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Australia’s housing and homelessness organisations united to urge the passage of key housing legislation.
The bodies — which included Community Housing, Northern Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander Health Alliance, Homelessness Australia, Property Council of Australia, Industry Super, Everybody’s Home, and National Shelter — took the cause to Canberra on Monday, 19 June, where they were joined by Senator David Pocock and Senator Tammy Tyrrell in pushing Parliament to act on housing legislation before the winter break on Thursday.
Despite the united front, the Greens and the Coalition successfully kicked the vote until October.
The bills in question are the Housing Australia Future Fund Bill 2023, National Housing Supply and Affordability Council Bill 2023, and the Treasury Laws Amendment (Housing Measures No. 1) Bill 2023. Voting on these pieces of legislation has so far been stalled by the Coalition, who raised concerns about the impact on inflation, and the Greens, who had been calling for additional funding for social and affordable housing as well as a rent freeze.
In a statement, the social housing and homelessness advocates said they felt parliamentarians had “strengthened [the] three pieces of legislation aimed at addressing Australia’s deep and considerable housing challenge” and called for the legislation to proceed without further delay.
The bills, they argued, will “go further and do more for Australians in need, thanks to amendments that guarantee annual dispersal of at least $500 million per year for the construction of social and affordable housing”.
With winter setting in across the country, they stressed that “time is now of the essence”.
“The Parliament rises for the winter break this Thursday and will not resume until August. Australia cannot afford to delay its response to the housing crisis any longer,” they said before that eventuality came to pass.
Addressing the challenges facing Australians who are trying to find or keep their current housing arrangements, the bodies noted that rents have soared up to 22.8 per cent in Sydney, 21 per cent in Melbourne, 15.5 per cent in Brisbane, 12 per cent in Adelaide, and 18.9 per cent in Perth.
Furthermore, they cited figures from UNSW City Futures Research Centre that found 640,000 Australians are in housing stress, with the number projected to hit 1 million by 2041 on the current trajectory.
“This is the worst housing crisis in living memory,” the bodies said.
“The new institutions [this legislation] will create, such as Housing Australia and the Housing Supply Affordability Council, need to start their important work. We need a robust national response that has a significant expansion of social and affordable housing as its central pillar. We also need better planning systems for our cities and the roll out of annual state housing targets for social, affordable and at-market housing through the national housing accord,” they argued.
Ultimately, however, the housing advocates conceded that the new laws were not perfect, but they stressed that they had reached a consensus that it was better to move forward with the current proposals than to return to the drawing board.
“As advocates, we intend to build upon the new legislation by campaigning for additional resources in the years ahead. We know that the current legislation on its own will not fix the housing crisis. But it does create the institutions necessary to make a start. We consider this package a floor, not a ceiling.
“This is especially true for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities, whose housing needs have been consistently neglected, leading to severe overcrowding and poor health,” they noted.
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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