Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today in question time, we were subjected to some self-proclaimed 'laserlike' questioning on our housing work. I don't know about you, but I feel like the laser must have been bought from Temu, because it was pointing in the wrong direction. It was like it was meant to be pointing toward our long list of work that we've done on housing, but instead it was pointing in the direction of a scare campaign. That's how it came across. I'm going to talk to a couple of the things that might be a little bit of evidence about why I think he might have bought that laser from Temu.

On our side, we know that people are working hard, doing everything they can, and they still can't afford a place to call home. It says everything to a generation of Australians who feel left behind on housing that on our side we want you to have a home of your own with the security that that brings. Five per cent deposits help first home buyers get a home of their own sooner, slashing the amount of time required to save for a home. The scare campaign that we've seen today was talking about how this scheme will be opened up to billionaires. I don't know that billionaires would be scraping around, saving a buck on that coffee or that avocado toast to try and scrounge up a housing deposit loan. I don't know many—I don't know any billionaires! I don't know about you, but I don't think they're scrounging together, taking on those extra shifts and getting those extra savings to get a housing deposit. I reckon they're just hitting up the bank of mum and dad to probably buy the place outright.

But this is about helping people get into the housing market. We want to make sure that Australians can get into their own home. For single parents, we will continue the family home guarantee that helps them buy a home with a two per cent deposit, which is pretty great. And the five per cent deposit scheme is being delivered three months early. We're doing it on 1 October.

We on this side know that the housing crisis wasn't created overnight and won't be fixed overnight, but real progress is being made right across the country. In the first term, we took the Commonwealth from being a negligent bystander under the coalition to being the boldest and most ambitious government since the Second World War. But, let's be clear. The job isn't done. It's still too hard to build and too hard to buy in this country.

This announcement is about allowing all first homebuyers to buy their home with just a five per cent deposit, and it is really hard to cop criticism from those opposite, because I think they've given up on the idea of homeownership—or on anything to do with housing, actually. They voted against Help to Buy, they promised to abolish the scheme, they didn't support our 100,000 homes for first homebuyers, and now they're attempting to raise taxes on builders and scrap 80,000 new rentals in the process.

This criticism is coming from people who want to talk about the demand side but have stood in the way of every single supply measure that this government has brought to the chamber. It is Senator Bragg who, later today, has a motion to disallow build-to-rent—a supply measure. I don't know about you, but I feel like building more homes is kind of key to making them more affordable for Australians to buy. I feel like those two things are linked. I'm no economist, but I feel like the maths is 'mathing' for me. We know that the build-to-rent scheme will deliver 80,000 new high-quality homes just for renters, and the biggest challenge we face in this place is those opposite. We see an opportunity to get more people into their first homes; they see an opportunity to run a scare campaign.

That is exactly what Australians voted against at the last election. They see through the games those opposite are trying to play with their futures. They rejected the opposition to everything that we brought to this chamber in the last parliament. They voted for a positive future for the country—for a government and a party that actually have plans to build more homes and to get more Australians into their first homes. We'll continue to deliver for every single Australian. (Time expired)