Housing

The SPEAKER (15:22): I've received a letter from the honourable member for Bradfield proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The need for new and creative solutions to address the housing crisis.

I call upon those honourable members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Ms BOELE (Bradfield) (15:22): Shelter is a human right, yet in Australia we have as many homeless people as there are voters in the electorate of Bradfield, more than 122,000, and it's trending in the wrong direction. This government says that it understands what's needed—increase supply, inject more money into social and affordable housing, fix property related tax settings and improve vocational training and skills to ensure that we have the workers to build the homes. Those are good initiatives, but house prices keep rising, supply does not meet demand, dreams of homeownership grow ever more distant for new entrants and homelessness grows.

When it comes to supply, state, territory and local governments need to regulate for a larger proportion of what's built to be affordable, and, through the National Housing Accord, the federal government has not just the power but also the responsibility to make it so. The Commonwealth provides state, territory and local governments with $3.5 billion in payments to support the delivery of new homes towards its 1.2 million new-homes target. The Albanese government needs to flex its muscle in the equation. The Housing Australia Future Fund is a commendable initiative to support social and affordable housing, but it must be bigger. The $500 million it disburses in grants annually in the context of the Australian property market is not going to scratch the surface of this crisis. We need to find new ways to provide affordable shelter for everyone who wants or needs it.

When working with superannuation funds during my time in finance, I learned from a number of creative approaches to financing affordable housing. These examples come from the United States of America, the UK and the Netherlands. I'm also pleased to report that we have a few examples of creative solutions right here in Australia. Assemble, a housing developer and manager, majority owned by two of Australia's largest superannuation funds, HESTA and AustralianSuper, aims to originate, deliver and manage well-designed and appropriate homes for renters and homebuyers nationally, making more housing available where it is needed. Assemble provides investment opportunities which will generate stable, long-term returns by investing in housing at scale. After all, what better investment is there than property in Australia?

So what does it look like? Their novel approach to the purchase pathway is known as 'build to rent to own'. Here, the rent and purchase price of the home is fixed for five years, enabling residents to live in those homes while they're saving to buy them without the housing market racing away from them. There's no obligation to buy, but the purchase price is fixed for five years if they choose to do. Assemble has completed three such projects in Melbourne, with more under construction. The projects receive funding from the Housing Australia Future Fund. They're delivered in partnership with social and community housing providers. They create supply on the doorstep of critical public transport links and near major hospitals and schools.

I want to be clear about one thing. I'm not advocating and will never advocate for people's individual super savings being raided. Our superannuation is world class and it should be used solely for the purpose for which it was created—to ensure that people have a dignified retirement. Rather, I'm suggesting that the $5 trillion in Australia's institutionally managed super funds, funds which are invested on behalf of their members, be available for investment in creative solutions to our complex problems while still making strong risk-adjusted returns for members. Projects like Assemble's build-to-rent-to-buy development are a win-win-win-win. They're a win for institutional super funds, which means a win for their members, a win for those struggling to get into safe and secure housing, a win for communities that desperately need front-line workers—teachers, nurses and paramedics—and a win more broadly for a society struggling to ease demand on a choked-up housing system.

So why doesn't it happen more often? Why isn't this the default style of funding for people on smallish wages in all parts of our country? These are the kinds of innovative and creative solutions that we desperately need to address our housing crisis. I will be exploring and advocating for these types of solutions and others during my time in this place. There are so many ways that we can fix this problem if we have the energy and the courage for new avenues.

Ms CHANEY (Curtin) (15:38): It has taken 25 years of short-sighted policy from both major parties to create our current housing crisis. Housing is now half as affordable as it was when compared to wages. Young people despair at ever being able to afford a house. Renters can't save enough to break into the market, and the gap between those who own a home and those who can't get a foot in the door keeps widening. In my electorate, like the rest of Australia, access to housing is one of the top concerns I hear. People I speak to in Curtin want to see politicians working together across all levels of government so that all Australians have somewhere appropriate to live and can aspire to homeownership like generations before them.

