Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That this House:

(1) acknowledges that the Government has made Australia's housing crisis worse than ever by:

(a) expanding the 5 per cent deposit scheme from a sensible and targeted approach, to an uncapped and non-means-tested free for all which has supercharged house prices by 3.6 per cent in just one quarter, and exposed first home buyers including young Australians to larger mortgages;

(b) creating the failing Housing Australia Future Fund which has $11.4 billion within it but has built only 895 houses in 2.5 years of operation; and

(c) proposing to fiddle with the capital gains tax and negative gearing, which is dressed up as an equity measure but will not actually result in the construction of new dwellings;

(2) notes that the Government is overseeing a historic collapse of housing construction, with dwelling completions are now running at around 170,000 each year, whereas 200,000 dwellings were completed annually under the previous Government, while the population has grown by more than 1.6 million since the Government came to power; and

(3) further notes that the Government is already running more than 80,000 dwellings short of the National Housing Accord target of 1.2 million homes by mid-2029, and modelling by the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council says the Government will not reach its own target, falling more than 60,000 dwellings short.

As we start this sitting week, Australians are suffering a fuel crisis, a cost-of-living crisis and a housing crisis. The economy is weak, fuel supplies aren't guaranteed and Australians are hurting. The great Australian dream is becoming a nightmare under this Labor government. It's a nightmare for young Australians, it's a nightmare for renters, it's a nightmare for homeowners and it's a nightmare for seniors. If you've got a home, you're worried about whether you'll be able to keep it, and, if you haven't, you worry that you never will.

Last week, the RBA lifted the official cash rate to 4.1 per cent, on the back of raging inflation, meaning that mortgage holders have been dealt yet another blow. The average mortgage holder is paying $27,000 a year in interest more than what it was under the coalition government. Renters are not escaping either, with rents up 22 per cent in the same time. These numbers underpin the reason why standards have fallen and Australians are going backwards.

There are two major factors in determining whether housing in this country is successful and achievable, and that is the balance of supply and demand. At the Joint Standing Committee on Migration hearing on Friday 13 March, the Department of Home Affairs admitted it has never modelled the impact of the Albanese government's migration numbers on housing and infrastructure. Infrastructure Australia, during the same hearing, in their evidence described the recent surge as 'mega-population-growth'.

Treasury has said that net overseas migration is expected to moderate to, say, 260,000 in 2025-26. But, in recent years, the forecasts have not been close to reality. In the year 2022-23, they forecast 235,000, and what did we get? We got 538,000. In 2023-24, 235,000 was the forecast, while the actual was 429,000. What's interesting about these numbers is that the current minister for housing was the Minister for Home Affairs at the time. The irony that she is now the minister whose job it is to fix the housing crisis is not lost on anyone. We remember that she was hopeless in Home Affairs, and now we've seen she's hopeless with homes.

The minister talks about there being a crisis that's been building for 40 years, but the reality is that it's only been the last four under this Labor government. In short, immigration has been way too high, and it's been putting unsustainable pressure on the housing sector. There must be an alignment of immigration and housing, or this crisis will only deepen.

It doesn't matter what the question is, but the answer is never higher taxes. But, of course, in true Labor fashion, when they run out of actual ideas, they reach for the taxation drawer. Labor now wants to fiddle with capital gains tax and negative gearing, changes that are dressed up as fairness, but they won't lead to more homes being built. The Property Council said last month that there is a long-held misunderstanding that changing the capital gains tax discount would help housing affordability, 'even though it will not boost supply'. The Property Council are not new to analysing this issue, and in September 2017, when Labor was in opposition, they said this:

We have also consistently put the view that the Opposition's plan to cut the discount from 50 per cent to 25 per cent would damage the industry, the economy and the security of the livelihoods of many in the industry who rely on construction.

There is a big difference between a tap the brakes approach to CGT and slamming on the handbrake.

That is the key point: if you tax housing and investment more, you won't get more housing. Higher taxes will lead to fewer houses. The government's dream of 1.2 million homes is so far from reality. It is absolutely unachievable; they are not getting there. We must restore homeownership as the centrepiece of the Australian dream, and it's only the coalition who will protect Australians' way of life and restore their standard of living.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion and reserve my right to speak.

