Tyron Whitten (WA, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

Australia's housing crisis is not just a policy failure; it's a national disgrace. We're witnessing the slow, systemic destruction of our great Australian dream. Young Australians—our future nurses, teachers, tradies and parents—are being priced out of their own country. They finish school or university, try to build a life and find that homeownership is now a luxury for the few, not a future for the many. The average home now costs over a million dollars. That's not normal; that's obscene.

What does the government do? They pour fuel on the fire. Labor's response is not to ease pressure but to turbocharge demand through mass immigration. Over half a million people were added in a single year—the highest intake in Australian history. Then they act shocked when 92 people show up for a rental inspection in Perth. That's not a queue; that's a desperate scramble for shelter. It's not a market; it's a war zone. And this government dares to call itself compassionate.

Let's talk about Labor's so-called solution of 1.2 million homes in five years. That sounds impressive until you look at the results. At Senate estimates earlier this year, we discovered that their flagship Housing Australia Future Fund—the HAFF—has produced just 17 homes in two years. That's not a housing strategy; it's a scandal. What's worse is that they proudly talk about acquiring a few hundred homes—buying properties already on the market. That doesn't add supply; it reduces it. It puts the government in direct competition with everyday Australians—with first home buyers, with single parents and with young couples already priced out. This is not a policy. This is economic vandalism dressed up as PR.

Worse still is that Labor's approach is draining skilled workers out of the private sector into bloated, inefficient government contracts. Why? It's to meet political deadlines and to fuel press releases. Tradies are being hoovered up by the state not to build homes for Australians but to tick a box for another media stunt. Plumbers, sparkies and tilers are in short supply. The industry is already stretched to breaking point, and now they want to double housing construction—with what workforce, with what skilled labour?

That brings us to Labor's mass immigration intake. Millions have arrived under this government, but how many are qualified tradies? Where are the carpenters, concreters, electricians, roofers, tilers, plasterers and landscapers—the people we need to build homes? Labor can't tell us because they don't know, and, frankly, they don't care. Most new arrivals come from countries with lower building standards and would need full retraining just to meet Australian codes. Even those with experience often can't contribute without upskilling. We need a doubling of skilled trades, and Labor has delivered a flood of unskilled labour that will build nothing. This is not immigration policy; this is market sabotage.

I ask the question that every Australian is asking: where is the money going? We were promised transparency; we got silence. We were promised homes; we got headlines. We were promised action; we got 17 houses. The Housing Australia Future Fund isn't just a failure; it's a con, smoke and mirrors designed to fool the public into thinking something is being done when in reality the government is doing nothing that actually works. Australians are suffering. Rents are soaring, mortgages are crushing families, homeownership is now a fading dream for an entire generation and Labor's response is more migration, more spin and more broken promises.

One Nation stands with the Australians who have had enough, who are sick of being lied to, sick of watching their kids be pushed out of the market and sick of a government that won't face reality. Labor has failed on housing. They've failed on supply, they've failed on skilled migration and they've failed to deliver anything but excuses. One Nation and everyday Australians demand answers not tomorrow and not after another review but now. They demand real answers, real solutions and a government that puts Australians first, not last.