During my first term my community did some work on housing. There were 180 Curtin constituents who attended our two housing forums. Hundreds more contributed to our electorate-wide housing survey, and the resulting solutions are articulated in our Curtin housing report. What I found from this process is that my community is willing to work through difficult discussions and is open to change. We know there is no single solution, no silver bullet. We need all the options on the table, and we need to be willing to pull every lever. One topic that's been avoided because it's seen as being politically unpalatable is reviewing capital gains tax and negative gearing—the generous tax concessions that are given to investors that potentially distort and fuel the housing market and put young people on the back foot. But, in our Curtin housing survey, three-quarters of respondents said these concessions need to be reformed. Negative gearing has been described by the Grattan Institute as a 'tax shelter on wages', as investors can deduct losses from wages—and do so immediately—rather than just deducting from other investment incomes. The result is that reducing taxes on wages by investing in property is a primary goal for many investors. This tax treatment is more generous than most comparable countries that impose limits on deductibility against wages and salaries.

It's the combination of these tax concessions for capital gains and negative gearing write-offs that provides many investors with a sizable tax advantage. These concessions come at a significant cost to the budget and distort the housing market by reducing homeownership and creating advantages for investors over homebuyers. As part of the government's commitment to making housing more affordable, we need to explore how we might reform CGT and negative gearing for housing. We need to create a more level playing field.

There are many options for reform that are not necessarily political suicide. On capital gains tax, we could reduce the rate of the capital gains tax concession. We could apply the concessions only to new builds, or just apartments. We could limit the CGT concession to one property. On negative gearing: we could remove negative gearing from second, or third, or fourth investment properties. We could make it so that rental property losses can only be offset against rental income, not against wages, salaries or other non-investment income. For both, we could grandfather these concessions or reduce them gradually over time.

In each of these options, there's a sliding scale in timing, percentage and application. Any reform in this area will boost budget revenue and this money could go to assist other parts of the housing puzzle, especially housing supply issues. Instead of being spent on tax concessions that are not addressing the housing problem, these funds could be spent on attracting more workers to the housing and construction sector or boosting investment in social and affordable housing.

As well as public appetite, reform in this area has a huge amount of expert support, including at the tax reform forum convened by my colleague the member for Wentworth last week. To be clear, this is not a silver bullet. Modelling by Deloitte Australia and the Grattan Institute show that it could reduce house prices by two to five per cent in the long run and increase rents by 0.5 per cent in the short run. It could shift between 2.5 per cent and 4.7 per cent of Australians from renting to owning. That may not sound like a huge shift, but it's a life-changing shift if you live in one of Curtin's 20,000 rental households, many of whom would love to buy, but can't get into the market.

For those renters, it's deeply disheartening to go to another auction and watch what you had hoped would be your home being bought by an investor looking for a return. We owe it to future generations of aspiring homeowners to take a level-headed, open-minded approach to reform in this area. I urge the government to consider a range of reform options for capital gains tax concessions and negative gearing as part of the work that will come out of the economic reform roundtable.

Ms BRISKEY (Maribyrnong) (15:43): I'm really pleased to have the opportunity to rise in support of the direction our government is taking to tackle this housing crisis. The opportunity to lay down roots and have a place to call home is so incredibly important to me, the community I represent and to this government. After nearly a decade of neglect under the former coalition government, where housing affordability worsened, social housing stock declined and renters were forgotten, Labor is delivering the most significant investment in housing in a generation. I'm so incredibly proud to be a member of this government and to be able to contribute to this incredible investment. After those years of neglect, Labor came into this place and got to work. We created the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund and developed 30,000 new social and affordable homes—housing for people experiencing homelessness, women and children escaping violence, frontline workers and older Australians at risk of housing stress.

This is despite the fact that we had the coalition and the Greens teaming up to block the Housing Australia Future Fund, but we got on with it. We pursued it, and I do appreciate the member for Macnamara's colloquial term of 'being a team of builders, not blockers'. Across Australia, our government is working hard to improve access to housing right across the board, because this issue is not localised to one area or one section of the population. We are supporting state and local governments to build social and affordable homes, so nurses and teachers can live in the communities they work in and not have to travel hours to support the people they care for. We're helping renters by improving supply through investing in build-to-rent properties and consecutively increasing Commonwealth Rent Assistance. We're helping first-home buyers to get a leg-up and be supported into their first home through our Home Guarantee Scheme, supporting them with five per cent of the deposit. And we're delivering $54 million to manufacture homes more quickly.

