Latest news with #HousingAustraliaFutureFund
West Australian
09-07-2025
- Sport
- West Australian
Rita Saffioti: Exciting movement with electric buses rolling out in WA
1. An exciting moment for public transport in WA with electric buses rolling out into the suburbs. Electric buses are now leaving the Malaga depot into key routes through Morley and Ballajura — and of course the 960 and 950 routes. Not only are they cleaner and better for the environment, they're also cheaper to run in the long term, which means better value for money for WA taxpayers. 2. There's huge excitement building for AC Milan's second visit to WA, and we're gearing up for an extravaganza with an Italian village to be set up at HBF Park with Italian food vendors, music and a spritz bar all available ahead of the match on July 31. 3. Great to have the Matildas in town. It was an exciting match against Panama on Tuesday night with many fans braving the cold to watch Charlie Grant score the match winner. The Tillies have two more international windows before they're back in Perth for the Asian Cup on March 1. 4. How good were the West Coast Fever this week, creating Super Netball history with a 11th straight win, beating the Giants to secure the minor premiership for 2025. 5. Speaking of legends, thank you to Fremantle great, Michael Walters, who's retired from the AFL after a stellar career that featured 365 goals. He's inspired a generation, not just as a footy player, but as an incredible community leader. 6. We announced Seymour Whyte, Civmec and Aurecon as the preferred alliance team to develop and design the new multi-purpose Perth Entertainment and Sporting Precinct. Key members of the alliance delivered the new locally made Boorloo Bridge, and this precinct will no doubt become another incredible piece of public infrastructure. 7. We're delivering more social and affordable homes for West Australians with the latest round of the Housing Australia Future Fund boosting supply with another 515 homes to be built across the State. Since 2021, we have added more than 3300 social homes, bolstered by a strong relationship with the Federal Government. 8. Kids and teachers are having a well deserved break with school holidays underway. With many people travelling around the State, I'd urge everyone to take extra caution when you're behind the wheel and to stay safe on our roads. 9. Woke up on Wednesday to find I was on the front page of the paper — well it was me photoshopped as Kath from Kath and Kim. As a strange coincidence, I actually dressed up as Kath for a fancy dress event recently, and my friends dressed as Kim and Sharon. Sharon was so convincing, she won best dressed for the night! 10. Yesterday's front page did highlight an important point. As politicians, we are elected to represent all West Australians, and Government is about listening to everyone, not just those that have a platform.
Perth Now
02-07-2025
- Business
- Perth Now
Major update on Labor's $10bn housing plan
Labor has rubber-stamped funding for 5001 new social homes across every state and territory set to be built under it flagship Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF), despite criticisms the $10bn fund has yet to build any new homes. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil will confirm on Thursday that more than 18,000 homes are now under the construction or planning using funding from the HAFF, with Labor targeting the creation of 55,000 social and affordable homes by June 30, 2029. Of the 55,000 homes, the HAFF, which offer loans and grants to incentivise developers to build social and affordable housing, will contribute 40,000 dwellings. The latest round of funding is set to deliver an extra 5001 homes with 1535 earmarked for NSW, 1275 in Victoria, and 1005 in Queensland. Investment is also expected to build 515 homes in Western Australia, 149 Tasmania, 335 in South Australia and 187 across the ACT and Northern Territory. More than 18,000 homes funded through the HAFF are currently under planning or construction. NewsWire / Gaye Gerard Credit: NewsWire The fund has been criticised for having yet to deliver any purpose-built homes since it was established on November 1, 2023, with former opposition leader Peter Dutton threatening to scrap the policy if the Coalition claimed government. As it stands, 370 homes have been delivered through the HAFF through instances of developers releasing more homes onto the market, or the purchasing or conversion of homes into affordable or social stock. Lagging construction times for homes are also an issue. Across Australia it takes an average of 10.3 months to build a detached house from commencement to completion, with townhouses taking 12.9 months and build times for an apartment stretching out to 27.8 months, according to ABS figures from October 2024. However fresh figures released on Wednesday found housing approvals had increased by 3.2 per cent to 15,212 in May, however the pipeline still puts Australia behind the ambitious 1.2 million National Housing Accord target. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil said the HAFF was 'hitting its stride'. NewsWire/ Martin Ollman Credit: News Corp Australia Ms O'Neil welcomed the speedy approvals of the 5001 homes, and said the program was 'hitting its stride'. 'Every one of these homes represents hope for a family doing it tough – whether it's a mum escaping violence, a veteran needing somewhere safe, or a nurse priced out of her own community,' she said. 'This round was progressed much faster than previous rounds with more than 18,000 homes now in stages of building and planning, a clear sign that the HAFF is hitting its stride. 'We're creating a pipeline of homes that will make a difference for decades.' In NSW, where $1.2bn of funding has been committed across 14 projects, state Housing Minister Rose Jackson said dwellings will give 'thousands of people the stability and dignity they deserve'. 'In just one year, we've delivered the biggest increase in public, social and affordable housing for NSW in over a decade – this new funding means we can build even more,' she said.
