Labor’s plan to create a $10bn budget for Housing Futures Fund

The Albanese Labor Government will create a $10 billion budget for the Australian Future Fund, which will be used to build social and affordable housing and create thousands of jobs.

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A closer look at this Future Fund shows that the annual return on investment will be transferred to the Valuation Housing Finance and Finance Corporation (NHFIC) to cover the cost of social and affordable housing projects.

Over the first 5 years, the investment returns will build around:

• 20,000 social housing properties.
• 4,000 of the 20,000 social housing properties will be allocated for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence, and older women on low incomes who are at risk of homelessness.
• 10,000 affordable housing properties for frontline workers

This will directly support 21,500 full-time jobs nationally across the construction industry and wider economy each year for five years - one in ten of the direct workers on site will be apprentices.

Sukkar, from the Liberal Party of Australia, does not seem to be impressed by the proposal. “Labor will need to more than triple the current benchmark return for the Future Fund of 6.1 per cent to be able to deliver his 20,000 dwellings”.

“Labor’s policy would only deliver one sixth of the homes at four times the price when compared to the Morrison Government’s successful HomeBuilder program,” he said.

Proponents such as the Australian Property Council have welcomed the proposal. “We need greater supply across the entire housing spectrum, and this investment would certainly be welcome by the industry.”

Perhaps the Housing Fund by itself will not solve the housing crisis in low-income Australia. But there is still a need to increase rental assistance to specific groups of people and to do more to increase the supply of housing, and to reserve social housing for those who really need it.

What are your views on the Social Housing Fund?