QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities) (14:18): I want to thank the member for Dickson for her question, and I know I speak for all of my Labor colleagues when I say how privileged we are to work with her. The housing debate in the parliament in recent weeks has been focused on the tax changes that passed the lower house earlier.

We've got a broken housing system in this country, and today our Labor government stood up and did something big about this. Our law, for the first time, puts first home buyers on a level playing field. It'll help 75,000 Australians get out of renting and into a home of their own.

Also, don't forget the tax cut for every single one of Australia's 13 million workers. The changes that were in the bill before the parliament this morning are part of a much more huge, ambitious and nation-shaping plan for housing—our Homes for Australia plan. This was a plan that we started in 2022 when our government was elected.

We've built on it each budget and each election, and we're going to continue to do that. Social and affordable housing sits right at the heart of our agenda. For Australians who are escaping family violence, for older women who are at risk of homelessness, for families who are doing it tough, a safe home changes their life.

It changes everything. Our goal is 55,000 homes. We've completed more than 7,000.

We've got 23,000 today in planning or construction. I want to give the parliament a little bit of a flavour of some of the things that have happened on this front just in the last six weeks. The member for Petrie and Senator Mulholland kicked off construction on 36 new homes in Deception Bay.

Twenty-eight new homes started construction in the member for Parramatta's electorate. The member for Hasluck kicked off construction of 56 new homes in her electorate. The member for Canberra kicked off construction of 55 new homes in her electorate.

The member for Swan kicked off construction on 15 new homes in Victoria Park and, just this morning, the member for Bean and I kicked off construction on 140 homes. Opposition members interjecting— The SPEAKER: The minister will pause. The members for Maranoa and Casey continually saying the same thing over and over and over again is highly disorderly and it's annoying.

For the remainder of this answer—and if you say one more thing during this answer, you will have to leave the chamber, because it is not fair on the minister and it's not fair on the rest of the chamber for that behaviour to continue. Everyone, there are consequences for actions. I ask the minister to return to the question.

Ms O'NEIL: I am getting a little bit of backchat, as I often do when I start talking about social and affordable housing. If you've been adding up the numbers as I go there, Speaker, you might have noticed that in the last six weeks alone, our government started construction on more social and affordable homes than the coalition built in a decade. I'm asked about alternatives.

Well, we saw it. It was nine years of neglect. Nine years of sitting on these government benches, seeing Australians in pain on housing, and choosing to do absolutely nothing about it.

We can't forget the Nationals in here. I don't like to leave them out of the debate. I want the parliament to remember that in the entire nine years the coalition were in government, they built not a single social and affordable home across the entirety of regional and rural Australia.

Those opposite occasionally talk about housing. Our Labor government is standing up and building it, and, despite those opposite, we're going to keep working for Australians. (Time expired)