Defence Housing Australia Amendment Bill 2025

Senator McALLISTER (New South Wales—Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme) (12:46): Senator Lambie, thanks for your question. Of course, as I indicated in my second reading contribution, the provision of housing for personnel remains critically important, and it's the core function of Defence Housing Australia. We have spoken in other forums about some of the initiatives that are underway to better understand the housing requirements of ADF personnel and to provision for them.

Again, though, I would indicate that the bill before us is actually quite a short bill and that it's also quite narrowly constructed. It has a very limited purpose, which is simply to expand the capacity of DHA to provide housing beyond ADF personnel to a limited number of other categories. So I don't have detailed information of that kind, and I think questions about DHA's planning and Defence's budget are best dealt with in budget estimates or in some of the other forums available to senators.