Labor must explain Housing Australia’s disaster

SENATOR ANDREW BRAGG

Shadow Minister for Productivity and Deregulation

Shadow Minister for Housing and Homelessness

Liberal Senator for New South Wales



STATEMENT

24 October 2025

Labor must explain Housing Australia’s disaster

Housing Australia is a hellhole of waste and dysfunction.

Labor has overseen absolute chaos at Housing Australia, and the Housing Minister must explain what is going on.

Two weeks ago we uncovered the existence of a secret report into the bedlam at Housing Australia. The government continues to cover it up.

Housing Australia is amongst the worst performing agencies in the Commonwealth. The Housing Australia Future Fund is pink batts 2.0.

Under this Minister, Housing Australia has failed to do its one job - build houses.

The agency is spending billions of dollars, and taxpayers deserve answers about the performance and governance catastrophe which Labor has sought to hide from Australians.

I note the Chair’s statement of resignation and I wish her well.

But there are still more questions than answers:

• What were the findings of the governance report?
• When will the government make the report public?
• Is HA capable of executing its monolithic list of tasks?
• Why is there a Ministerial observer on the board of HA?
• Is HA independent of government?
• What is the role of the HA Board going forward?
• Is the HA Board a political stack or is it truly independent?

Given the profligate and reckless spending of Housing Australia, all Australians should be concerned about whether the current organisational structure is fit for purpose.

Labor is spending $60 billion to build bureaucracy, not houses, and their primary bureaucracy has failed.

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