QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Mr ALBANESE (Grayndler—Prime Minister) (14:11): I thank the member for his question. He raises a range of issues relating to housing policy. He raises negative equity, which, according to the latest RBA data, is less than one per cent of all mortgage holders—less than half of what it was under the Liberals between 2017 and 2019.

ABS data shows an unprecedented 8,468 investors signed up to build a new home in the June quarter. This was 454 more than the previous record set in the previous three months. There was also a record $6 billion in loan value borrowed for the builds, more than $1.32 billion above the same time a year ago.

More than 660,000 new homes have been built under this Labor government, and a further 244,000 are now under construction. This is the highest number since records began in 1984. Housing approvals are up, climbing last financial year to their highest level since 2021.

And annual construction cost inflation has fallen from a half-century high under the coalition of 17 per cent to 3.8 per cent under our government. Of course, one of the objectives we were aiming for is to give first home buyers a crack, and there are examples of that in Surrey Hills. The Herald Sun has reported that in Victoria, in the electorate of Menzies, Rosie and Damien Boccamozzo spent months watching homes sell far beyond their budget but refused to back down.

The newlyweds, now on their honeymoon, had spent six years renting before buying their first home in Surrey Hills in Melbourne's east. Here in Canberra, estate agent Lisa Silberberg has sold a transformed three-bedroom house in Theodore, and Silberberg said that there were multiple registered bidders, all of them first home buyers, importantly. In my electorate of Ashfield, Lena and Linly just bought their first home, a two-bedroom flat in Ashfield.

Not one investor bid against them. The couple were successful at the first auction that they bid at, after six weeks of looking at properties and, importantly, with the assistance of the government's five per cent deposit scheme. Our policies are aimed at giving first home buyers a crack and, in particular, giving young people a crack, recognising the intergenerational inequity which was there in the housing market—a housing market that was broken that we are fixing.

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