Julie-Ann Campbell (Moreton, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's pretty extraordinary that the member for Fadden has come here today to talk about irony. It's pretty extraordinary because he is part of a coalition that didn't have a housing minister for most of the time that they were in government. It's pretty extraordinary because he is part of a coalition that teamed up with the Greens to vote down, to block and to delay critical housing policy. It's pretty extraordinary because he's part of a coalition that voted against Help to Buy. He's part of a coalition that voted against build to rent. He's part of a coalition that voted against the HAFF. It's pretty extraordinary and it's pretty ironic, because, when those sitting on that side of the chamber were in government, they built a measly 373 homes in nine long years.

What Australia needs and what Australians need isn't talk. It isn't business being brought to this place to have a chat about. What Australians need is a plan, and what they need is consistent delivery of that plan. In this country we have a supply problem when it comes to housing. We have a supply problem that has been building for the last 40 years. For Australians, this has real impacts. This has impacts because, everywhere I go—whether it's at the local fete, whether it's across the back fence, whether it's while you're out doorknocking and talking to people—families want the key to their first front door, parents want their children to have the same opportunities when it comes to housing that they did, and young people are contemplating whether housing will ever be a reality for them and their future.

We have a long way to go. People are doing it tough, but there are green shoots coming through. I've seen the faces of those people who are getting into their first homes because of the work that Labor is doing with our local communities to make housing more accessible and more affordable. The other day I met with Mitchell. Mitchell is a young person in my electorate on Brisbane's south side. He just bought his first home, a townhouse in Moorooka not too far away from the city. It's pretty close to the train station. Mitchell said that he wouldn't have had a hope to get into that first home without the Help to Buy scheme. In my own team, Kane and his partner, Jaxen, have just moved into their first home. They did it because they were able to save the five per cent deposit, something introduced by Labor.

Housing is more than bricks and mortar. It's about having a home. It's about having security. It's about setting down roots and being able to have a place where you can watch your kids grow up and you can build a life. Our government has been working to do practical things to throw the kitchen sink at what is an incredibly challenging problem for our nation. It's why we're building more homes and we have an ambitious target for 1.2 million new homes—570,000 built since we came to government and new home starts up by 11.6 per cent. It's why we're delivering 55,000 new social and affordable homes through the HAFF, with 6,000 complete and 24,000 in planning and construction. It's why we've introduced five per cent deposits. There are 230,000 Australians who have bought their first homes with it. The shadow minister called five per cent deposits a gimmick. It's not a gimmick for those young people who are buying their first home. It's not a gimmick for those people who, for the first time, have the ability to plan for their future.

The member for Fadden says it's only been the last four years. That shows the profound misunderstanding of this challenge from the coalition.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It gives me great pleasure to speak to this motion moved by my dear friend the member for Fadden. I acknowledge also the member for Moncrieff, who is also in the chamber. The three of us represent constituencies of the Gold Coast, and we are no stranger to the issue of housing because we're seeing it right in our backyards. I'm pleased that the member for Moreton recognised the importance of housing. It's just really unfortunate that those opposite and the policies that they reflect do not reflect that fact.

The motion today before the House of Representatives touches on a number of different important things and, in particular, something that's become even more relevant over the last two weeks. That is the fact that the government has made Australia's housing crisis even worse. And they've done this by expanding the five per cent deposit scheme from what was a sensible and targeted approach to something that is uncapped and not means tested. So it's a free-for-all approach which has supercharged house prices by 3.6 per cent just in one quarter. Why is that amplified by everything else that this government is overseeing?

In the last week and a bit, we've seen an increase—yet another increase—to our interest rates in this country. That takes us to 14 rate rises under this Albanese Labor government. So all of those people who may have gotten into the housing market for the first time under this government's five per cent deposit scheme are now hit. They are absolutely hit with having to pay higher interest rates on those houses. We've also seen a government—and this motion goes to the fact—that has created the failing Housing Australia Future Fund. That has $11.4 billion in it, but—get this—it has only built 895 houses in 2½ years of operation.

Now, when I speak to people in my constituency on the southern Gold Coast—in fact, I was at the Burleigh Heads markets for about five to six hours on Saturday morning. We had a number of, especially, young people who are struggling with rentals because we've got a situation on the Gold Coast where the rental market is severely constricted. Then there are others who are young families who have just gotten into their first home. They're dealing with not only the cost of housing and not only these interest rate rises but the cost of housing and these interest rate rises on top of every single other increase in cost that we're facing under this government. And it all goes back to two main points: (1) a lack of ambition in relation to housing by this government and (2) that this is in relation to the fact that we've got a government that is addicted to spending. It's a combination of those two factors that have resulted in where we're at as a country right now.

