Labor’s five-year housing construction plan will deliver just 3% of the social housing units needed over the next decade, the Greens have warned.
That is the conclusion of parliamentary library research, which estimates Australia has a shortfall of 524,000 social housing dwellings this year, set to increase to 671,000 by 2032.
Labor has countered that its investment from a $10bn social housing fund for 30,000 social and affordable houses will come on top of the efforts of the states, set to build 15,000 more in the next two years.
The stoush comes after housing and homelessness minister, Julie Collins, indicated in a major speech on Monday that the commonwealth will take greater responsibility for housing and challenged Australians to stop resisting solutions “in their back yard” to the homelessness crisis.
Although there are currently 162,500 households on the waiting list for public housing, the parliamentary library estimates of need are much higher (524,000 dwellings this year) because they include low-income households in rental stress, paying more than 30% of their income on rent.
The library’s research paper, seen by Guardian Australia, uses Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute estimates and projects that by 2032 Australia would need 671,000 public housing units to solve homelessness and meet the need of those low-income households.
Labor’s policy promises 30,000 affordable and social houses, of which 20,000 are public housing.
“This 20,000 social housing dwellings, [is] around 3.0% of the shortfall predicted by 2032, and only 3,8% of the current [2022] shortfall,” the paper said.
In 2018, AHURI had found that preventing the existing homelessness problem from getting worse would require nearly 15,000 extra dwellings a year to be built, while eliminating the backlog would require 36,000 units.
Greens MP Max Chandler-Mather said that “by building only 3% of the social housing Australia needs, Labor is guaranteeing the housing crisis will get worse”.
“Millions will remain homeless, stuck for years on social housing waiting lists or in serious rental stress,” he said.
“The federal Labor government plans on spending $224bn over 10 years on the stage 3 [income] tax cuts, but only $10bn on building social and affordable housing, which is a real kick in the teeth for the hundreds of thousands of people in desperate need of a home.”
At the election the Greens had suggested they would push to build 1m homes over 20 years, including 750,000 public and community houses.
On Monday Collins said Labor’s pledge of 30,000 social and affordable homes is “on top of the efforts that the states and territories are already doing”.
The government would also establish a national plan and an affordability council to “look at what the issues are, what are the restrictions, how do we get more homes on the ground faster right across the country”, she told Radio National.
Collins said the Albanese government was “stepping up to the plate” after “nine years of neglect”.
“So it’s going to take a long time to turn that around. The $10bn fund is a very significant investment.”
