QUESTIONS WITHOUT NOTICE

Ms O'NEIL (Hotham—Minister for Housing, Minister for Homelessness and Minister for Cities) (15:06): I want to thank the fabulous member for Macarthur for this question. He's one of the most respected people in this chamber, and I really thank him for his advocacy on housing in particular. I've talked to parliament before about the massive scale of our national housing challenge and our government's huge effort of $47 billion of investment to tackle it.

Now, since we met as a parliament three weeks ago, we have had another 413 social and affordable homes either completed or reach a major construction milestone. Just in that three weeks, in North Coogee, we had 38 new social homes opened by my friend the member for Fremantle. I took a visit to Geelong, where the Deputy Prime Minister and I opened 77 new homes that have been tenanted from this week.

In Marshall, the member for Corangamite and I visited 13 newly completed homes specifically built for women and children who are fleeing family violence. In North Parramatta, there were 66 social and affordable homes opened by the member for Parramatta. In La Trobe, six new social homes were opened by the member for Braddon.

In Noarlunga Downs, 48 homes were opened by the Minister for Workplace Relations. In Newtown, three new social homes were opened. In Carseldine, another 150 social and affordable homes reached topping-out stage, and the member for Petrie, of course, was there celebrating this incredible milestone for her community.

I really want to draw the critical contrast, as I was asked to do by the honourable member. I've talked about reaching completion or topping out of 413 homes. That happened in three weeks, and I want to contrast that with the 373 homes that were built in nine years by those opposite.

Now we've delivered 7,000 social and affordable homes since we came to government. We've got 22,000 homes that are today in planning or construction. We know there is a stack more work to do on housing, but these efforts where our federal government is actually rolling up its sleeves and building homes are part of a broader national effort.

I want the parliament to know that the latest ABS data showed that we have almost 250,000 dwellings in construction right now around our country. For the parliament to really understand, the number of homes under construction right now in Australia is the highest that it has ever been in Australia's history. We know that the government building homes is an integral part of this problem.

We are loving seeing the private sector market start to really get that engine pumping. This is what delivery looks like, brick by brick, home by home, in every single corner of our country.