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The Minister for Housing, Julie Collins, made three key appointments to the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (NHFIC) board ahead of its planned rebrand to Housing Australia.
Ms Collins named Carol Austin as the new board chair and appointed Nigel Ray and Richard Wynne as members of the board.
In introducing the new board, Ms Collins highlighted their combined expertise in the fields of housing and finance.
Ms Austin has held senior positions at the Reserve Bank of Australia and a number of asset management firms. She is chair of the ACT Government Investment Advisory Board and sits on the board of NSW State Super, the Grattan Institute, and Infoxchange.
Mr Wynne spent more than 12 years as the Victorian minister for planning and housing, during which time Victoria embarked on the Big Housing Build. Prior to that, he served as the lord mayor of Melbourne and a Melbourne City Council member.
Mr Ray comes from a background in infrastructure planning and financing, government, public policy, and public finance. Formerly the deputy treasury secretary, he has served as an executive director at the World Bank and the Asia and Pacific Constituency at the International Monetary Fund.
They join three existing board members at the NHFIC, where they will be in a position to influence the rollout of some of the government’s biggest housing promises, including the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund — which is still trying to make its way through parliament — as well as changes to the home guarantee scheme.
Existing programs such as the affordable housing bond aggregator, which provides low-cost loans to registered community housing providers, and the national housing infrastructure facility, which finances eligible infrastructure projects that will unlock new affordable housing supply, also fall under the purview of the body and its new board members.
The rebranding of the NHFIC is tied up in the stalled Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023, which would task the body with the primary responsibility of delivering 40,000 new social and affordable homes over five years from 2024. This comprises 30,000 homes to be delivered with funding contributions from the proposed Housing Australia Future Fund — 20,000 social, 10,000 affordable — and 10,000 affordable homes under the National Housing Accord.
Addressing the Property Council’s Leaders Summit this week at Parliament House, Ms Collins spoke to the debate that has surrounded the government’s housing plans, the majority of which pivot around passage of the Future Fund bill.
“As you would be aware, the legislation to establish the fund is currently being held up in the Senate. We’ve heard all kinds of arguments from those opposing the fund. It’s too much. It’s too little. It’s too soon. It’s not soon enough.
“These excuses will sound painfully familiar for all of you in this room. The very same excuses get trotted out in local councils across the country to stop the development of more housing,” she said.
Ms Collins took aim specifically at the Coalition and the Greens, who succeeded in stalling a vote on the bill until at least mid-June.
The Coalition currently opposes the bill on the grounds that it may worsen inflation, while the Greens has said the bill does not go far enough, and objects to the housing fund’s dependency on the stock market, calling for concrete plans for home building regardless of investment performance and additional spending on rental support.
Ms Collins didn’t mince words in conveying the government’s sense of urgency in voting on the bill.
“It’s time to get on with it, have the vote and get homes on the ground.”
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Juliet Helmke
Based in Sydney, Juliet Helmke has a broad range of reporting and editorial experience across the areas of business, technology, entertainment and the arts. She was formerly Senior Editor at The New York Observer.
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