News in this morning – Labor’s social and affordable housing agenda is building momentum. Here’s how it’s tracking ⬇️ We’ve now ticked over 5,000 social & affordable homes completed with federal investment since being elected – most built from the ground up.

From West Ulverstone (TAS) → Canley Heights (NSW) → Rosebud (VIC), these homes are already changing the lives of Australians doing it tough, such as women and children escaping domestic violence.

Yesterday I wrote to the Coalition's Shadow Housing Minister, Michael Sukkar, asking him to agree to let Housing Australia continue signing contracts during the election campaign so 92 social and affordable housing projects can keep moving. Here’s why 🧵 The 92 projects will deliver 5,500 social and affordable homes, many of them projects that are in advanced stages of negotiation and are close to commencing. Many others have been signed, but these last ones remain.

Half a million homes have been built since Labor came into office.

There's more work to do and that's why we’ve set a big target to build 1.2 million homes over 5 years, which includes 55,000 new social and affordable homes funded by the Albanese Government.

That’s 6x more than the Libs funded in their decade in office. A thread 🧵 1/ Labor established the Housing Australia Future Fund. A $10 billion fund that generates returns of more than $500 million per year, in perpetuity.

This will help fund 30,000 desperately needed social and affordable homes.

It’s a big week for the national debate on housing.

Our government has the broadest and most ambitious housing agenda of a Commonwealth Government for a generation – working to get our country building more homes, helping renters get a fairer deal, and supporting Australians into home ownership.

Two pieces of the puzzle are before the Senate this week – two pieces which have been blocked and delayed by Peter Dutton and the Greens. Peter Dutton says no to everything – we all know that.

For the almost-decade the Liberals were recently in office, they deliberately tapped out of housing policy and housing affordability got significantly worse.

Indeed for most of that period, they didn’t even have a Commonwealth Housing Minister. So in some respects, I don’t expect any different from the Liberals.

The choice between a Labor Government and a Coalition Government couldn’t be clearer when it comes to housing.

Here’s what we’ve done in a little over 2 years 🧵 1⃣ Labor: Investing $32 billion to combat a housing crisis a generation in the making.

Libs: Want to cut $19 billion from housing in the middle of a housing crisis.

Labor has a simple belief that ordinary Australians should be able to own their own home.

It’s disappointing that the Liberals, Greens and One Nation have blocked an important housing Bill that would help 40,000 low- and middle-income Australians buy their own home.

🧵 I want to make it absolutely clear that at no point during the past 12-months have the Greens expressed any real willingness to negotiate on the Help-to-Buy legislation. They offered no amendments or ideas on how they believe the Bill could be improved.

The Greens and the Liberals are blocking legislation in the senate to help 40,000 low and middle income Australians into home ownership.

Thread to explain what is happening 🧵 Yesterday, Labor tried to bring a vote on our Help-to-Buy legislation.

Help-to-Buy is a shared equity scheme where the government helps people on a low or middle income with their deposit.

This means less money upfront, no lenders mortgage insurance and a smaller mortgage.

Unbelievably sad news this evening that Simon Crean, former Labor Leader, ACTU President and MP for Hotham for 23-years, has passed away very suddenly. Simon was a giant of the Labor Party and the labour movement. He was a Labor icon; integral to Australian politics and industrial relations for more than forty years. And he was my mentor, and friend.

In their awfully botched vaccine rollout the Morrison Government seem to have negligently missed a HUGE number of our older citizens who receive aged care services.

A thread.

(1/20) Govt promised all aged care workers and residents would be vaccinated by Easter. We’re now in late July.

They still have gaps in vaccinating all nursing home residents and a whopping 57% of residential aged care workers are still waiting for their first jab.

(2/20)

They called it a 'once in a generation reform' but the Government's #agedcare package falls way short.

The Royal Commission gave them a clear roadmap to fix the crisis but they've left recommendations on key issues ignored or fobbed off.

These are my biggest concerns 👇 First - nothing will really change without reform to the workforce.

There was nothing to improve wages for overstretched, undervalued aged care workers.

How do we attract the needed 700,000 workers to the sector when these workers remain some of the lowest paid in our economy?

The COVID recession is having a particularly devastating impact on Australian women in lower skilled work - but new data shows us that these women were already doing it really tough before COVID hit.

What will the future of work look like for these women?

THREAD👇#auspol The share of women in the labour market who did not study beyond high school or have a Certificate II or III is 2.8m Australian women. Of those women, almost 600,000 were either under-employed or unemployed before COVID.