The Palaszczuk government will unveil more than $320 million for 500 social homes when it hands down the Queensland budget, as the state continues to grapple with the housing shortage.
Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk said the government was “pulling every lever possible” to ensure Queenslanders had a roof over their head.
“We recognise that this is a big issue out there for families,” she told reporters in Brisbane on Monday.
“We also know that thousands of people continue to move to Queensland, and that is putting additional pressure on our housing markets up right across the state, even in regional Queensland.”
The social housing is expected to be delivered by mid-2025.
The $322m funding in Tuesday’s state budget follows a $64m funding increase for emergency housing in inner Brisbane and a $10m pledge to turn the Pinkenba quarantine facility into emergency accommodation.
Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon said every Queenslander deserved a roof over their head.
She acknowledged the heat in the housing market and the difficulty in getting construction projects off the ground because of supply constraints and labour shortages, “but the money is there”.
“It’s available and we’ll be doing everything we can to get those houses up off the ground as quickly as possible,” she told reporters.
The Palaszczuk government has been under pressure over the shortage of social and affordable housing, with a Productivity Commission report in January saying the state spent the least per capita on social housing in Australia.
The opposition said the funding was the latest in a long list of promises the government had failed to deliver on time or at all.
“In 2017, the Palaszczuk government promised to build 2972 social houses over five years, but a scathing auditor general’s report found one in five of these homes weren’t built,” LNP housing spokesman Tim Mander said in a statement.
– AAP
