Under the National Housing Accord, the federal and state governments will deliver an additional 20,000 social and affordable homes over five years. The federal government will tip in an extra $350 million to build an additional 10,000 dwellings in the five years which will be matched by the states and territories. This is in addition to government’s previously announced Housing Australia Future Fund’s 30,000 social housing dwellings and the National Housing Infrastructure Facility supporting an additional 5,500 new homes.
“We don’t pretend that this Accord solves every issue, nor do we pretend we can solve this problem overnight. But this is a serious start – a serious agenda that will lead to more Australians knowing the security of a good job and decent housing.”
The ambitious target comes as Australia faces a housing and rental crisis despite prices declining at the moment after consecutive record-breaking rises, affordability is still a major issue for millions of Australia. The median prices of houses across Sydney, Melbourne and Canberra is still over $900,000. Potential buyers on lower incomes are finding it much more difficult to purchase a home comparatively to how it was at the turn of the century. Some have been resigned to renting instead, despite rent prices proving to be a difficult mountain to climb too, particularly for younger Australians who are now experiencing a rental crisis.
While housing crisis and cost of living has taken most of the headlines, the lack of housing supply has also been causing issues. The NSW DPE predicts 151,490 to be the medium growth scenario in the next 5 years (16.4% below previous 5 years’ completions). The 1 million new homes will go a long way to rectifying that and it will earn the Labor Party some more confidence from voters for the future.