During the campaign, in my own electorate of Maribyrnong, I was joined by the powerhouse of our housing policy, the Minister for Housing, Clare O'Neil. We visited one of the Housing Australia Future Fund's projects, in Kensington. We saw the real-world impact our strategy is having, and it was exciting to watch the project go from strength to strength, delivering more homes in my area close to where people live and close to transport.

Those who are familiar with my electorate will know we are proud to have social and community homes right across the area, which ensures that people from all backgrounds have access to good schools, infrastructure and community support. And our policies have strengthened that commitment. In Maribyrnong, since we came to power in 2022, our policies have supported 700 locals to purchase their first home, with 280 locals given opportunities to go into new social and community housing and over 5,000 residents receiving increased Commonwealth Rent Assistance. And we are delivering 1,950 new homes through our build-to-rent program.

I also want to take this opportunity to call out the investment in innovation, particularly prefab and modular homes, because Modscape in my electorate, at Essendon Fields, is at the forefront of that innovation, delivering faster construction of needed homes. I got to witness that in action and saw how it was working together—how fast construction is in building social and affordable homes that are being sent up to north Queensland.

Labor is acting where the coalition failed and where the Greens played political games, because we believe that housing is a right, not a privilege. Everyone deserves a roof over their head, a place to call home and a stake in our country's future.

Mr GEE (Calare) (15:47): I commend the member for Bradfield for bringing this matter of public importance to this House today, and I congratulate her on her election to our parliament. It's no surprise to anyone that Australia is in the grip of a housing crisis. Every day Australians are suffering from housing stress, be it through mortgage repayments, rental affordability, or risk or experience of homelessness. While successive governments have introduced initiatives to try to ease this crisis, it's clear that much more work and many more initiatives are needed, especially when it comes to providing housing to our most vulnerable.

The housing crisis in regional New South Wales, including across our electorate of Calare, is worsening and demands urgent solutions. The chief executive officer of community housing provider Housing Plus is Justin Cantelo. On behalf of the Western New South Wales District for Housing and Homelessness group, he contacted me recently to outline the extent of the crisis. He points out that 38 per cent of the state's population is now living in regional New South Wales and that internal migration to the regions is continuing to rise. Rents in regional New South Wales have increased by 70 per cent over the past decade, far outpacing Sydney's 48.5 per cent rise, while rental vacancy rates have fallen to just 1.2 per cent. Rental stress now affects over 38 per cent of households in the regions, which is above the state average. Mr Cantelo also points out that social housing waitlists continue to grow, with nearly 26,000 vulnerable households across regional New South Wales seeking secure housing. Rates of homelessness, particularly amongst Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, are significantly higher in regional areas, with western New South Wales recording the highest rates in the state.

Across our electorate, locations such as Orange, Bathurst, Lithgow and the midwestern area report youth homelessness rates above the state average. The central west also continues to experience elevated rates of domestic violence related assaults, further compounding the crisis. The Homes New South Wales 2024 Street Count revealed a 25.5 per cent increase from the previous year in the number of people sleeping rough across New South Wales, with regional areas experiencing the most significant surge. The social housing waitlist continues to grow in regional New South Wales, with 25,897 vulnerable households of the total 65,758, or 39 per cent, across New South Wales seeking housing.

Despite these clear indicators, the Western New South Wales District for Housing and Homelessness group states that regional NSW has been overlooked in critical national housing funding. In the first funding round of the Housing Australia Future Fund, only eight per cent of homes for New South Wales—that's 257 out of 3,265—were allocated to regional New South Wales. In the second round, just one regional project was included. To be clear, the Housing Australia Future Fund is currently failing country New South Wales. While the recent update to the Housing Australia investment mandate includes language on equitable funding, it still lacks clarity and enforceable regional targets. It's sad to say it, but, on its track record so far, the Housing Australia Future Fund is in danger of being renamed and known as the 'Housing Australia Future Fund for City People'.

