Mrs PHILLIPS (Gilmore) (13:22) and (16:39)

It's with great excitement and relief that I rise to speak on the introduction of the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 and the bill to create the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. These bills will start the process for the largest boost to affordable and social housing we have seen in more than a decade. Make no mistake, the outcomes from these bills will ultimately fundamentally change people's lives for the better.

To say we have a housing crisis on the New South Wales South Coast is putting it mildly. We are no stranger to disasters, but the housing crisis on the New South Wales South Coast is our new disaster. Over many years, the previous coalition government did nothing to even begin to address this growing housing crisis. The housing crisis may have once been a silent crisis particularly impacting our most disadvantaged, but over many years of inaction by the previous government, it has now grown to epic proportions. As the federal member, I and my office are inundated regularly with cries for help. It is heartbreaking to hear these stories of struggle from everyday people in our community. I help where I can, but it isn't easy when there is no stock, when prices are out of control and when community housing is overwhelmed.

Our local housing and homelessness providers are doing everything possible to support people, but the reality is there just isn't enough affordable and social housing. Our local councils have also stepped upped up, trying to do their bit to ease pressures. Our community organisations, churches, businesses, individuals, unions and more have also stepped up—that true South Coast spirit I am always singing about. What was lacking was leadership at the federal level. Everyone could see there needed to be a solution, but it just wasn't there under the previous coalition government. Gilmore, on the New South Wales South Coast, which encompasses the Kiama local government area in the north, the Shoalhaven, and the Batemans Bay, Moruya and Tuross Head areas in the Eurobodalla shire, has had a hammering, particularly over the last four years. There has been drought, the Black Summer bushfires, multiple storms, floods, landslides, roads cut, COVID, and a variety of these disasters at the same time. It really has been the unthinkable, perfect, horrible storm. It is difficult to comprehend the immense toll this has taken on people.

But what has been left, without a doubt, is the housing disaster. If it wasn't bad enough that hundreds of people lost their homes and had damaged homes from the bushfires, so began the task of finding somewhere to live. This isn't so easy when you're living on the coast and there is great demand for holiday rentals. When people found temporary housing there were heartbreaking stories of people, and people with young children, having to move out multiple times in a short space of time because the house was to be rented out in the holiday time. With COVID, the South Coast was seen as a haven, as more holiday homeowners chose to relocate to the coast—who could blame them? At the same time property prices and rents were spiraling upwards, and many property owners took that opportunity to sell, to realise the gain.

Those two actions led to devastating consequences locally. First, it shrunk the private housing stock—so if you were a pensioner that had rented and lived in the same property for 15 years, all of a sudden you had no home. Faced with soaring rents and no homes available, it was the fastest way to become homeless. One day you had a home, the next you didn't. And it didn't discriminate; it didn't matter if you were a pensioner, had a family with young kids, had a disability, were a front-line worker or even had two incomes. Second, it shrunk the stock of social housing as more landlords sold properties, so our community housing providers had fewer homes available. So where do people go? Our homelessness providers have been facing this battle each and every day. It's really one vicious cycle. Everyone knows the problem: there just isn't enough affordable and social housing.

There are many harrowing local stories. As harrowing as they are, it is important the House understands the gravity of the situation. Take this single mum of four from Worrigee. She's a hairdresser who works part-time while she tries to take care of her kids and get by. She was ahead on her rent in a private community housing supported home. She paid the bond and was doing everything right. But the house was riddled with mould—an ongoing issue that she couldn't resolve and that was making her two-year-old child sick. She did what any mother would do; she put the health of her child first. She has asked Southern Cross Community Housing for a transfer, but she can't get one. She's asked them for her bond back and for some of the rent she overpaid, to help her financially, but she can't get that either. She and her four kids have been forced to couch surf for the last year—another example of the shambles the Liberals and Nationals let our community housing become. The New South Wales government has said, 'Be sick or be homeless, and don't expect us to give you your money back.' This family has been on a priority housing list for a year, but there is no information on when they can expect a new home.

I'd like to say this is a special case, an isolated incident, but I'm sorry to say it isn't. The Moruya North Head Campground is home to around 50 people with nowhere to go. The campground is their home. There is no alternative accommodation. While local homelessness support services, council and the community do all they can to provide support and access to networks and food and essential items, the fact there is no alternative accommodation is one of the biggest blights on society I have seen. Council has continued to call on the New South Wales government to do something to help these people, but those calls are falling on deaf ears. The campground is not meant for people to live there. There is no permanent hot water and there are no enclosed showers, but, with no other sources of temporary accommodation and nowhere else for these people to go, what choice is there? While this bill does not offer an immediate solution, it starts today to correct the immense wrongs and begin the long road back to fixing the huge supply issue there is and to build more affordable and social housing.

Salt Ministries and their wonderful volunteers have been providing community meals and outreach support for the homeless for years. But the demand for somewhere to live for so many people grew and grew. SALT opened Safe Shelter Shoalhaven without the help of government funds, and it has been operating locally for the last five years. In that time, it has provided a safe place to sleep for over 850 families and individuals, but without government support, the service has twice been on the verge of closure.

