Gordon Reid (Robertson, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

Recently, I welcomed the Treasurer of Australia, Dr Jim Chalmers, to the Central Coast upon invitation from Business NSW to participate in a business breakfast at the Mingara Recreation Club. The Treasurer was the keynote speaker and discussed several aspects of the 2026 budget, including our reforms to the taxation system in relation to negative gearing and capital gains. These important reforms aim to help level the playing field for first home buyers entering the property market and to increase the supply of housing under construction across the country. Housing remains the absolute focus of the federal Labor government because access to housing is a fundamental need.

On the Central Coast, this concept is well understood by our community. Access to, and the affordability of, housing continues to be raised with me as I meet with constituents across the electorate, and I'm pleased to see significant investments being made by the federal government in this policy area, including the recently announced $2 billion Local Infrastructure Fund, aimed at helping local councils and state owned utilities build essential last-mile infrastructure to unlock and accelerate housing supply.

This is on top of our already established $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, which is supporting the construction of social and affordable housing across the regions of the country in desperate need of more housing supply—which brings me to my electorate on the Central Coast. The Housing Australia Future Fund is helping to deliver 21 new social and affordable housing places in Woy Woy. This exciting project, being delivered in collaboration with a Tier 1 housing provider, Pacific Link Housing, and building company Skope Constructions, will ensure desperately needed housing supply will be available to community members from mid-2027. The Treasurer, along with Assistant Minister Emma McBride and me, inspected the construction site and the progress being made to deliver these new homes, and I'm pleased to report that progress is going well and that the project will be delivered on time and within budget.

The federal Labor government continues to take a multifaceted approach to helping first home buyers enter the property market. As well as all the progress that I have mentioned in this speech, I can also update the parliament that there have now been 1,230 first home buyers in my electorate who have been able to access Labor's five per cent deposit scheme. This is a fantastic result, which our government continues to work and build upon. Whether it's through taxation reform, investments in social and affordable housing or changes to overall federal housing policy, it is really only a federal Labor government—it is this Albanese Labor government—that is taking the issues of housing affordability, housing supply and housing construction more seriously.