Nicolette Boele MP: My question is to the Minister representing the Minister for Housing. 12,000 Australians have signed my petition for a nationally consistent definition of affordable housing. Last week, a developer in my electorate admitted to breaching its planning conditions by leasing a government-funded affordable apartment to its own staff.

It was up to journalists to uncover this, not a regulator. Treasurer, will the government back a nationally consistent definition of affordable housing so when the public funds affordable housing, we know that affordable housing is actually being delivered and made available to the nurses, the teachers, and other essential workers for which it is intended?

Speaker: Call to the Treasurer representing the Minister for Housing, Homelessness, and the Minister for Cities.

Treasurer representing the Minister for Housing, Homelessness, and the Minister for Cities: Thanks very much, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you to the honourable member for Bradfield for her question. But I also want to recognise her constructive engagement with the Government. On this issue, every member of this Government wants to build more affordable housing, and we will work with anyone who shares our objectives.

We've got an ambitious agenda when it comes to social and affordable housing, building more homes for people who need them most. We're delivering 55,000 social and affordable homes around the country through programs like the Housing Australia Future Fund that those opposite want to cut, with homes being delivered right across the north of Sydney.

That's part of our $47 billion dollar plan. Now the honourable member for Bradfield does raise a really important issue here, which is that the definition of affordable housing varies from state to state and sometimes even from program to program.

I acknowledge that, as does the Minister for Housing that I'm on answering the question on behalf of. For example, the Housing Australia Future Fund requires rents for affordable tenancies to be set at a 25% discount to market rents, so that's how the HAFF goes about this, but it's different across different states and different programs.

I want the honourable member to know that the Minister for Housing, in her characteristically diligent way, has asked Treasury to do work on affordable housing definitions, including looking at the different definitions and frameworks that currently operate across Australia, and to see what our options are for more consistency.

We do think that's an important objective. Minister O'Neill is doing that work with state housing ministers and I undertake to keep the honourable member informed of our progress as that work continues.

As I said, I welcome her advocacy. We are grateful too to the work that the community housing sector and other important parts of the construction sector play as we progress this work. We're coming at this housing challenge from every single responsible angle, and the work that honourable members over in that part of the house and certainly every part of this side of the house are very engaged in that work.