Without a dedicated and measurable commitment to regional, rural and remote communities, areas like Calare will continue to miss out, and the crisis will worsen. If we're serious about tackling the housing crisis, we must look to innovation and industry for real and effective solutions. Regional Australia, including Calare, is leading the way. In March this year, I had the privilege of attending the opening of the newly transformed Lithgow TAFE building. It had been left dormant for years but was transformed to 17 specialist disability accommodation apartments to provide affordable and appropriate housing to those most in need. The results have been impressive and stunning. Another example of an enterprise that offers solutions to ease the crisis is Green Timber Technology in Orange. It is a new prefabricated housing venture that will utilise local timber, advanced robotics and off-site construction methods to deliver architecturally designed affordable homes at scale, with the capacity to produce one every four hours, once fully operational. It's an example of regional Australia leading the way.

I once again commend the member for Bradfield for bringing this important issue to the House this afternoon.

Ms AMBIHAIPAHAR (Barton) (15:52): I also want to thank the member for Bradfield for her contribution today. I rise to speak with purpose on an issue that is personally important to me and, I believe, is very urgent and deeply felt in the electorate of Barton and far beyond, and that is the housing crisis.

For me, this isn't just a policy; it's quite personal. Before coming here, I worked at St Vincent De Paul Society New South Wales. I worked with a large team, and I looked after a large geographical area of New South Wales, which covers the electorate of the member for Bradfield as well. We saw a lot of the issues of the housing crisis in the eyes of a lot of women, in particular, who were looking for a safe place to be and to put their head down to sleep. I was seeing faces of, particularly, pensioners who were having to skip meals to keep a roof over their head and sitting with families facing eviction, women fleeing violence and people forced to sleep in their cars. That is something I also saw in my role as a councillor at Georges River Council. People, particularly women, are sleeping in their cars in my own electorate, which is a big issue.

When you do that work and when you are seeing those people and hearing their stories, you learn something very quickly. Housing insecurity doesn't just take away shelter; it strips away dignity. It chips away at health, particularly mental health, and it erodes hope. That's why I'm very proud to be part of a government that is not just acknowledging this crisis but also confronting it.

Under the Albanese Labor government, we are delivering the largest investment in social and affordable housing in more than a decade, and we're doing it shoulder-to-shoulder with state, territory and local governments because solving this crisis requires all hands on deck. I particularly want to acknowledge the Minister for Housing, Homelessness and Cities for her tireless leadership and for also visiting Arncliffe, in my electorate, to see first hand one of our major housing projects. That development is not just about the building itself; it's also about creating a community and a sense of belonging. It's also about showing what's possible when every level of government works together with one shared belief that housing is not a privilege; it is absolutely a right.

We are delivering in Barton. Over 800 locals have been supported into homeownership through Labor's expanded Home Guarantee Scheme, because a five per cent deposit should not be a barrier to owning a home. Over 200 construction workers are being trained locally because building homes also builds opportunities. Nearly 400 new social and affordable homes are underway in Arncliffe thanks to the Housing Australia Future Fund. An additional 17 social homes have been delivered in Bayside and Georges River, two LGAs in my electorate, through the Social Housing Accelerator, and more than 7,000 Barton residents are benefitting from the back-to-back increases in Commonwealth rental assistance.

Labor's response is bold and comprehensive, and it is absolutely grounded in value. We're tackling the crisis with a $43 billion plan to make it easier to buy and better to rent and build more homes. In the ambit of building, we're starting the largest housing build in Australian history: 1.2 million new homes across the country; 55,000 social and affordable rentals; 100,000 homes reserved for first home buyers, not property investors; and 28,000 social and affordable homes in planning and construction. We've also committed $54 million to accelerate housing supply through innovative construction methods like prefabricated and modular homes because it shouldn't take longer to approve a home than to build it. We're streamlining processes, we're strengthening supply chains and we're creating local jobs while we do it.

In Barton, the pressure is relentless. The cost of living is an absolute issue. Rents are climbing, and our social housing waitlists are growing. That's why the work we are doing right now, like the development project in Arncliffe with the New South Wales Labor government, is not just helpful but essential. Housing is not an economic issue at all; it's absolutely a human one.