Resumption:

(16:39): I first raised this with the New South Wales minister in October last year. In December I stood with local Labor candidates Katelin McInerney and Liza Butler to announce that a Minns government would support Safe Shelter Shoalhaven with $250,000 to keep their doors open. But after months of the government knowing the dire situation the shelter was in, the Liberals waited until the 11th hour, the day the Shoalhaven shelter was to close, before stepping in with a short reprieve until June, just far enough to get it out of an election cycle. Salt does more than just run this shelter. The Salt store delivers free food, clothing and furniture to more than 1,100 families weekly. Realising what a gap the New South Wales government had left in emergency and temporary housing, Salt began actively seeking out private rentals and managing them to provide housing for the homeless. The Salt assisted housing program has over 35 long-term homes which they sublet to people in need. They want to do more but they need more support because, on their own, they simply cannot provide enough support for our homeless, such is the demand for and lack of affordable housing.

The housing crisis affects everyone. The worker shortage on the south coast is dire. One of the main issues is even if people want to move here to take up work, they most often cannot find housing. I have heard story after story of people not taking up jobs because of this. I have heard the extraordinary lengths employers will go to to secure housing for prospective staff members to entice them to move to the coast for work.

We have many exciting road and community infrastructure projects happening on the coast: a new hospital at Moruya and an upgraded Shoalhaven hospital at Nowra. Where will the hundreds and hundreds of additional frontline workers for the hospitals live? As the federal member for Gilmore, I have been raising the dire housing situation on the south coast for years, first with the then shadow minister for housing and homelessness, Jason Clare, and with the now Minister for Housing, Julie Collins. There have been many visits to the south coast to meet with homelessness providers. You only have to visit to get an understanding of the immense problem. I tried the former ministers as well but, no surprises, nothing came from it. That was why, in the lead-up to the 2022 federal election, I was delighted and relieved to see Labor's commitments around affordable and social housing. Today, as a proud member of the Albanese Labor government, I am happy to be speaking on these bills because I know these bills in time will lead to inter-generational reform, change lives and create a better future for everyone.

But today also has a bitter taste because apparently it wasn't enough that the former Liberal-National government took no action to address our housing crisis; apparently it wasn't enough that at a state level the Liberals and Nationals have left community housing and homelessness services in shambles with funding cuts and neglect. No. Today, the Liberals and Nationals have decided they want to inflict even more damage and, worst of all, with the help of the Greens party. They are fighting against the millions of people this bill will help, people like the young mum in Worrigee and the dozens of others contacting my office every week, or the 50 people in Moruya living in a campground with nowhere else to go. They are fighting against people fleeing domestic violence, our veterans, First Nations people, so people around the country who need a home. It is absolutely appalling, and every member of the Liberals, The Nationals and the Greens should be ashamed. Clearly, Labor is the only party willing to do every single thing we can to address the housing crisis with the biggest investments we have ever seen.

The Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023 will establish the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, with annual dispersements used to fund social and affordable housing and other acute housing needs. It will provide a source of funding to support increased social and affordable housing as well as fund other acute housing needs for remote Indigenous communities, women, children and veterans.

The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023 establishes the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council as an independent statutory advisory body. The council will inform the Commonwealth's approach to housing policy by delivering independent advice to the government on housing supply and affordability. I am pleased that the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council will play a leadership role in bringing all levels of government together to work through the myriad issues and get that boost in affordable and social housing happening where it is needed most.

The Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023 facilitates the transition of the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation to Housing Australia, extends the Commonwealth guarantee of Housing Australia's liabilities, and expands its activities to manage delivery of social and affordable housing under the Housing Australia Future Fund. Extending the Commonwealth guarantee recognises the importance of the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator and Housing Australia's role in continuing to offer community housing providers low-cost and longer-term finance.

So many local organisations—our councils, community housing, our homeless provider network, our homelessness task force—have good solutions. But it needs leadership from the federal government. For the first time the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council will be the vehicle for that leadership to drive home policy and reforms to assist the biggest boost in affordable and social housing.

I would like to sincerely thank every person that has contacted me with their own housing story. The strength they showed just to ask for help has given me strength to battle on with this enormous change, so that it might help the thousands of local people that need help. To everyone working and volunteering in the affordable and social housing space and supporting our homeless: you are the brave ones too. You have never given up, despite atrocious circumstances. The Albanese government will never stop trying to do what is right for you. I will never stop trying to do what is right for you. While we can't undo the last nine years, we can make the next nine years better. It's going to be a long road, but these bills are a sensible and much-needed step in the right direction.

I say today to all members of the opposition and the Greens: don't get in the way of the people of the South Coast getting the affordable homes they deserve. Do the right thing and support these bills. Our community cannot afford to wait any longer because of your political games. I commend the bills to the House.