Gembrook electorate building industry
Mr BATTIN (Gembrook) (17:19): (6450) My adjournment is for the Minister for Planning. I invite the Minister for Planning to come out to my electorate to meet with some of my local builders and talk about the impacts of costs and the difficulties in building homes, particularly in the growth corridors. We have already had challenges for our builders and tradies in the last couple of years, like everyone in our community. I acknowledge that today the minister at the table, the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, spoke about people working on major projects for the government, and that is fantastic. It was great to see that people were still out working during COVID, and I think it was really important, not just for those projects but actually for the individuals who were doing it. We did not have those same benefits for a lot of our tradies through the areas where they could work. Many of them could not go into homes because they were not allowed to with restrictions, unless it was an emergency. Other opportunities were not available for them. When the ring of steel came in, it made it nearly impossible for these growth corridors on the border, from Pakenham going down to Warragul, where tradies lived on one side and could not get to the other side for work reasons due to those restrictions.
We have seen the cost impact, with increasing costs for tradies, particularly around some of the new taxes and administration fees that have been going on to them. We are asking the minister to come out and sit down with the tradies and the builders out there who have been approaching us to find ways that we can work together to ensure we can keep costs down, not just in the interests of the tradies but in the interests of people who want to build homes, because I know as a father of two my daughters will have a dream of owning their own homes, and I think that is something we should all aspire to. We cannot afford to continue on the path we are on where it is becoming unaffordable for the next generation. I look forward to the minister coming out and meeting those builders.