Despite the daily evidence of the housing crisis the Senate has voted to ignore calls from an extraordinarily broad collection of housing experts and peak bodies and defer consideration of the Housing Australia Future Fund until October. 

Somewhere in Australia is a family who will now wait longer for a home they can afford. They may not know it and yet they are joined by thousands of other Australians who are also unknowingly paying the price of good policy descending into bad politics. We should never forget that it is the most vulnerable and lower income households who paying the heaviest cost.  

The delay also exacerbates the challenge to motivate the private sector to invest into programs to deliver social and affordable housing. The unmet demand for social and affordable housing is too big to be solved by government alone. It requires capital and capability from the private sector brought together through community housing providers. 

I have led SGCH for 7 years and seen a growing appetite from private sector partners to partner with community housing providers and government to deliver more social and affordable housing. This has often been frustrated by the stop start nature of government programs for social and affordable housing – sugar hits instead of structural reform. 

A lack of certainty and scale of activity means it is hard for private sector partners to justify the time and effort when there are a plethora of other sectors and opportunities. To generate the scale of supply required, the private sector needs it to be a good business decision not just a good thing to do for the community. It can, and should, be both. 

The HAFF offers a structural pillar that could provide contractual certainty and pipeline over a longer term, reducing barriers for partners who want to get involved. It is based on models adopted by the previous Coalition Government in NSW to create the Social and Affordable Housing Fund (SAHF) and the Labor Queensland Government to create the Housing Investment Fund (HIF). It will also build on the platform established by the previous Coalition Federal Government in developing the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation. It should have a broader base of political support. 

The HAFF sits as part of a suite of housing responses from the Commonwealth that includes:

• Introducing incentives to increase the supply of rental housing by improving arrangements for investments in build-to-rent accommodation;
• Increasing the maximum rate of Commonwealth Rent Assistance by 15 per cent
• Investing an additional $2 billion in financing for more social and affordable rental housing through the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation;
• Establishing a new National Housing Accord;
• Investing $350 million to deliver an additional 10,000 affordable rental homes over five years from 2024 as part of the Accord;
• Making up to $575 million available through the National Housing Infrastructure Facility to support more social and affordable rental homes;

In this context the HAFF is a significant but not sole policy response. Yet it is a crucial one to motivate a longer term structural shift. It can catalyse activity that provides structural ballast to construction and development activity and produces the social and affordable housing needed to support strong communities and a thriving economy.  

The political uncertainty (and risk) signified by the Senate delaying consideration of HAFF amplifies the challenge.

My hope is that the Senate sees reason and stops blocking the doorway to social and affordable homes. 

In the meantime, we call on the Government to move forward with other initiatives it has announced, including bringing forward the funding of $350m to support 10,000 affordable rental homes.  

Meanwhile, we will be getting on with the job – albeit without the significant new tool that HAFF would have delivered – working with private sector partners and governments to utilise all the levers that are available. This is because we are driven to ensure that no family waits longer for an affordable home because of our inaction. 

Scott Langford, CEO