The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council released its State of the Housing System 2024 report on Friday, May 3.
The report acknowledged that Australia was in a “longstanding” housing crisis, that “housing affordability worsened in 2023, from already challenging levels”, and that the worsening was “widespread”.
The report also went into detail about the reasons for the housing crisis, and identified areas of focus to improve housing system outcomes.
The 10 areas of focus for improving housing system outcomes included:
- Investing in social housing
- Reducing homelessness
- Improving rental market outcomes for tenants
- Improving efficiency in the land use and planning systems
- Boosting capacity in the construction sector
- Improving data availability
- Addressing regional-specific housing challenges
- Enhancing First Nations housing outcomes
- Reviewing the suitability of the national housing target
- Ensuring Australia’s taxation system supports supply and affordability
Regional Cities Victoria wanted to see the report mention reforms to address a lack of enabling infrastructure as a critical element to one of the 10 areas that would increase housing supply.
RCV chair Shane Sali said RCV wanted to make it quicker, easier and cheaper for people to build their homes in regional Victoria.
“We’ve got the space to grow, but the need for utilities for these areas — such as new water pipes or bigger sewage plants — is stopping development,” he said.
“Local governments are keen to play their role in unlocking land supply — it means more homes and more jobs for our regions — but the lack of pipes and water is holding back local businesses and making the housing crisis worse.”
RCV’s submissions to federal and state budgets this year called on governments to fund enabling or trunk infrastructure to help unlock more land for housing.
To meet the Victorian Government’s housing statement targets, more than 40 houses must be built every day for the next 10 years.
Although RCV has acknowledged and welcomed the Federal Government’s $500 million Housing Support Fund announced in March, it had called for the Victorian Government to match that with a new $250 million fund for new houses across regional Victoria, using proceeds from the government’s windfall gains tax.
RCV suggested that developers help pay for this, but water and sewerage infrastructure cannot be included in developer contributions plans in Victoria, and no commitment has been made to revise eligibility requirements.
2°C