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Borrowing $10B off budget by Andrews Labor government make no sense and won't solve housing crisis

Labor's Housing Australia Future Fund: Borrowing $10B off Budget, delayed investments, won't address social housing needs adequately; local government investment for community housing preferred.

By news@gippsland - 27th July 2023 - Back to News

Hello. Russell Broadbent here, Member for Monash. It's not often the Liberals agree with the Greens and Paul Keating. But on Labor's social housing policy, we do. Keating once said 'good policy was good politics'. Therefore, I say bad policy is bad politics.

Mr Broadbent Advocated for local govt to invest in community housing, mirroring past state allocations, reducing homelessness for women over 50

Flawed housing proposal

The Labor government's new Housing Australia Future Fund is bad policy, and here's why:

The proposal is to borrow 10 billion dollars 'off Budget' - in other words, a way to avoid showing the borrowings - which would be loaned at the current high interest rate - as government debt.

The government would then invest the funds, claiming that they will make $500 million per year to invest in social housing. The government claims this will pay for 30,000 social and affordable houses over five years - but there are currently 163,000 Australians on the social housing waiting list!

Inadequate housing plan

This plan is totally inadequate on multiple fronts:

• Firstly, it will take a year for the funds to be invested
• Then, it will take another year for the first dividends to be paid
• And lastly, with the usual delays that come with government programs

How many of these houses are going to be delivered by the end of the five years? I doubt any. For years I have advocated for the local government to have an opportunity to invest in community housing. Just as the state government of old allocated public housing across the regions and country towns when given a quota. A fair share for country areas.

This would reduce the number of homelessness among women over 50 in the regions - the largest increasing homeless cohort across the nation.
I still believe this is the way to go, and there are examples of this in Victoria. And that's just as I see it.

Pictures from Community Housing Ltd website.

Source: http://gippsland.com/

Published by: news@gippsland.com