Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

():  I rise to speak on the Defence Housing Australia Amendment Bill 2025 and, at the outset, declare that the coalition will be supporting this bill. This is important. It's important that it goes through this place and receives royal assent so that we can get on with the job of providing housing for US and British submariners and their families when they arrive. Interestingly, the primary allocation of these homes will be in my home state of Western Australia.

This is an enormous opportunity for Australia. Australia is in desperate need for AUKUS to proceed, for it to occur with great urgency—to happen as quickly as possible, but thoroughly as well. There is going to be a huge opportunity right across Australia, but in particular in my home state of Western Australia. It's the part of the world where I actually live, which is not too far away from Garden Island, HMAS Stirling base, and that whole area around Henderson where the ships are going to be built. It's an important project, an important development in my part of the world, and it's something that we need to see happen.

Unfortunately, though, with this bill there is no allocation of funding, as Senator Shoebridge was saying. That's going to put significant pressure upon the housing market that exists right now. Homes are already scarce in Western Australia. My brother and sister-in-law listed their home for sale only a few days ago, and, literally within two days, the home sold well above their expectations in terms of pricing. It sold very, very quickly. Homes are extremely rare and hard to get a hold of. There is no allocation of resources in this bill for the development of new homes, and that is the central point that I want to make in my contribution here today—that the government is not doing what it needs to do to step up to the plate to provide for the homes and the housing that will go along with this legislation.

Put simply, all that's going to happen—while I very much support the ability for Defence Housing Australia to be able to provide homes to people that are coming in with their families from overseas to be a part of the AUKUS program—unfortunately there are no new homes that are being developed and built. That is going to put enormous pressure upon an already pressured environment.

I was talking to the Salvation Army in that part of the world, down in Rockingham. They have many clients, many people that they're working with, that are simply living in their cars and sleeping rough. I was told of a family that have the ability, the financial means, to be able to spend up to $600 a week on rent, but they cannot find a place to live in that part of the world or indeed further afield, and they're living in their car—a family with children. This is unacceptable. The concern I've got is that this is just going to add to an already pressured housing situation.

What the government needs to do is step up. I also call upon the state government, the Cook government, to do what it needs to do to make sure that there is fast-tracking of land development and that there is fast-tracking of opportunities for developers to be able to develop homes, for subdivisions to be able to take place and for housing to be able to get in there.

We've got skill shortages. There are so many issues that compounding this problem. By simply making it possible for Defence Housing to make these homes available, the problem is—they would be a good tenant if you are a landlord of course. If you have a big line-up of people to get a home, who are you going to give it to? Of course, you would be giving it to an institution like Defence Housing. What does that mean? That means we're not going to have enough homes out there for people in the general market to be able to take up. So the government needs to step up and do more than simply what is in this bill. While this is welcome, more needs to be done to make sure that the defence housing is available for people coming in from the United States and the UK.

The coalition is enthusiastic. We are very committed to AUKUS. We recognise that this is absolutely vital to our national security, it is vital to our future and existence as a nation and it's something that we need to see continue to be supported. We are absolutely enthusiastic about it. Unfortunately, though, I'm not seeing as much of the required rigour and commitment by both the state and the federal governments when it comes to AUKUS. There are serious limitations in relation to the needs that are required within that area. As I've said, I live in that part of the world, and there are infrastructure needs that are necessary to support the huge development that's going on in that part of the world. We estimate that there's over $70 billion worth of investment into the south-west corridor of Perth, including new hospitals that the state government are building. But all of that compounds to create one massive problem: the need for greater investment in infrastructure in the whole south-west corridor of Perth. It's vital.

For example, there is the road in and off Garden Island. The causeway comes from the island and lands on the mainland on almost a goat track, when you consider it. If you go down there, you'll see that it's a poorly designed and poorly maintained road. It hits a bottleneck in the morning. You've got traffic congested up hill and down dale, and it's a significant issue. An easement was established, under the Stephenson scheme, for a major road to be able to go through—called the Garden Island highway. It was land that was designated decades ago, but there's been no investment in making sure that that road is able to go ahead. With the huge increase in traffic that will come with the construction of projects over on Garden Island and, indeed, the workforce that will be coming and going—there'll be single men's quarters on the island, but the majority of people are going to be staying in homes that this bill is designed to support, and they will essentially be on the mainland. Traffic needs to be able to come and go, and there's not the infrastructure that's required to support that. And, again, there's no plan to do it. This will happen in 2027—and 2027 is just around the corner. If you want a home built by 2027 or if you want a road completed by 2027, guess when you need to start? You need to start right now. You can't just turn it on overnight; you need to have the pipeline. We're not seeing the planning, we're not seeing the investment and we're not seeing what is required to fully enable the opportunities.

There are huge gaps when it comes to skills. We've got young people that could take up wonderful lifelong, generational careers. The children of the young people who could take up these skilled jobs would be able to flourish—and for generations to come—but there's no investment in the skills that are required. There's fee-free TAFE, but none of it is designed to make an allocation for the jobs that actually exist within the AUKUS program. This is a great shame, because there are enormous opportunities that could be enlivened through the shipbuilding and the maintenance and all of the opportunities that are coming with AUKUS, yet there's no strategy. An announcement gets made about a whole bunch of funding and an announcement gets made about the partnerships and relationships with the United States and the UK, but then there's nothing that hits the road in terms of investment or planning. This is a significant issue.

I'm not the only one that is saying this. The former US Navy secretary Richard Spencer said this to the Nightly earlier this month:

I'm sure in their hearts there's a plan, but you know what? That should be started yesterday.

He went on to say:

We need to start moving dirt, putting the infrastructure in, because 2027 is going to be here within the blink of an eye and 2030 will follow very quickly.

It's high time that we got serious about AUKUS. It is absolutely vital to Australia's future, security and prosperity. The opportunities that are there for Western Australians in particular and for people in the south-western corridor of Perth are significant and important, and we're not seeing the government do what it needs to do to ensure that that investment is there. We must play our part. We've got to build the houses and the infrastructure required.

Our allies have given us a golden opportunity, and we must seize it. This is a once-in-a-generation opportunity, but we've got to seize it. We've got to put in place the planning, make the decisions, cut through the red tape and drag the councils in. The councils, frankly, are the ones that are in many ways leading the way; we're seeing delays with the state government and delays here with the federal government, not fronting up with the investment that's required. It's not good enough. Our defence capability is at stake and the opportunities that come with it are at stake if we don't act with real determination. This is important for the future of our nation, and it's important, indeed, for Western Australia, so I commend this bill to the Senate.