Dr HAINES (Indi) (15:56): I thank the member for Bradfield for this excellent MPI and for the way we're engaging in this House on an issue that matters to every Australian, because housing remains unaffordable for most Australians. During the election, housing stress was a constant theme in towns across my electorate of Indi. House prices are higher than ever, and rents have grown by more than 10 per cent in the past year. Too many people tell me it's a fool's errand to find an affordable home or a secure rental in regional Victoria, and they're right.

This government has made big promises on housing, and, as the Independent member for Indi, I'll be holding the government accountable on these promises. I hope to continue working with them in good faith and a collaborative spirit to ensure housing investment benefits regional areas such as those in my electorate. I note the words from the member for Calare, who shares these concerns and this aspiration. This is because without a strong regional lens the government's housing plans will fail to benefit our growing regions.

When the bills establishing the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund and the Housing Supply and Affordability Council were passed in the previous parliament, I was proud to secure amendments ensuring that regional views were front and centre. But I was disappointed that the government failed to back me in my amendments that would have guaranteed a clear line of sight on funding. This concern is something, again, I know I share with the member for Calare. The regions represent 30 per cent of the population, so we should receive at least 30 per cent of housing funding, and I will continue to prosecute the case for this.

In addition to a fair share of overall funding, we also need to ensure that Commonwealth investment is going to the critical enabling infrastructure that unlocks new homes—the pipes, the pavements, the poles, the wires. It's one of the top issues raised by local governments and developers in my electorate. That's why I welcomed the government's adoption of my idea for a regional housing infrastructure fund that would do just that. That was rebranded by the government as the Housing Support Program. However, it's unclear whether the government intends to commit more funds to this program, which at present is $500 million, and, frankly, it's too small to make a significant difference. So I continue to call for the government to go further and commit $2 billion, which, according to the Parliamentary Budget Office, would unlock tens of thousands of much-needed homes in our regional towns and cities.

Like the member for Bradfield, I also recognise there are other creative and innovative solutions we must explore. With the housing crisis not seemingly getting any better, we must put all ideas on the table. We must investigate how to get more builders and tradies to build more homes, and we must work with the states and territories to create opportunities for homes that go beyond the straight-up, traditional quarter-acre block. For example, the New South Wales government recently released its NSW Housing Pattern Book. From only $1, aspiring home builders can access architectural designs for terraces and townhouses. The New South Wales government is also introducing a new 10-day approval process. This fast-track pathway will facilitate approval and the start of construction within weeks of an application being made, processes which, as we know, can often take years. These ideas demonstrate an innovative approach to getting more of the medium-density housing our cities and regional centres require. I'll be watching progress on this closely and hoping that we can replicate some of these ideas if they work.

Prefab and modular homes have, for too long, been looked down on as a cheap and second-rate form of housing, but, today, they're an affordable option for sustainable energy-efficient, quality and beautiful housing. I recognise that the government are working in this space and have committed $50 million to modernising the modular housing industry. I look forward to understanding the outcome of this work and how it will improve access to affordable, modular and prefab housing in places across my electorate of Indi.

Solving the housing crisis will take commitment by all levels of government—not over one year or one election cycle but over many years and many election cycles. This government has made a good start through its investment in new social and affordable housing, critical enabling infrastructure and planning reform at the state and local level. But we need to resolutely keep going, and Australians expect results in the next three years. I'll be expecting results in the next three years too.

Ms WITTY (Melbourne) (16:01): Thank you to the member for Bradfield for bringing up this topic. Today I rise to speak for the thousands of people across Melbourne who are living through this country's housing crisis. Labor is delivering creative solutions to the crisis.

Housing is the foundation of a good life. It's where we build our families, our future and our sense of safety. But, right now, that foundation is cracking badly for too many people. Whether it's a young couple trying to buy their first home, a single parent absorbing yet another rent hike or an older Australian wondering how long they can hold on, this crisis is real and urgent.

