Budget 2021: Anthony Albanese pledges $10bn for social housing

Labor pledges $10bn to build 30,000 affordable homes for domestic violence victims, veterans and Indigenous Australians.

Anthony Albanese delivers his budget reply speech at Parliament House in Canberra on Thursday night, as Tony Burke, left, and Richard Marles listen. Picture Getty Images

Anthony Albanese has pledged to build 30,000 affordable homes for domestic violence victims, frontline workers, veterans and Indigenous Australians under a $10bn social housing package aimed at stoking the Labor base and setting up a fight with the Coalition over home ownership.

The Opposition Leader on Thursday attacked Josh Frydenberg’s budget, saying it wasn’t a plan for the next generation but rather a “patch-up job for the next election”.

Mr Albanese pledged Labor would take positive action on ­climate change and achieve net-zero emissions by 2050.

In contrast to Bill Shorten’s big-spending agenda, Mr Albanese adopted a small-target, lower-cost policy manifesto and held-back announcing Labor’s medium-term emissions targets and ­position on repealing the government’s stage three tax cuts.

Despite Labor’s rhetoric on debt, deficit and aged care, Mr ­Albanese failed to outline how the opposition would lead post-­pandemic fiscal repair or match the government’s record $17.7bn increase to aged care spending in response to the royal commission.

Mr Albanese invoked his childhood in public housing in Camperdown in Sydney’s inner west.

“The only son of a single mum on the disability pension, I stand before you tonight seeking the honour of serving as your prime minister,’’ he said.

Mr Albanese released five new Labor policies in his second and likely last budget-reply speech, centred on social housing, clean energy apprenticeships and ­workplace reforms stopping wage theft and eliminating sex ­discrimination.

Under Labor’s social housing plan, the National Housing ­Finance and Investment Corporation would oversee construction of 30,000 social housing and ­affordable homes across the country, funded by a new Housing ­Australia Future Fund.

The housing fund, managed by the Future Fund Board of Guardians currently chaired by former Liberal treasurer Peter Costello, would deliver investment returns to NHFIC to pay for social and ­affordable housing projects.

Mr Albanese flagged Labor would take stronger action on fixing the aged care sector, including ­requiring a nurse on duty in ­homes at all times and ­increasing the “appallingly low wages of hardworking aged care staff”.

“A Labor government will not allow older Australians to grow old alone, deprived of proper care and dignity,” he said.

“We will not forget the dedicated, mostly female staff who care for our elderly, ­almost uniformly understaffed and underpaid.”

The Labor leader, who promised to drag the ALP back to the centre in 2019 and win back blue-collar workers after successive election losses under Mr Shorten, attacked Scott Morrison over the vaccine rollout, COVID-19 quarantine facilities, climate change, women’s safety, economic reform, childcare and Indigenous reconciliation.

He promised to expand quarantine facilities to allow more Australians to return home, citing Bladin Village outside Darwin, currently used to quarantine US troops, as a site that had the potential to house 1000 people.

Mr Albanese said that over the first five years of Labor’s social housing plan, 20,000 properties would be built including 4000 for women and children experiencing domestic and family violence and older women on low incomes.

In addition, Mr Albanese said Labor would build “10,000 affordable housing properties for frontline workers — the heroes of the pandemic, those nurses, police, emergency service workers and cleaners that are keeping us safe”.

Mr Albanese said Australia must aspire for more than a budget offering a “low-growth, low-productivity, low-wage future and a trillion dollars debt” and promised Labor’s agenda would be guided by three principles: an economy delivering for working families, investment in Australia’s future and ensuring no-one was “left behind”.

“I measure the strength of the economy by how it works for people,” Mr Albanese said. “What a missed opportunity if our economy comes out the other side with nothing to show for this transformational moment but the biggest debt and deficit of all time.”

Continuing his focus on clean energy jobs, Mr Albanese announced a $100m clean energy apprenticeships policy, providing generous subsidies of up to $10,000 for green industries ­including rooftop solar installation, renewable projects, green buildings, hydrogen and renewable manufacturing. An additional $10m would be spent on a New Energy Skills Program, upskilling Australians to work in the clean energy sector.

Anthony Albanese acknowledges the applause after his speech, including from Labor MPs Linda Burney, Mark Butler, Tony Burke, Richard Marles and Tanya Plibersek. Picture: Getty Images

Mr Albanese said taking action on climate change amid a surge for global action on emissions was an “opportunity for us to emerge as a renewable energy superpower and create jobs”.

Labor will also work with industry, unions and state governments to legislate the criminalisation of wage theft and enshrine in law a positive duty for businesses to take reasonable and proportionate measures to eliminate sex discrimination, sexual harassment and victimisation.

Labor’s new Housing Australia Future Fund — supporting 21,500 full-time jobs a year including one in 10 apprentices — will be used to deliver additional crisis, transitional and long-term social housing. In the first five years, $1.7bn will be spent on housing for women fleeing domestic violence and older women at risk of homelessness. The fund will allocate $200m for the repair and maintenance of housing in remote Indigenous communities and $30m for veterans.

Mr Albanese, who spoke of his experience growing up in social housing in Sydney with his disability pensioner mum, said “the security of a roof over one’s head should be available to all Australians”.

Nicholas Proud, the chief executive of PowerHousing Australia, the peak body for social and affordable housing, said Mr Albanese’s future fund was a “landmark proposal”.

Housing Minister Michael Sukkar warned that the fund did not stack up, arguing that Mr Albanese was “going to need to extract 20 per cent annual returns”.