I have recently been appointed, or elected, to the deputy chair role of the Joint Standing Committee on Migration. As the member for Fadden touched on, we had our first public hearing last Friday or the Friday before, and something came about which I think this House really needs to know.

Cameron Caldwell (Fadden, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Housing) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was extraordinary, actually.

Leon Rebello (McPherson, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It was absolutely extraordinary, Member for Fadden. What we saw was—we had the Department of Home Affairs, which is the department that is responsible for administering Australia's migration policy. They came before the committee, and we asked them what I thought was a quite simple and straightforward question. The question was: does the department rely on any modelling in relation to infrastructure and in relation to housing when it devises, along with the government, its migration intake and our numbers for migration into Australia? I was expecting a list of the modelling, and I was expecting a detailed and comprehensive answer, because this is something that I think most reasonable Australians would turn around and say: 'Well, yes, surely our migration figures are based on based on what our country can take, what our infrastructure can take, what our housing can take.' But what was the answer? There was nothing. There was no modelling that was actually the basis of our immigration policy. I think that just goes to the lack of concentration by this government on something that, to be quite honest, Australians deserve better on. It's something that the young people of Australia, the older people of Australia, the working class and the families are all struggling with, whether it's rentals or whether it's homeownership. It's something that, when I hear the members of parliament on the other side of the chamber come in here and talk about the value of housing, I really hope they finally learn a lesson from the opposition on and start to act appropriately.

Madonna Jarrett (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I agree with the opposition: we are in a housing crisis. That is a fact. But for the opposition to think that this started in 2022 is simply delusional. This has been bubbling along for decades. There's no doubt that we're in a critical time in our nation's history, where we need all levels of government working together to build the homes we need for this generation and the next.

Housing is a human right. It is something I have said in this chamber many, many times. People are working hard. They're doing everything right, yet they still can't afford a place to call home. Young people are outbidding each other for rental properties. Families with kids who would absolutely have owned their own home a generation ago cannot get a foothold in the market. We hear it from parents who cannot give their kids the stability that they had as kids, and we hear it from renters that prices are going up. We see women in my electorate in Brisbane who are fleeing domestic violence or unworkable domestic situations, left stranded, couch surfing and car sleeping. And, of course, we see a rise in homelessness.

No matter what your situation is, having a roof over your head fundamentally changes your life's trajectory. For a long time, the Commonwealth government had tapped out on our national housing challenge, leaving most of the hard work up to the states. I'll say it again, as the member for Moreton said: for the nine years the coalition was last in power they didn't even have a housing minister, and they built just 373 social and affordable homes over that entire nine year period.

Now, this crisis wasn't created overnight, and it won't be fixed overnight. Our government understands this, and that's why we are throwing everything at it. We are acting, contrary to what the member for McPherson said. We're not sitting on the sidelines. What we're doing is implementing the single biggest housing build since the Second World War. That's full of ambition; it's not a lack of ambition, as said by the member for McPherson. Our $43 billion agenda is focused on three things: backing first home buyers, building more homes and making it better and easier to rent. We've completed over 5,000 social and affordable homes and have 25,000 more in construction and planning. This includes 80 social and affordable homes in Lutwyche and Windsor alone.

These programs are helping people right across the country like Karen, who lives in my electorate. Karen is in her 60s. She fled domestic violence seven or so years ago. She lived in shared accommodation, and she now has a home that she can call her own. She can decorate it the way she wants, she can leave the dishes till tomorrow and she can sit on her balcony and listen to music whenever she wants. She finally gets to live her life, her way.

Since Labor was elected over 180,000 Australians have bought their first home with the five per cent deposit including almost 2,100 in Brisbane. I ask the member for McPherson, again, to ask them if they think this is a bad policy. More than one million households have been supported, with our 50 per cent increase in rent assistance, and this has helped almost 9,200 recipients in Brisbane alone. We're seeing a real turnaround in home building, with almost half a million homes being built since we came to office and new housing commencements up 17 per cent. But we know the job's not done, and in this term we will continue to do more. We will continue to build more homes, continuing on the path of building 55,000 social and affordable homes as well as building 100,000 homes for first home buyers, excluding investors. And we're working towards a bold aspiration for Australia to build 1.2 million homes in five years.

