Mr Clare inspected a Windale family's social housing home with Shortland MP Pat Conroy and Charlestown MP Jodie Harrison on Friday.

After seeing a "place full of mould, leak and rot", which the family has now refused to live in after spending months trying to obtain adequate repairs, Mr Clare accused the Morrison government of passing the buck on addressing an issue experienced right around the country by overlooking a major investment in social housing repairs in the recent budget.

"They've ignored it totally," he said "These are government-owned houses.

"If this was an MP's office, it would get fixed tomorrow.

"If it was the Prime Minister's office, it would get fixed today. We own these houses and they're just getting left to rot. People are getting sick in them. It's not good enough."

Mr Clare said Labor had proposed spending $500 million to fix "about 100,000 homes" in need of repairs. If matched with state funding, he said the spend would help improve the lives of hundreds of thousands of people and provide work opportunities all over the country.

"If we've got homes here for Aussies that need a bit of help, they should be places that don't have mould and leaks and rot in them," he said. "They should be the sort of places that you'd have your mum or your dad or your kids in, and this isn't.

"But we can fix it.

"The Prime Minister knows tradies are running out of work ... but we can help stop that if we inject money into run-down social housing; create work for tradies and help people like Casie and her family, and lots of others right here in Windale and across the Hunter."

Casie-Ann Martin and her three children moved into a social housing home for the first time last December. She said when colder weather set in earlier this year, her property became "unlivable" due to "dampness" and mould throughout the house.

"I just couldn't have my kids here," she said.

"It's disgusting, and I wouldn't expect anyone else to be living like this."

Ms Harrison said her office "constantly" dealt with issues relating to the state of social housing properties.

"Everybody deserves a safe and clean home to raise their families ... but they're not getting it," she said. "Bits and pieces get fixed ... but the foundational problems are what needs to be fixed."

Mr Conroy said with 20,000 people on JobSeeker in the Shortland electorate, a nationwide investment in social housing repairs would "get people into work".

"This iniative will imrpove the quality of life for so many locals but also get locals into work," he said.

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