New housing alliance to put housing affordability crisis on government agenda

The National Affordable Housing Alliance will seek to recommend policies to reverse the worsening housing affordability, which it claims left unchanged would push more into poverty and homelessness.

Members of the newly formed NAHA include Industry Super Australia, Master Builders, the Australian Council of Trade Unions, Housing Industry Association and the Property Council of Australia.

The Australian Council of Social Service and Homelessness Australia also back the alliance, which claims dire economic and social consequences will occur if private and public sector investment is not made to fix the existing housing stock.

NAHA chair Rod Fehring told The Canberra Times, the systemic issues within the nation's housing market go beyond partisan politics, claiming any new government after the next election will need to find solutions to a problem that has not been addressed in 30 years.

Mr Fehring and NAHA believe all three levels of government need a bipartisan and coordinated response to ensure affordable homes remain in supply, with more investment needed to fund and replenishment public housing.

"Housing is an integral part of Australia's social infrastructure. It's too important to be a political instrument and too important to be commodified," Mr Fehring said.

"Significantly improving people's access to housing that is safe, secure and affordable for the occupants has to be put high on the policy agenda for 2022 and beyond."

NAHA claims policy changes could see nearly 15,000 additional homes a year added to the housing supply and would be crucial stimulus to the economy.

The plea to to overturn existing settings coincides with booming house prices which has been sparked by record low interest rates and government incentive packages such as HomeBuilder.

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Latest inflation data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics revealed surging house prices was the primary reason the consumer price index beat market predictions.

Quarterly CPI rose 1.3 per cent while the annual figure jumped 3.5 per cent year-on-year.

New dwelling prices have skyrocketed in part to a supply constraints during the pandemic within the construction sector.

NAHA outlined recent reviews provided to the Commonwealth outlined more than $290 billion over the next two decades would need to be spent in order to meet the shortfalls in social and affordable housing.

The alliance is also calling for a social and affordable housing future fund with an initial injection of $20 billion to begin closing the funding gap within public housing. It also recommends housing tax offsets for affordable dwelling projects in an attempt to incentivise private investment to look at the segment as more attractive.

Mr Fehring said there is no policies in place to fix the supply-side of the housing market.

He also noted pools of capital from the private sector will be needed to fund social housing projects.

Recent schemes such as HomeBuilder stimulate demand for buying despite no changes to the existing supply.

Mr Fehring also noted home ownership is no longer a prospect for low-income Australians and even renting is becoming harder due to rising prices.

"As property values go up, effectively the yields that are driven by rental return requirements, go up with them," he said. "As a consequence, the the householders ability to be able to meet the rent costs associated with a rising property market gets diminished and they get knocked out of the market. So we've got to address that equation."

According to NAHA, policies need to support more build to rent developments which could assist in affordability within the rental market. It is also urging for changes to state and territory-based planning legislation to prioritise up to 1 per cent of infrastructure contributions and levies to be funnelled into social and affordable housing provisions.

Mr Fehring said better aggregated data is needed to understand the complexities of housing affordability.

"A long-term dataset is critical in ensuring that both transparency and accountability in the delivery of the right types of housing on the right terms in the right locations," he said.