Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Vice-President of the Executive Council) Share this | Hansard source

HomeBuilder, of course, is a very important program that recognises that the residential construction sector is of critical importance to the Australian economy, which is why a number of state governments, including the state Labor government in my home state of Western Australia, have taken certain measures to support that sector. Pre-COVID, the residential construction sector forecast commencements of 171,000 compared to a forecast of 11,000 post-COVID commencements. HomeBuilder is expected to boost residential construction activity, directly supporting 140,000 tradies and a further up to one million jobs indirectly in the residential construction sector. These are, of course, estimates and, as always with estimates, will monitor the implementation of this very important scheme. HomeBuilder is primarily about the new construction of dwellings, with Treasury expecting around 20,000 new dwellings to be supported by the policy compared to around 7,000 substantial renovations. So far over 22,500 have registered their interest.