Melbourne is a city of renters, of students, of workers, of migrants and of families just trying to get ahead. Housing is not just an economic issue. It's also a social issue, a human rights issue and a generational issue. In my first months as the member for Melbourne, I've heard the stories directly of people saving for years only to be locked out of the community they grew up in; of older renters skipping meals or medicines to pay the rent; and of families with two incomes, often working in essential jobs, turning to housing services for help for the very first time. These are the stories I carry with me into this place, and I will not stop speaking up until everyone in Melbourne has access to a safe, secure and affordable home. That's why I am proud to be part of a Labor government that is not tinkering at the edges but rebuilding the foundation.

At the heart of our housing agenda is a simple truth: the best way to solve a housing crisis is to build more housing. We are delivering the most ambitious national housing agenda in generations, with 1.2 million new well-located homes by the end of the decade and a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund delivering 30,000 new social and affordable houses in the first five years. Of these homes, 4,000 will go to women and children fleeing domestic violence, which is the No. 1 reason for women to become homeless, and older women at the risk of homelessness, the fastest growing cohort of homelessness.

In Melbourne, the work is already underway. Through Labor's expanded Home Guarantee Scheme, we've helped more than 700 local residents buy their first home with just a five per cent deposit. More than 200 local trades apprentices are now in training, backed by increased incentive payments. We have boosted Commonwealth rent assistance twice, and that support now goes to more than 8,000 people across Melbourne. We are working with the state government through the social housing accelerator, delivering hundreds of new social homes right here in Melbourne, and we're doing it smart, through Labor's build-to-rent program, which those opposite are trying to demolish. We're building over 11,000 new homes in Melbourne, with long-term leases and fairer rents. This is what it means to govern with Labor values. We don't just leave it to the market. We show up, we invest and we plan—not just for the headlines but for the next generation.

And, yes, we are backing renters too. We are funding stronger rental laws to end unfair evictions and give renters real bargaining power. We are delivering cost-of-living relief, cheaper medicines, energy bill help and record Medicare investments because, when rent goes up, every little bit counts.

Housing is not a luxury; it's a human right. In Melbourne we are fighting for a future where no-one is priced out of their own community, where our kids don't have to move hours away just to find a home and where our nurses, our teachers and our aged-care workers can live near the people they care for. That's the future I am fighting for.

That's why before coming into this place I was working with an organisation called Homes for Homes, where I helped to raise a pipeline of $110 million to help end homelessness. I worked with organisations like Assemble, build-to-rent-to-buy schemes, and made sure that people, through the sale of their home, can help to raise money to end homelessness. So let's keep building; let's keep backing people in.

Mr KATTER (Kennedy) (16:06): I had the great honour of being the state minister for community services, and that gave me the community areas in Queensland, the First Australians areas—my brother-cousins out there—and we had about $25 million a year for housing. I'd like to put on the record the names of the people that I put in to run the department. Eric Law and the late Lester Rosendale, a cousin of Noel Pearson's, were put in charge of the department. In their wisdom they decided that all houses would be built exclusively by blackfella labour—no outsider whitefellas at all. I thought that they'd gone a bit far and I wasn't particularly happy about the decision, particularly since I wasn't consulted about it, but it turned out to be a roaring success.

The labour costs were cut almost in half because they were getting the dole money, and we topped it up to award wages. We had enough money to build about 200 houses, and we ended up building 900 houses. They were concrete-block constructions. Donnie Fraser at Doomadgee decided that we should have our own block-making machines, so two factories were set up. They cost us $100,000 each. We produced our own concrete blocks, and they had to meet besser specifications—so blocks exactly the same as besser blocks. That enabled us to build the best part of a thousand houses over a period of about four or five years.

Now (a) there's really no money for Aboriginal housing at all; (b) there's no provision for First Australians to build their own houses; and (c) they can't get any land because they've got to go through a process run by whitefellas in Brisbane, and we all know what that means when you're trying to get hold of some land. I could go on.

But let me say this. A cavity-block-construction home is so simple. You just stack the blocks and you pour concrete down the cavity. Anyone can do that. You can buy a window frame that goes from the ceiling to the floor off the prison in Mareeba; they make them for about $300 a panel, which is very, very cheap. There you go. There's your wall; there are your windows. If you have curved, galvanised iron—ripple iron, as we had in the old days—so long as your house is not more than seven or maybe eight metres wide, you don't need any timber underneath—no supports. It is tremendously strong, and I'm talking about heavy galvanised iron which is used in culverts. The cost of building a house should be negligible.

