Minister Collins Doorstop interview in Canberra
E&OE TRANSCRIPT
SUBJECTS: The Albanese Lavor Government’s $32 billion Homes for Australia plan; the $9.3 billion National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness; Cost of living relief including tax cuts for every Australian taxpayer; Help to Buy shared equity scheme.
ALICIA PAYNE, MEMBER FOR CANBERRA: Good morning. I’m Alicia Payne, the Member for Canberra. It’s my great pleasure this morning to be here with Federal Housing Minister Julie Collins and ACT Housing Minister Yvette Berry, to tour a beautiful new public housing property. We know that we have a housing crisis in Australia, and this is an example of our two governments working together to address that. It’s wonderful to see that this new home has been created for Canberrans to come and live in. It’s energy efficient, it’s beautifully designed, and this is really positive news today. So, I will hand over to the Minister Julie Collins.
JULIE COLLINS, MINISTER FOR HOUSING: Thanks, Alicia. Alicia Payne, of course, is our wonderful Member for Canberra, but it’s terrific to be here with my good friend Yvette Berry, the ACT Housing Minister. We, of course, have reached an agreement with the states and territories for the new housing agreement starting on 1 July. The current agreement was expiring on the 30th of June. We’re talking about $9.3 billion over five years for the states and territories. Here in the ACT, that’s around $157 million. It’s just one part, of course, of our $32 billion Homes for Australia plan. The ACT, of course, has received additional funding through the Social Housing Accelerator program. We, of course, have gone through the Housing Australia Future Fund and Housing Australia, the first tender round, and we look forward to making announcements in the second half of this year. Here in the ACT, the ACT is guaranteed a minimum of 1200 homes from Housing Australia over five years from 1 July. That’ll make a big difference here in the ACT.
As my colleague Alicia Payne, the Member for Canberra has said, it’s terrific to see these social housing properties in person. These are the standard of homes that we want all Australians to have across the country. We’re talking about energy efficiency for tenants to keep their energy bills down. We’re talking about, of course, energy efficiency coming in from 1 July with our energy bill relief to every household, including every Canberran household. We, of course, have on 1 July coming in tax cut for every taxpayer. Here in the ACT, that’s over 230,000 taxpayers. Every taxpayer in the ACT will be getting a tax cut on 1 July.
What we want to do is continue our important work with states and territories, whether it be on housing, whether it be on other issues. We also have this week, coming into the Federal Parliament in the next few days, the Help to Buy scheme, which is a shared equity scheme. That scheme if it’s passed by the Senate could be up and running here in the ACT and in Queensland – which is now passed legislation – and the Northern Territory, once the Senate passes legislation. This is the Government’s shared equity scheme. We have a mandate to introduce this scheme. What I would say to the Liberal senators and the Green senators and the crossbench in the Senate is they should be supporting our Help to Buy shared equity scheme. Of course, the Greens had an election policy for shared equity. I’m not sure why they’re voting against a scheme that could get up and running. The Liberal Party, of course – we’ve had Liberal premiers introduce shared equity schemes. In the Queensland Parliament, the LNP – the Liberal National Party in Queensland – supported the legislation to enable Help to Buy to run in their state. This should be being supported. It could support around 40,000 Australians into home ownership. And we’re talking about Australians that otherwise wouldn’t be able to get into home ownership. Again, another part of our Homes for Australia plan. Our $32 billion plan includes Help to Buy. We’ll continue to work hard right across the board so that Australians have more homes to buy, more homes to rent, and more homes for Australians to have a safe place at night, like the one we’re here today to have a look at. And I’m happy to hand over to Yvette Berry, the ACT Minister.
YVETTE BERRY, ACT MINSTER FOR HOUSING: Thanks very much, Julie. I’m very pleased today to invite Julie Collins and Alicia Payne here to the inner north to have a look at some of our public housing properties here in the ACT. Of course, we want to make sure that every Canberran the chance, the same equal chance to find a place to call home and that includes building more public and community housing. We’ve seen record funding in the ACT contributed to our own housing program. But now we have a great partner in our Commonwealth Government, which we haven’t seen for nearly a decade. So, partnering up with community housing providers, with private investors, and the Commonwealth Government, and alongside our own budget, we’ve been able to build homes just like this one to make sure that people have that same fair crack at happiness. This was a site that held two three-bedroom townhouses that were joined together. We’ve been able to replace those with newer, accessible, more sustainable homes that meet the needs of Canberrans. We’ve been able to grow the number of public housing on this site as well, so from two to now five properties. This is all part of our plan to grow public housing across the city, but also building more homes all across the city where people want to live, and making sure that we can provide those opportunities and those choices through the partnerships that we’ve been able to have. I always said, as Housing Minister in the ACT, that the ACT Government couldn’t attempt to really tackle this housing crisis that we’re experiencing in the ACT and across the country without partnering up with the Commonwealth Government. And I’ve been pleased to see that partnership and the funding flowing to our community housing providers, as well as Housing ACT, so that we can build even more homes for people that need them. I hope to be able to invite Julie Collins and Alicia Payne back when we see people who are living in these homes. Because, of course, it’s more than bricks and mortar. And as beautiful as these homes are, they are not anything without the people who live in them and call them a place to call home. Thank you all very much for coming along today, and seeing these beautiful homes.
JOURNALIST: If I could just ask the Minister Collins a couple of questions. This townhouse has been described as eight-star energy rating. What does that mean?
COLLINS: What it means is lower energy bills for people who reside in these homes. We have said through the Housing Australia Future Fund and, indeed, through Housing Australia, we want to see homes built to at least six or seven-star across the country. We want to see more energy efficient homes, particularly for low-income Australians who can’t afford the high energy bills.
JOURNALIST: And how important is the security features, like the CrimSafe doors and things like that?
COLLINS: Yeah, it was terrific to see the safety features on this particular public housing dwelling here. What we know, of course, is that a lot of the public housing is required for women and children are fleeing family domestic violence. So safety is important. And also for older people who are wanting to be secure in their home. It is critical that we provide people with safe and secure homes, and that’s what this is all about.
JOURNALIST: And how important is community and public housing for the Australian public?
COLLINS: What, of course, we know is that most Australians aspire to have their own home, which is why we’re doing things like our Home Guarantee Scheme which has already helped people right across the
country, including here in the ACT. Now 110,000 Australians we’ve helped into home ownership since we’ve come to office. Our Help to Buy shared equity scheme is also important to get more Australians into their own home. We’re building more affordable homes and social homes for Australians. But there will always be a role for public housing in Australia for those Australians who are having a tough time, and we need to build more homes of every type in more places right across the country.