ADJOURNMENT

Ms COMER (Petrie) (19:44): It has been one year since Australians re-elected the Albanese Labor government for a second term. With such a significant majority, we now cross into the other side of the chamber, and with that majority comes a mandate for reform. We were quite often criticised in the first year of the second term for not delivering big reforms—that we had a mandate for reform.

What did we do in that first year? We delivered on all of our election promises, whether that was cheaper PBS medicines, 20 per cent off HECS, free TAFE, cheaper home batteries, the nation's first Environmental Protection Agency, the $1,000 instant tax write-off or five per cent home deposits. The second year is the juicy part: reform, reform, reform.

We are reforming a broken, unfair housing system. We are making homeownership fairer. House prices have been outpacing incomes, and this has been having a generational impact.

So many of my friends never even dreamt of realising their own home, but with some of these reforms, that's changing a bit, and so I welcome the reforms that I'm going to talk about a bit more. With five per cent deposits, we've now seen more than 1,200 local residents of Petrie buy their first home. Homeownership is more than just owning the roof over your head.

It's about having a place to call your own in the community, a place where you know you can embed yourself and a place where you can put a hole in the wall to hang up a frame. You can repaint the walls or the ceiling, and you can actually put in a garden bed. These are things that a lot of people take for granted.

But, when you're renting and renting and renting, these are things you just can't do. Homeownership is being able to have a place to call your own and having that security. It's vitally important that as a government we do whatever we can to enable more people to realise that.

We're expanding homebuyer support and reforming tax settings. This is so that first home buyers can compete with investors. These changes are making a difference.

We're seeing more first home buyers than investors at auctions. This is incredible. We're seeing news reports of a single mum out there outbidding an investor.

This is incredible, and this is how it should be. We should be seeing more first home buyers than investors at auctions. Since this time last year, auction clearance rates in Brisbane have dropped by 13 per cent, bringing it to 40 per cent.

This is showing that our housing market is finally cooling off. If you read some of the recent news reports, you will see that young potential first home buyers are really warmed by this. They're thinking there's hope that they'll have a chance of buying a home.

At most auctions, the house has already been purchased before the auction actually starts. So they're cooling off, and just that little bit is giving first home buyers that hope of being able to buy a home for themselves. We're also seeing incredible investments through the Housing Australia Future Fund into social and affordable housing.

In Petrie, we have 379 new social and affordable homes popping up left, right and centre, whether they're in Deception Bay, Redcliffe, Margate or Carseldine. I've met with numerous community housing providers in Petrie, and they've spoken to me about how they're so grateful for the Housing Australia Future Fund because it's provided a guarantee of funding so that they can then provide that social and affordable housing.

We're tackling the housing challenge from every angle. We're helping people buy their first home. We're cutting the red tape, because it shouldn't take longer to approve a housing build than it takes to build one.

We're building more homes, we're investing in social and affordable housing and we're increasing supply to ease pressure on the market. We are helping Australians get a foot in their own door. Housing reform won't happen overnight, but Australians voted for change in 2022 and again in 2025.

They gave Labor a strong mandate to make the housing system fairer, and, one year on, I'm proud to say that that is exactly what we're delivering.