JULIE COLLINS:
It’s terrific to be here in Brighton East today. I really want to thank both Matthew and Mick – the builders here – but importantly, Kevin and Danielle for having us onsite with Housing First today. What we are seeing today is around 150 new social homes here in Brighton East. It has had an investment of $5 million in concessional loans and grants from Housing Australia, investment from the Victorian State Government and investment from the community housing sector. This is a true partnership, and it’s terrific to be here on site today to see this firsthand. What we want as the Albanese Labor government is more of these, right across the country. We need more homes. We’ve had a shortage of homes for far too long. We need more homes right across the country. We need more homes to rent, more homes to buy and more homes for Australians that need a safe place to stay each night.
That’s what our Homes for Australia plan is all about. We’re talking about $32 billion in new investments from our government since we’ve come to office in initiatives in housing. $32 billion in new housing initiatives for the Homes for Australia plan. This is really significant because what it means, of course, is that we are working with other tiers of government and with the sector – as I’ve said – to reach our national target of 1.2 million homes over 5 years from 1 July. We have a comprehensive plan for Homes for Australia, we have a national target and we’re getting on with building homes like you see here today.
What we saw last night unfortunately from the Leader of the Opposition, of course, was not one new dollar for new homes. What we saw last night was a rehash of the Super for Housing policy from Peter Dutton. What we know about his policy is it doesn’t build one new home. What we know about his policy is it pushes up prices, and even he says that himself, and it also wrecks people’s retirements. So, it pushes up prices, not one new home and wrecks your retirement. That’s Peter Dutton’s plan.
What we’ve got is a real plan. $32 billion in new housing initiatives since we’ve come to office. More Homes for Australia. More homes to rent, more homes to buy and more homes for people that need a safe place each night.
JOURNALIST:
The government has announced plans to cap the number of foreign students. Is that a concession that you didn’t get the immigration policy settings right in the past few years?
COLLINS:
Look, what we have is a plan to build more homes. What we heard from Peter Dutton last night was not one new home being built. Not one new dollar for one new home in Peter Dutton’s plan. We have a plan called Homes for Australia – we have $32 billion in new initiatives to back that up since we came to office, and we’re getting on with building more homes right across the country. What I would say is, when it comes to migration, we’re already cutting migration. We’re on track to halve the net overseas migration next financial year, but what we’re doing is we’re getting on and building more homes because all of the experts tell us that we don’t have enough homes in Australia, we haven’t had enough homes for a long time, and we need to build more homes.
JOURNALIST:
Are large migration numbers part of the problem when it comes to Australia’s housing crisis?
COLLINS:
Well as I’ve said we don’t have enough homes in Australia and we haven’t had enough homes for a long time. When you compare Australia to the OECD, we don’t have enough homes and we haven’t had enough homes for a long time. We need to build more homes, in more places right across the country. More homes for Australians to rent, more homes for Australians to buy, and more homes for Australians that need a safe place to stay each night.
JOURNALIST:
Can you provide figures on how many foreign investors bought homes this financial year?
COLLINS:
At the moment, it is very difficult and foreigners can’t buy homes in Australia unless they get special permission, and the numbers are incredibly low. When you talk about half a million property transactions each and every year, when you talk about what Peter Dutton’s talking about, the number is incredibly, incredibly low. This is not the issue here. The issue here is, we do not have enough homes and we need to build more homes because we haven’t had enough homes for a long time. We’re busy cleaning up the mess that the Liberal party left us when it comes to the housing situation in Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Do you have a specific figure on how many foreign investors have bought homes this financial year?
COLLINS:
Well, the most available data – it’s less than 1,400 for established dwellings. Overall, in the last 2 years, it has been less than 5,000 when you’re talking about a million transactions. The numbers are very low. What we know is, we don’t have enough homes and we haven’t had enough homes for a long time. Not having enough homes is the issue for Australia in terms of housing challenges. We need to get on and build more homes for Australia.
JOURNALIST:
Of that figure, how many of those homes bought were established?
COLLINS:
That’s what I was talking about in terms of the 1,400 figure. So, what we’re talking about though is, we actually have a shortage of homes. When you look at the number of homes per thousand people in Australia, it is lower than the OECD average. We don’t have enough homes and we haven’t had enough homes for a long time.
JOURNALIST:
How are you going to encourage Australians to go from a NIMBY perspective to a YIMBY perspective to encourage those new home growths, especially in the city centres where people want to live?
COLLINS:
Well, we’re here today in Brighton East. We’re talking here about 150 homes for people that need them. We’re talking about social housing. What we need is homes of every type right around the country and we’re working with, importantly, other tiers of government, with the community housing sector and, indeed, with the building and construction sector. Because we all need to be working together. We need to be having conversations in our community about how desperately needed these homes are, and we need to be building them right across the country.