We're about making it better to rent, helping thousands more rental homes get built and continuing to lift rental standards through our work with the states, implementing Help to Buy, our first national shared equity scheme, and delivering our five per cent deposit guarantee to every first home buyer. We need to keep building, we need to make it easier to build and we need to make it quicker to build. I want to say to the people of Brisbane: this Labor government has your back. We will do everything we can to tackle the housing challenges you are facing, but to make a difference we all have to work together. It's going to take all levels of government—state, federal and local—to sort through getting houses built more quickly. We need to think innovatively about how we build more homes. We owe it to the next generation to continue to do what we can to make homes available for people.

Alison Penfold (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For generations, Australians understood a simple truth: if you worked hard, saved diligently and made responsible choices, you could own a home. That promise—the great Australian dream—is now slipping out of reach, and what attempts do we get from the Albanese government to fix the issue? We get more intervention, more distortion and more pressure on interest rates, making the problem worse, not better.

Take the government's expanded five per cent deposit scheme, for example. On the surface, it might sound compassionate. It might sound like it's helping young Australians into the market, but in reality it does something far more dangerous. It pushes up demand without fixing supply. And when you artificially inflate demand in a constrained market, what happens? Prices go up. That's not theory; that's basic economics. Instead of helping first home buyers, this scheme risks locking them in to higher levels of debt at higher prices, with thinner equity buffers. This government is effectively encouraging people to stretch themselves to the limit, to take on bigger mortgages with less margin for error. That is not responsible policy. While the government is busy pumping demand, where is the serious plan to boost supply? Where is the investment in regional infrastructure to unlock new land? Where is the reform to planning systems that choke development? Where is the support for local builders dealing with rising costs and workforce shortages?

Australia doesn't need more Canberra designed demand schemes; it needs practical policies that increase supply, reduce costs and support local economies. The coalition took such a policy to the last election—a $5 billion housing infrastructure program to fund shovel-ready enabling infrastructure, such as water, sewerage, power and telecommunications headworks, to unlock 500,000 houses that had stalled on greenfield sites. This is the type of investment that the housing industry and my electorate are calling for.

They're also calling for relief from the high-taxing regime on housing. The taxes, fees and regulatory charges new homebuyers must pay, which constitute up to 50 per cent of the total price of a new house and land package, effectively mean that they are spending 15 years of their 30-year mortgage solely paying off government taxes. As the Housing Industry Association said last year:

It is incongruous that governments set home building targets, while at the same time tax new home building even more. The more government tax new homes, the fewer homes will be built.

Despite this, the government is flirting dangerously with changes to the capital gains tax discount. Weakening the CGT discount is not some harmless tweak; it is a direct attack on private investors, who play a critical role in providing rental homes, especially in regional towns, where government housing simply cannot meet demand. With rents already up 22 per cent under Labor, this risks making a bad situation even worse. If you reduce the incentive to invest, you will reduce supply, and when rental supply falls rents rise. Again, this is not complicated.

We're already seeing rental shortages across regional Australia. Families are struggling to find a place to live. Employers cannot attract workers, because there's nowhere for them to stay. And yet, at precisely the wrong time, the government is considering policies that will push investors out of the market. This shows the government's fundamental misunderstanding of how housing markets actually work. You cannot tax your way to more homes, you cannot regulate your way to lower prices, and you certainly cannot solve a supply crisis by discouraging the very people who build and provide housing.

What Australia needs is a government that backs aspiration and the private sector, not one that punishes those things. We need policies that reward saving, encourage investment and unlock supply. That means investing in regional infrastructure, with investment in headworks, to open up new housing developments, streamlining planning and approvals, supporting the construction workforce and restoring confidence for investors, because, when investors have confidence, homes get built. When homes get built, supply increases. And, when supply increases, affordability improves. It's that simple.

Homeownership isn't just an economic goal. It's about a promise that, if you have a go, you can get ahead. That is the promise this government is putting at risk. That is the promise we must restore.

