Why does NSW Labor lack the ambition to properly ease the housing crisis?

Today during a Parliamentary debate, Abigail called out NSW Labor's self-congratulatory posturing on public housing funding, highlighting that at their projected pace, it would take a staggering 37 years to clear the current backlog of 56,000 families waiting for a home.

Abigail said:

In budget estimates this year I asked Minister Jackson about the New South Wales Government's budget announcement on social housing. It was confirmed in that questioning that the $5.1 billion announced equated to 6,200 new and 2,200 replacement homes over four years. With $1 billion being delivered in 2024-25, that means approximately 1,025 genuinely new social homes are to be delivered this year. As a result of the money that The Greens secured as part of the Federal negotiations, an additional $600 million is available under the Social Housing Accelerator Fund. It was confirmed in budget estimates that this additional $600 million will deliver 1,500 homes over three years. As a result, the total number of new homes to be delivered under Labor's commitment in the recent budget is just over 1,500 homes each year, and I note that the Minister indicated that more money may be secured from the Commonwealth under the Housing Australia Future Fund, but that has not been committed as yet. Finally, the Minister informed us at budget estimates that there are now 56,000 families waiting for homes.

Breaking this down, we are looking at 1,525 new homes per year in the face of a growing waitlist that is already at 56,000 families. In other words, that is a commitment to build 2.7 per cent of what is actually required just to clear the waiting list. At this rate, it will take around 37 years to provide houses for all those currently on the waiting list, and that waiting list continues to get longer. I set this all out not to diminish the fact that the New South Wales Labor Government is doing at least something about the housing crisis, as compared with the previous Coalition Government, but to point out that that something is a disproportionately minor response to the size of the housing crisis before us and to reiterate that this is not a crisis that we can simply build our way out of.

The housing crisis has been brought about by entrenched systemic flaws in our housing system that require far bolder action to fix. It will require leadership and Ministers who will stand up and demand a united, coordinated response to the housing crisis that is sadly lacking at Federal and State Government levels. If, for example, the Federal Labor Government will not do what is needed by reforming the negative gearing and capital gains tax incentives that make it easier for a person to buy their tenth home than to buy their first, then the New South Wales Labor Government should use its own powers to fill in the gaps.

The Greens have long advocated for vendor duty on those homes benefiting from the Federal capital gains tax exemption, for instance. The New South Wales Labor Government could also introduce an empty homes levy. The State Government estimates 15,000 homes in New South Wales are vacant year-round, 45,000 are used as holiday homes and more than 33,000 are registered as non-hosted short-term properties. The Government could increase land tax on luxury homes and non-owner-occupied homes as well. All of those measures would help ease the housing crisis and make a far greater impact on the lives of people experiencing homelessness because homelessness, at the end of the day, is not a housing supply problem; it is a social and economic policy problem. The Government could solve it; it just does not.

Read the full debate in Hansard here.

16 October 2024

A UNIVERSAL WELLBEING PAYMENT FOR NSW

No matter who you are or what you do, everyone has the right to share in the wellbeing of our country.

But at the moment the essentials so many of us need – a place to call home, food on the table, and everyday essentials like electricity, internet, medicine and water – are simply out of reach.

Instead of supporting us, our government is choosing to prop up huge corporations with massive subsidies, and to give away our collective wealth through record tax cuts for the wealthy. Meanwhile, the rest of us are left to live paycheck to paycheck or trapped in the dehumanising bureaucracy of our existing welfare system.

Now, in the midst of a pandemic, and following quickly on the heels of the bushfire crisis, more of us than ever before are experiencing what it’s like to lose our jobs, be without a home, or worry about where the food for our next meal will come from.

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Why does NSW Labor lack the ambition to properly ease the housing crisis?

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