deal or getting more Australians into homeownership—that quite a deal of that money actually flows through the states. We had, as part of the original negotiation, $1.5 billion in infrastructure funding; much of that flowed to the states. Round 2 of the Housing Australia Future Fund completely went to the states. We've got $10 billion going to the states to deliver 100,000 homes, and $2 billion went to the states for social housing. So there's a really strong partnership there and quite a lot of money flowing through those states at the moment. (Time expired)