AS expected, the Senate has passed the Albanese government’s signature $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund legislation.
After months of negotiations, the government secured the Greens vote this week after committing an additional $1 billion.
PowerHousing Australia, national peak representative body for the scale delivery of social and affordable housing, welcomed the news.
Nicholas Proud said community housing providers (CHPs), state governments and their partners are ready to commence a scale program of social and affordable housing that will deliver outcomes, with tenants guaranteed affordability for the long term.
“It’s now time to get to work on building these 30,000 homes and remove all stops on industry building these much-needed dwellings. This is a bold and celebrated step in addressing the housing affordability crisis, but given the historic lows in affordability measures, there remains a lot of work to do. Sustained public and private sector institutional investment and deep planning reform is needed.
“A vital step in the swift delivery of these 30,000 homes is expedient planning reform. Onerous and inefficient planning systems across states and territories are directly contributing to historic lows in housing affordability. Long-term inefficiencies are stifling development and denying people the ability to secure affordable long-term accommodation close to services and job opportunities,”
Proud noted the government has committed to spending a minimum of $500 million on social and affordable housing each year as part of its deal with the Greens.
“The additional $1 billion in funding for the National Housing Infrastructure Facility (NHIF) is also a much-welcomed initiative. The NHIF is already creating new social and affordable homes, built by Community Housing Providers from around the country.
“If we can get about reforming and streamlining planning systems at state and local level it will reduce the time it takes to build new houses and shrink the cost of doing so,” said Proud.
Earlier this week, Greens leader Adam Bandt said “Pressure works.”
“The Greens have secured another $1 bn from the gov to be spent immediately on social housing, taking the total of additional funding won for public & community homes right now to $3 bn. To everyone who told us to pass this Bill in March, this is why we didn’t.” Bandt said.
“The Greens have just secured an extra $1 billion of direct immediate investment in public and community housing to be spent this year. Along with the $2 billion social housing accelerator, that means Greens pressure has secured 6 times what Labor wanted to spend on social housing,” Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather said.
