Nat Barr bluntly calls out Anthony Albanese’s government over major issue that impacts every Australian: ‘You’re well behind’

Nat Barr has bluntly told Anthony Albanese’s government they are “way behind” their target of building 240,000 new homes a year amid the housing crisis.

The federal government aims to build 1.2 million new homes in five years, which amounts to 240,000 homes per year.

The plan comes amid low vacancy rates, sky-high rents and exorbitant house prices.

Education Minister Jason Clare appeared on Sunrise on Friday morning, where he was questioned about why targets were not being met while Labor committed $1 billion to building roads and other infrastructure.

‘By 2023, only 163,000 new homes will have been completed. To achieve your goal you need 240,000 annually. You’re way behind. How is this going to help?’ Barr said.

Mr Clare said infrastructure needs to be put in place before the houses can be built, including sewers, water connections, gutters and roads.

“If you want to turn plots into backyards again, you have to build infrastructure,” the Education Minister said.

“That’s what the billion dollars are all about.”

He added that Labor had this week introduced legislation to build more rental homes, but the Liberal and Green parties voted against it.

“If we are going to build more houses, we also need the Liberal Party and the Greens to stop playing games in Parliament and vote for the legislation that will help us do that,” he said.

Liberal Party vice-chair Sussan Ley was also on the program and said Jason and his people “have not yet hit the ground running” in the two years since the Labor election.

“I’ve met people who are building houses. They have the tools, they sign contracts and they do their best to make it happen. That’s because we have great companies that care about the work they do,” she said.

“They tell us it’s too expensive to build a house and Labor’s costs are making it worse when it comes to energy. Labor brought in more migrants last year than ever before in Australia’s history. We have a housing crisis, what we need to do is get back to basics.”

Barr then confronted Ms Ley about why her party had not voted in favour of Labor’s proposed legislation to provide more rental housing.

Ms Ley claimed it was a “bad policy” that would “only make rich fund managers richer and prevent more Australians from buying rental property”.

Mr Clare intervened and said Ms Ley’s comments were “absolute nonsense”, but she continued her tirade, adding that Liberals “will never support a bad policy”.

The federal government aims to build 1.2 million new homes over five years, which equates to 240,000 a year (pictured are construction workers in Sydney)

“This is about wealthy fund managers building houses that unfortunately may not be affordable for Australians,” she said, as Mr Clare continued to interrupt and gag her.

“It’s about building homes for Australians,” he said.

Ms Ley ignored Mr Clare’s interruption and said: ‘the numbers are just so small’.

“It’s been two years and you have been pumping money into the state governments but nothing is happening,” she said.

The Education Minister said at the time that he felt like he was in the Stealers Wheel song ‘Stuck In The Middle With You’ because he had ‘clowns on my left and jokers on my right’.

“You’ve got fringe parties, the Liberal Party, and the Greens in bed together to stop Australians from building homes. Australians are in the middle of it,” he said.

Barr agreed, saying she was “between the two politicians.”

“I’m stuck in the middle and the Australians are stuck in the middle. It’s been twenty years in the making, not two years. It didn’t start two years ago,” she said.

The Albanian government has announced that $11.3 billion will be invested in housing initiatives during the May budget.

The government will also spend $1 billion on building roads, sewerage, energy, water and community infrastructure needed for more housing.

Construction companies across Australia have gone bust, blaming rising material costs and labour shortages.

Mr Albanese said earlier that the injection of money would boost construction on a national scale.

“This isn’t about one suburb, one city or one state. It is a challenge facing Australians around the world and action is needed from every level of government,” he said.