Labor’s HAFF: Housing Australia Future Fail

Labor’s HAFF: Housing Australia Future Fail

This morning, in an embarrassing interview on ABC’s Radio National, Federal Housing Minister Clare O’Neil belled the cat on Labor breaking their key election promise of building 1.2 million homes by 2029.

The Prime Minister was unequivocal in his 16 August 2023 statement after National Cabinet:

“That’s why National Cabinet has agreed to an ambitious new national target to build 1.2 million new well-located homes over five years, from 1 July 2024.”

Today, the Minister was far more circumspect, instead calling the National Housing Accord a “national aspiration”

The Minister couldn’t even commit to meeting the target, instead she shifted the blame:

“Look,I'm doing every single thing that I can as Housing Minister, federally, to make sure that we meet the target, or get as close to it as we can. The target will depend on lots of different things, Sally. It will depend on what state governments do, it will depend on what interest rates look like.”

The Labor Government promised to build 1.2 million homes by July 1, 2029. If they don’t, they can’t blame it on the States or the RBA. They will have lied to the Australian public.

So how is Labor’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) tracking?

The Housing Minister revealed it had “completed more than 2,000” homes, without providing any more detail.

But detail is important.

At last year’s Senate Estimates, Finance Minister Katy Gallagher revealed the HAFF had built zero homes. Instead, it had “acquired” 340.

Acquiring homes is not building homes. Labor are actually competing with Australians at auctions and making the housing crisis worse.

So has the government built 2,000 homes? Have they bought 2,000 homes?

Nobody knows, including the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Penny Wong, who last sitting fortnight twice couldn’t answer direct questions about how many homes the HAFF had built.

Clare O’Neil also declared this morning that “red tape and regulation” are “holding us back” on construction.

Why then did her government introduce over 1,500 new regulations in the Treasury and Infrastructure portfolios last term?

Labor don’t even agree with their own policies.

Clare O’Neil says Labor have a “$43 billion dollar agenda, mainly focused on building, building, building”

But the results are clear.

Under the previous Coalition Government, Australia was building on average almost 200,000 new homes a year. Under Labor, this has plummeted to barely 170,000.

Labor’s policies are failing.

They are spending more money than ever to build fewer homes.

This is Labor’s housing crisis.

[Ends]

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