Cassandra Fernando (Holt, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since being elected in 2022, Labor has made one thing absolutely clear. We are determined to help more Australians into a home of their own. I have to say, it's quite remarkable to hear those opposite criticise the Housing Australia Future Fund. The member for Fadden points to 895 homes delivered so far, as if that proves failure. Let's be honest: even that cherrypicked number is more than double the 373 social and affordable homes delivered over an entire decade by the former Liberal-National government. That is the record they're bringing into this chamber, and their criticism ignores a simple reality: housing construction takes time. It takes time to secure land, complete design, obtain approvals and build. Two years in the construction sector is the very beginning, not the end, of delivery.

But what makes their argument truly cynical is this: while they complain about delivery, they actively worked to stop it. They blocked, delayed and voted against the Housing Australia Future Fund, voting against 40,000 social and affordable homes for Australians who desperately need them. And this is not a one-off. The Liberal-National coalition has consistently voted against every serious measure to improve housing affordability in this country. They voted against Labor's five per cent home deposit scheme, which has already helped 230,000 Australians get into their first home; they voted against the Help to Buy shared equity scheme, a model proven across the world; they voted against increasing Commonwealth rent assistance for the most vulnerable renters in my electorate; and they voted against our build-to-rent scheme, designed to deliver more than 80,000 long-term rental homes. Every step of the way, when given the choice, they have chosen to stand in the way of housing affordability. I will not be lectured by a party that, when in government, couldn't even be bothered to appoint a housing minister for six out of their nine years in office. That is not leadership; that is neglect.

The housing crisis we face today is serious. It cannot be solved overnight, and no-one pretends otherwise. It demands commitment, consistency and real policy. That is exactly what Labor is delivering. We are working with states and territories to build 1.2 million new, well-located homes by July 2029, and we are investing more than $43 billion to make that happen. We went to the election promising $10 billion to build 100,000 homes reserved for first home buyers, we have expanded access to the five per cent home deposit scheme so more Australians can enter the market sooner, and we are doing the hard work with states and territories to reform planning systems, making it easier to build the medium-density housing Australians need—closer to jobs, transport and opportunities. In my home state of Victoria, we are already seeing that ambition, with an even bolder target to increase housing supply and unlock more homes for future generations. Labor has a plan, Labor is delivering on that plan, and Labor is focused on outcomes: more homes, more affordability and more Australians with a place to call their own.

Australians should not be fooled by the Liberal-National coalition. The Liberal and National parties have opposed measure after measure designed to improve housing affordability. At the last election they promised to scrap existing programs, with no credible replacement, and even today Australians are still waiting to hear what their plan actually is. So I say this clearly: Australians cannot afford more delay, more obstruction, more empty promises. They need homes, and only Labor is getting on with the job of delivering them.

I want to commend the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil, for her work over the last two years. In the face of obstruction she has shown determination and a genuine commitment to tackling the housing crisis.

Andrew Willcox (Dawson, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Manufacturing and Sovereign Capability) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

():  There is a false promise being peddled to the young people of this country—a cruel illusion that says a five per cent deposit is a doorway to a more secure future, whereas it's actually a trapdoor. This Labor government doesn't just miss the mark on housing; they've engineered a mirage and then have had the audacity to call it a blueprint. A blueprint is supposed to be a promise for what can be built, but under this Labor government the only thing being constructed is a catastrophe by design. The great Australian dream hasn't just been priced out; it has been evicted and replaced by a great Labor nightmare.

This Albanese Labor government has made the housing crisis in this country worse. They've taken the First Home Guarantee and turned it into a reckless non-means-tested free-for-all. By removing sensible income caps and targeted place limits they have supercharged house prices by 3.6 per cent in just one quarter. This five per cent deposit lure is being used to tempt young Australians into a market that is already boiling over. We've seen this movie before, and it ended in a global disaster. In 2008, housing collapse in America was an architecture of catastrophe built on the shaky ground of subprime lending and an erosion of deposit standards. By encouraging young families into a volatile market with minimal equity—and they have been geared to the absolute hilt—these young borrowers face extreme risks and are being forced into bloated mortgages for inflated homes. If this continues, this government will have paved the way for a generation of first home bankrupts.

Last week's interest rate rise—the second hike this year—has sent a shockwave through every family home. At Senate estimates, the Reserve Bank governor was clear, stating that these highly leveraged borrowers face higher risk and higher repayment costs. These families are at risk because they are geared more highly on overpriced homes, starting their journey on a financial razor's edge. Every rate rise cuts deeper into the family budget, and there is nothing left to give until the only choice remaining is to give the house back to the bank.

