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The Hon Tanya Plibersek MP answers your questions - Transcript

Hi, I’m Tanya Plibersek, the Federal Minister for Housing. Thanks for your questions and comments.

The housing and construction sector is a big part of our economy. It accounts for almost 9% of all employment in Australia.

That’s why housing has featured so strongly in the Nation Building and Economic Stimulus Plan.

We introduced the First Home Owners Boost in October to encourage building and give first home buyers a better chance to get into their own home.

The First Home Owners Boost was designed to be a time-limited measure ending on 30 June 2009. It’s important that measures like this have a clear end date so that economic activity is brought forward, supporting jobs when we need them most.

Of course anyone thinking of buying a house needs to do their own sums. Buying your own home is a major decision and you need to be sure you can keep up the payments in the future, especially if your personal circumstances change, and when interest rates go up again.

We have also said the global financial crisis is changing and developing, and if it’s deeper or longer than originally thought, we stand ready to take further action in the area of housing construction.

Some people wanted to know how we are progressing on our commitment to build 20,000 new units of public and community housing.

I’ve already approved funding to fully repair over 10,600 public housing dwellings and make minor repairs to an another 38 thousand. All States and Territories have started hiring tradies to do the work.

For example in NSW, they’ve already issued work orders of almost $100 million and 500 homes have been fixed up already. This work is spread throughout the state of NSW.

I have also approved funding for the first stage of new construction projects. Under the first stage over 2,600 homes will be built right across the country.

I will be making decisions on proposals to build another 17,700 homes over the next few months.

Our aim is to support jobs in the housing industry through this measure as well as to build much needed housing for some of the most vulnerable people in our community, including aged and disability pensioners and people who have been homeless.

It’s estimated that this measure will support 15,000 jobs over the next couple of years.

If you are a builder, developer or tradie looking to get involved in the building or repairing of these homes, you can find contact details for your state or territory on the Housing section of this website.

I have also received several questions about the Tax Bonus.

If you’ve got questions about the bonus, please contact the Australian Taxation Office on 1300 686 636 or check out the Treasurer's comments on the video transcripts section of this website.

Thanks again for visiting the website and submitting your questions and comments.