Carol Berry (Whitlam, 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 providing more opportunities and delivering for first home buyers? What other approaches to housing has the government been asked to consider?

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

I thank the member for Whitlam for her question. She is such a fighter for first home buyers in her community. Our government has now been able to help more than 1,400 of her constituents get into homeownership, with many more to come.

The long-term solution to Australia's 40-year-old housing crisis is we've got to build, build, build. That's what the majority of our government's historic $43 billion housing package is focused on: building more homes for Australians. And our policies are having a real impact. Well over half a million homes have been built around Australia since we were elected to government, and housing approvals are up 15 per cent on where they were last year. But we recognise that Australians need help with housing right now, and that's what we're delivering.

At the election we promised a vital reform—to allow any first home buyer in the country to get into the market with a five per cent deposit and our government's backing—and we delivered on that promise three months earlier than we said we would. Since the expansion of the five per cent deposit program, 16,500 Australians have bought their first home with our government's backing.

I want to talk to you about Dean, who is one such person, who lives in the member for Whitlam's electorate. Dean works in a warehouse in the Southern Highlands. He has been renting for years, and he never thought that he'd be able to save up the 20 per cent deposit that was necessary. He's had caring responsibilities for his disabled mother and he just was not able to get the money together. But the five per cent deposit program has completely changed that for him. A few weeks ago, Dean and his wife bought their first home. They are so proud, and they are so relieved to have a place where they can set down roots and spend their hard earned dollars paying off their own mortgage and not someone else's.

The member asked me about alternatives. I want Dean and his family and every one of the people who have bought a home with our five per cent deposit program to know that, if it were up to the coalition, they would not be homeowners right now. The Liberals have described our expansion of this scheme as 'bizarre and ridiculous' and said that this is a scheme which supports the families of billionaires. I want them to note that Dean is not the child of billionaires. He is a warehouse worker from the regions who grew up in public housing in a single-parent family, and fighting for Australians like him is why my political party exists.

We will continue to deliver housing support for Australians. But the Liberals are as hopelessly divided on housing as they are on every other major policy issue facing the country. They cannot decide whether they support or oppose supports for homeownership, and the coalition do not have a single sensible thing to say about what I believe to be the most important social and economic problem facing our country. Of course, it's unsurprising, given that for most of the time they were in government they didn't— (Time expired)