By replacing private insurance with a government guarantee, Labor is using tax dollars to fuel the very price hikes that make houses unaffordable. It is a circular firing squad of economic policy. Then we have the crowning jewel of failure: the Housing Australia Future Fund. The Albanese Labor government has locked away $11.4 billion in a bureaucratic nightmare. After 2½ years, how many houses has the Labor government built? A grand total of 895. At this rate, children in primary school today will be retirees before Labor finishes their first suburb. They are labouring under the delusion that a spreadsheet can provide shelter. The maths is as hollow as their promises. Labor is overseeing a historic collapse of construction. Under the previous coalition government, we completed 200,000 dwellings a year. Under Labor that has slumped to 170,000. All the while, the population has surged by more than 1.6 million people. How do you think those numbers can work?

This government is already running more than 80,000 dwellings short of its National Housing Accord target. The problem is that, instead of building, the government is busy fiddling with the capital gains tax and negative gearing. Labor dresses it up as an equity measure, but let's call it for what it is: it's a tax grab. It is a cynical distraction from the fact that Labor is failing on supply, failing on construction and failing on common sense. We see the human cost in Dawson every day. We see young people outbidding each other for rentals because they have no other choice. We see families who do everything right yet cannot get a foothold. Most heartbreakingly, we see women who have fled domestic violence left stranded, couch-surfing or car-sleeping because there's nowhere to go. Housing is a life-defining challenge. This government puts the ideological before people, and the result is higher taxes.

Louise Miller-Frost (Boothby, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In 2000, the average age of a first home buyer was around 30. Today, the average age of a first home buyer is around 37. This is a symptom of the housing affordability crisis that has taken grip in this country for decades, ever since the Howard government's policies destroyed the housing market for future generations. They were warned. They chose to go ahead.

Younger Australians are no longer able to afford their own home. They're not even able to get their foot in the door for a rental property. Families who might have been able to afford their own home decades ago are now priced out of the market. The coalition, who claim to have the miracle cure for all our housing woes, did nothing during their decade of government. We on this side of the House recognise the enormity of the situation and that an ambitious plan is required to address many of the underlying issues. That is why the Albanese Labor government has committed an unprecedented $45 billion to build more homes, to make homeownership more affordable and to ensure that renting is accessible, secure and fair.

The Albanese Labor government's plan sets an ambitious national target of 1.2 million new homes. As Minister O'Neill says, yes, it is ambitious because it needs to be. This will involve lessening the burden of bureaucracy and red tape, ensuring there is infrastructure to service those new homes and to train more tradies who are at the heart of the process of the build. The coalition, on the other hand, did not set a single housing target during their 10 long years in government—not even a whisper of a target. They didn't even have a housing minister for six of those years. They cared so little. And now they try to tell Australians that this has only been an issue for four years. Talk about being out of touch!

The Albanese Labor government, not yet five years in, has already seen more than 570,000 new homes built nationwide. We're working with states and territories to ensure that planning reforms will have tangible benefits for communities. We're modernising methods of construction to ensure efficiency and reliability. We've seen the number of new home sales increase by 11.6 per cent in the last year alone. We've seen construction costs, which under the coalition had reached a 50-year high of 17 per cent, brought down by 1.8 per cent. It is an ambitious plan that's delivering ambitious results because these are big and complex issues that will require long-term commitment.

That is why the Albanese Labor government has also committed to, and is on track to, delivering 55,000 new social and affordable homes. If ever proof was needed that the coalition dawdled away a decade in government, they delivered just 373 social and affordable homes nationwide. With the Housing Australia Future Fund's first round of funding announced in September 2024, the government has already completed 6,000 new homes under that scheme, with 24,000 in planning and under construction—again, no surprises in terms of the coalition's determination to do all they can to do nothing. That's 6,000 new social and affordable homes built despite the coalition's dogged attempts to delay the housing fund. In fact, the coalition made it a centrepiece of their election commitments last year to cut the Housing Australia Future Fund—a trend they continue to this day, with their attempts to get rid of build-to-rent laws, Help to Buy and five per cent deposits, with no viable option to address the issue. All of these have been crucial in helping Australians to get into their own home; indeed, 230,000 Australians have already taken up the five per cent deposit. The shadow minister for housing—they now have one—has dismissed this scheme as a 'gimmick', which tells you all you need to know about attitude of those opposite towards broader homeownership. But by shaving years off the time you would normally take to save for a deposit, the Albanese Labor government is giving every first homebuyer the opportunity to buy a house now, with a small deposit and a smaller mortgage.

