PRIVATE MEMBERS' BUSINESS

Mr HOLZBERGER (Forde) (18:52): I rise to support the motion from the member for Adelaide, and, in doing so, I reflect on something which I remember coming across many years ago, which is that, when we think about the Whitlam government, we think about this reforming government and the 'crash through or crash' style of Gough Whitlam. But one of the central election commitments that the Labor Party made in the 1972 election was to put sewerage in Western Sydney—hardly radical; hardly 'crash through or crash'.

Something as practical as putting sewerage into the western suburbs of Sydney opened that community up to decades of prosperity. So it is with the Albanese government's commitment of $2 billion in this budget, building on $6-plus billion to unlock that sort of infrastructure, which is just basic and fundamental to developing our outer suburbs for housing. I think, back in 2024, the Albanese government committed something like $40 million to unlock, effectively, 500 dwellings in Meadowbrook, a suburb that I represent, in Logan, and it was able to reduce the time needed for approvals from 12 months to 12 weeks.

When you see that sort of multiplier impact that a small investment can have across the whole economy, it really does show, I think, the fundamental philosophy of this Albanese government, which is about rejecting 'business as usual'. I think that we have seen, as the housing minister says, that the housing crisis that we have today is something that is 40 years in the making.

It was effectively neglected, particularly over the previous 10 years, where you had something like $130 million going into development of infrastructure under the previous government, which is something like 50 times less than what this government is spending. Something else they neglected was public housing. It's disappointing that the modern day coalition has walked away from something which they did for many years.

This as a bit of a surprise to people sometimes, but in many ways my economic role model is Thomas Playford, who was a Liberal premier for decades in South Australia. I think the best example that you could show for him was that he built the suburb of Elizabeth and public housing around car plants, around Holden, in order to keep the cost of living down, keep rents down and keep the pressure off wages.

That was able to attract manufacturing industries, and one of the reasons why we've lost manufacturing in this country today is that we don't have affordable housing. We see this sort of spiral of wages and rents, and it becomes unaffordable for people to live and it becomes unaffordable for companies to do business. So providing public housing, I've long believed, is probably the most significant productivity measure that a government can take.

That's why I think that is a second thing that the Albanese government needs to be commended for. As this motion says, it's delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes. In fact, in the 10 years of the previous government, they delivered something like 373 public housing dwellings over nine years.

Right now in one suburb in the electorate I represent, Forde, there's 206 public housing dwellings being built as part of those 55,000 social and affordable homes. Finally, I say that the tax system, which has been for over 20 years incentivised to treat housing as an investment and not as a family home, is something that this government is prepared to tackle.

We're not just going to throw our hands up in the air and say, 'I wish we could do something about it, but we're only the government.' The third thing I'd say is that we are tackling that tax system to even it out for first home buyers at the same time that we're also supporting an increase in wages to help people get into their first homes. Accordingly, I commend the motion to the House.