Sky News AU
02-07-2025
- Business
- Sky News AU
Albanese government misses every target of National Housing Accord, falling more than 55,000 homes short in first year
The Albanese government has failed to meet a single target in the first year of its flagship National Housing Accord, falling more than 55,000 homes short of its annual goal. New figures from the Institute of Public Affairs (IPA) reveal the worsening housing crisis amid construction delays and exacerbated supply issues due to immigration. The housing policy, which began in July 2024, aimed to deliver 1.2 million new homes by 2029— or 20,000 homes per month—to improve housing availability and affordability. Analysis by the IPA found that just 185,000 homes have been completed since the accord began, leaving the government over 55,000 dwellings behind schedule. The government's target included 55,000 social and affordable homes, of which just 2,600 were completed in 2024. 'The federal government's National Housing Accord is one year old and already tens of thousands of homes behind target,' Director of Research at the IPA Morgan Begg said. 'In its first year of operation, the National Housing Accord as failed to hit a single target. 'At the same time the federal government is bringing in 1.3 million new migrants over three years, Australia is being set up for a disaster.' The latest forecast from the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council projected the government will fall 250,000 homes short of its target by 2029. Meanwhile, bureaucratic red tape has strangled the number of new homes being built as the time taken to build a new dwelling continues to grow. According to findings based on Australian Bureau of Statistics data, it takes 50 per cent longer to build a house in 2025 compared to a decade ago. 'There is unprecedented demand for new homes. Yet it is taking far longer to build them, and it costs significantly more to do so,' Mr Begg said. The IPA also pointed to the contradiction between falling construction rates and rising net migration, with about 1 million migrants set to come in by 2029. The federal budget papers have forecast net overseas migration of 260,000 in 2025-26 and then 225,000 in the subsequent three years. 'There is no plan on how to house new arrivals … This is a manufactured housing disaster,' Mr Begg said. The damning findings follow similar warnings from the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council (NHSAC). In its State of the Housing System 2025 report, the council projected that only 938,000 homes would be built by June 2029—over 250,000 homes short of the federal target. It noted that no state or territory was on track to meet its share of the target, based on population. ABS figures show just 177,000 dwellings were completed in 2024—well below the estimated underlying demand of 223,000. The Albanese government increased total housing commitments to $33 billion in the 2025 federal budget, including the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. Housing Minister Clare O'Neil has defended her approach, arguing 'it takes time to turn the tide on a housing crisis a generation in the making'. The Property Council of Australia (PCA) has since called on governments to redouble efforts to boost housing supply productivity. 'We're projected to be 262,000 homes behind the 2029 target but imagine the gap without these reforms,' PCA Chief Executive Mike Zorbas said in a statement. 'We … desperately need to address falls in productivity that mean we're building fewer than half as many homes per hours worked today than in the mid-1990s. 'We need to move from 170,000 homes a year into the high 200,000s to meet the Accord's target. 'That requires bold leadership to dissolve assessment and approval gridlock in key corridors.'
AU Financial Review
20-06-2025
- Business
- AU Financial Review
‘Frustration, desperation, fear' over delays in $10b housing fund
The federal government's $10 billion flagship Housing Australia Future Fund is choking on the volume of projects it took on in its first tender and needs an overhaul so building starts faster, developers and community housing providers say. The HAFF, as the fund is known, was set up in late 2023 as the first national project in decades with the aim of developing 40,000 new affordable rental homes for key workers and social housing units for low-income Australians.
The Age
10-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
Albanese should remember courage on housing cuts both ways
It takes a certain audacity to be both attacker and conciliator, except perhaps in politics, where this is often just part of the job, a dark art of the profession. This week we saw federal Housing Minister Clare O'Neil take on both roles. In an interview with The Age, the minister offered a defence of Labor's housing policies and its struggles to hit its targets, and in the process undertook a thinly veiled attack on the states. 'Planning laws at the state level are being used much too much to protect existing residents, and not enough to address the fact that we've got millions of people who are in housing distress. We need more housing of all kinds, and medium-density housing in the middle-ring suburbs is obviously going to be a really important part of the mix,' she said. This pivot on planning was noted in The Age's reporting as a notable shift. Three years ago, when federal Labor pledged in its budget to build 1 million properties between 2024 and mid-2029 (since upgraded to 1.2 million) it had very different avenues of action. It is likely to fall almost 300,000 short of the later target, according to the recent report State of the Housing System from the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council. In fact, new housing supply was at its lowest point in a decade and woefully trailing demand. So what then of Labor's policies? At the recent election, it said it would guarantee 5 per cent deposits of all first home buyers to ease the burden of lenders' mortgage insurance. It would also provide $10 billion to equity programs with state government and private developers to build 100,000 homes for first-time buyers. In June 2023, Albanese announced a $2 billion fund called the Social Housing Accelerator. This was at a time when the Greens were blocking moves in the Senate related to Labor's $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund. Loading Having fought loudly for various of these measures against the opposition and the Greens, the government now appears to be crab-walking towards the last refuge of scoundrels in our Federation – blame-shifting. There were signs of this shift last week too when Andrew Leigh, assistant minister for productivity, competition, charities and treasury, gave a speech noting 'many of the levers lie with the states. And the systems need to change'. He launched a stinging attack on North Sydney Council in particular.