The concept of homeownership has often been described as a dream and it is the Australian dream. But we need to be using more concrete terms than 'dream'. Homeownership should be available to all Australians. Renting should be accessible, secure and fair because every Australian deserves a place where they can build their life, a place to raise a family and watch them grow, a place that provides warmth and security where memories can be made and celebrated—a place to call home.

Kate Chaney (Curtin, Independent) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I share the member for Fadden's concern that expanding the five per cent deposit scheme has added pressure to an already overheated market, increasing competition and exposing first homebuyers, particularly young Australians, to larger mortgages. While the Housing Australia Future Fund is well intentioned, it's moving too slowly to deliver the social and affordable rental homes Australians urgently need. Two years in, the $10 billion fund has delivered fewer than 900 completed homes, roughly two per cent of its 40,000 home goal; although there is much activity still in the pipeline.

On tax settings, I agree changes to capital gains tax and negative gearing won't on their own build extra dwellings, but they can help level the playing field so first homebuyers are not consistently outbid by tax-advantaged investors, and I continue to urge the government to reform these property taxes for the benefit of younger Australians. We should be honest that Australia's housing crisis was allowed to develop across successive governments, as both sides of politics realised that they were popular when house prices went up, at least with the two-thirds of households that were owned. For the other third, owning a house became increasingly out of reach. Houses have increasingly become vehicles to passively store and grow wealth rather than places to live. If we're serious about fixing this, we need clarity about what each lever can and cannot do and, importantly, what else can be done.

In this House a fortnight ago, I set out four practical ideas from my community to help ease the housing crunch, and today I'm adding another four drawn from the Curtin housing policy I developed with residents and housing experts. None is a single fix, but together they are achievable, fair and evidence based. They require governments to work together rather than passing the buck. As context, in Curtin we have about 7,000 vacant homes and about 29,000 homes with two or more spare bedrooms, while essential workers and young families are priced out of the communities they serve. People want practical actions that activate the homes we already have while unlocking capacity to build more. With that in mind, here are four more steps the government should take now.

First, labour shortages are the handbrake on housing delivery. You can rezone and approve forever, but, without more workers, completions won't rise. We should prioritise construction trades in migration, fast track skills recognition and align training places with real project pipelines through a time-limited construction workforce compact tied to housing output. This is targeted capacity building, not open-ended migration, and should wind up as supply catches up.

Second, in tight labour markets, government infrastructure projects can unintentionally outbid housing projects for the same carpenters and sparkies and concreters. For the next 18 to 24 months, residential construction should take priority over lower value infrastructure projects. Resequencing marginal infrastructure is basic capacity management. It reduces cost pressures, frees up workers for housing and gets more homes finished sooner.

Third, stamp duty locks people into homes that no longer suit them. It penalises downsizers, discourages mobility and strands spare bedrooms. The Curtin housing policy supports a gradual transition to a broad based land tax, with federal support to help states manage that shift.

Do it slowly and transparently, but start it now. Every year we delay, more households remain mismatched to their homes while affordability worsens.

Finally, the fastest, lowest-carbon housing supply is the supply we already have. A modest vacant-home levy or higher rates for long-term vacancies could encourage more homes back into use. We should also make it easier and safer to rent out spare bedrooms by simplifying tax settings and providing a standard, fair agreement. Even modest uptake in Curtin could add capacity quickly for a student, a midwife on night shift or an apprentice needing somewhere close to work.

These four measures share three things in common. They use existing levers, they respect local communities and they sequence changes sensibly. These build on the measures I've already discussed in the House, reforming property taxes, building more social and affordable housing, allowing more medium-density supply and strengthening renter protections. The point is that we need to pull all these levers at once. These are practical steps that can help the nurse at Sir Charles Gairdner Hospital, the apprentice in Innaloo, the downsizer in Subiaco and the young family in Doubleview stay connected to the communities that they love. I urge the government to meet this moment with courage so more Australians can get into housing they can afford.

Debate adjourned.