On Tuesday March 2023, I asked the Premier about the declining number of affordable homes in Queensland under Federal and State Labor governments and if she would call on her Federal counterparts to work with the Greens to fix their inadequate legislation.
You can read my question and the answer below, or find the full transcript and video link in the official Queensland Parliament Record of Proceedings (Hansard).
Michael: My question is to the Premier. Queensland is set to lose another 6,000 affordable homes in the next three years as the federal NRAS program winds up, but federal Labor’s housing policy will not even replace those homes by 2028 let alone create any more. Will the Premier tell the federal Labor government to stop making the housing crisis worse and instead work with the Greens to start fixing it?
Premier: I thank the member for the question. It is a serious issue with the ending of that program. It is something I know that the housing minister has been lobbying extensively about with the federal government. As I said in an earlier answer to this question, we recognise the housing stress that is on families across Queensland. That is why we held a housing round table, a Housing Summit, and that round table will meet again later this month to see how the actions are going from the document that we released.
Unfortunately, the former Morrison government had cuts to housing, especially the remote housing. It was absolutely disgraceful. What we have seen from our government is a key investment of billions of dollars into housing—whether it is the buildings we are putting in place for making more affordable renting, the social housing that we are building that the minister is constantly opening right across Queensland or what we are also seeing now with the production of more affordable homes. It is wonderful to see that companies are out there in this space. We will continue to update the House later this month with the results of those housing initiatives.