Let me take my own home town of Charters Towers as an example. My wife and I bought 20 acres, and we couldn't afford to complete our little Logan unit, which cost $23,000—in terms of today's money, it was about 60 grand—so she had to go down and subdivide. It took her 25 minutes to fill out a form. She had to give the clerk of the mining warden's court 25 bucks, and she said, 'When can I sell it?' The clerk said, 'Right now; go up to the real estate agent.' So she went down to the real estate agent, and two days later we sold the block and were able to complete our house. That process now takes two years and costs $75,000. How can you possibly countenance this level of incompetence? The only reason that we haven't got houses in Australia is that no-one can get around to doing these subdivisions and get through the barbed-wire entanglements of red tape that lie there. I think everyone in this House knows that, but you don't do anything about it. What we are proposing is abolishing— (Time expired)

Ms JARRETT (Brisbane) (16:11): I rise to speak to this motion because housing is a human right and we do need to work collectively to address the challenges we face in this area. I thank the member for Bradfield for her contribution. Everyone should have a safe place they call home. When I was a child my family provided just that to a number of foster siblings, so I saw very early on how this can change someone's life forever. As the minister said earlier today, the challenges we face in housing have been a long time in the making and they are complex. This Labor government recognises that. This is why we have made the single biggest investment in housing since World War II.

Our $43 billion plan sees investment across homelessness, social housing, homeownership support for low- and middle-income earners and additional rent assistance. Homelessness is growing across the country, and data shows that middle-aged women are the fastest-growing cohort. In recognition of the need to address this challenge, the Prime Minister appointed the member for Macnamara as the Special Envoy for Social Housing and Homelessness. Labor is also working to deliver 55,000 social and affordable homes. We're investing $1 billion into crisis and transitional housing through the NHIF and $275 million through safe places, emergency accommodation, and crisis and transitional accommodation—that's a mouthful—programs for women and children escaping domestic violence.

Labor is providing $93 billion to the states and territories through the National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness, and this includes $400 million per year in dedicated homelessness funding that states must match. This is all about providing vulnerable people with a safe home—people like Karen, a Brisbane local in her 60s who I met during the campaign. After fleeing domestic violence for seven years she finally got her own home. She can decorate it as hers, she can leave the dishes to tomorrow if she wants to and she can use the washing machine without checking first. She can live her life her way.

I am also very proud of what this government is doing to help realise the Australian dream of owning a home. We are investing $10 billion to build up to 100,000 homes reserved only for first home buyers, with no competition from property investors. This funding will support enabling infrastructure, land purchases and construction to get these homes built near work and family, and only for first home buyers. From 2026, we will further expand the Home Guarantee Scheme—the five per cent deposit scheme—so that will be open to every Australian looking to buy their own home. Already, over 1,500 in our local Brisbane community have a home under this program. Lastly, Labor's Help to Buy equity scheme, which opens up further later this year, means the Commonwealth government will pitch in up to 40 per cent of the upfront cost of your home, which means a smaller mortgage for first home buyers.

Labor's housing investments are making a real difference to people across the country and the people of my electorate. About 9,000 Brisbane locals receive Commonwealth Rent Assistance, 80 homes are currently being delivered under the Housing Australia financing programs, and almost 3,000 dwellings have been built under the build-to-rent program, which the opposition are trying to demolish. We can't forget that those opposite sat on their hands for almost 10 years without even a housing minister for most of that time. It's always left to Labor to come in and clean up their messes.

Disappointingly, in the last parliament, we also saw the blocking of the Housing Australia Future Fund, and, frustratingly, there have also been local protests against sensible development. This can't continue. We have to be better than this. Whether it's a woman fleeing a situation of domestic or family violence, a veteran looking for their own place, a young family looking to get into the market or a frontline worker priced out of the community, getting a home will change their life. Having a safe home gives people long-term security and stability and a sense of belonging. Their own home will enable them to set down their roots and create long-lasting memories. Labor is working to deliver more homes of every type because more homes mean more affordable housing. That's why I'm proud to be standing here. I'm proud to be Labor; this is what Labor governments do.