Vulnerable Australians to wait months for housing fund

Maeve Bannister and Tess Ikonomou | March 28, 2023

Australians who need social and affordable housing will have to wait months for assistance as negotiations on a key funding promise are set to drag into budget week.

The Greens are calling for major amendments to the Albanese government’s proposed $10 billion housing future fund.

The minor party wants the bill to include more rental assistance and a promise of one million new homes to address the housing crisis in exchange for their support to pass the bill.

Independent senator David Pocock, who joined the Greens and unions outside parliament for a housing rally on Tuesday, is also holding out for a more ambitious plan from the government.

“This is about ensuring that we don’t have people having to think about living in their cars,” Senator Pocock said.

With negotiations continuing, movement on the bill is not expected until the next sitting week which coincides with the federal budget in May. 

Labor’s proposal would finance the construction of 30,000 social and affordable rental homes over five years, but the Greens said this would be far outweighed by demand.

With one third of Australians living in rentals, Greens leader Adam Bandt said more assistance for the cohort was needed. 

CFMEU spokesman Zach Smith said the government needed to spend at least $290 billion over the next two decades on housing, or risk the crisis continuing.

“What $290 billion represents is 700,000 houses that are needed for our most vulnerable in society,” he said.

But Housing Minister Julie Collins said people at risk of homelessness needed the legislation to pass parliament sooner rather than later.

“It is urgent and there are people on the ground who need us to get this done,” she told parliament. 

She said the government had sought to tackle the housing crisis at its earliest opportunity since the federal election and issued a blunt message to those opposed to the bill.

“What you are saying is ‘no’ to actually getting homes for people that need it most.”

The fund would be established along with the independent Housing Australia body and a National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, which would provide independent advice.

Census data released last week showed there had been a five per cent increase in the number of Australians experiencing homelessness.

Analysts from the City Futures Research Centre at the University of NSW found 640,000 Australians are in housing stress.

By 2041, that number is expected to be one million.

On Tuesday, St Vincent de Paul joined a growing number of social advocates urging senators to back the government’s bill.

National president Mark Gaetani said the plan was “not ideal”, but it was a start and must be supported.

He said the proposal represented a “historic” opportunity to begin tackling the nation’s housing and homelessness crisis caused by successive government’s failure to act.