The release of the State Government’s own housing figures shows its “Big Housing Build” is a complete furphy.
Despite the government promising 12,000 new public housing residences, the area from Latrobe Valley east has had a net reduction of 37 homes since 2017.
Is it any wonder housing agencies and charities supporting the homeless are finding things more difficult than ever?
To break it down - in 2017 East Gippsland had 933 social housing residences and this year it has dropped to 931 (-2), Wellington has gone from 682 to 679
(-3) and the large Latrobe area has dropped from 2,177 to 2,145 (-32).
Statewide we have seen a net increase of 394, but most of this has been increases in suburban areas and decreases in rural areas.
However, when considering this net increase, the government acknowledges it has spent $3 billion on housing – for a statewide gain of only 394.
The reason is, while more new homes have been built, a large amount of stock has been sold, decommissioned, or demolished by the State Government, making the increase marginal.
It gets worse.
Given a number of the homes that have been sold, decommissioned or demolished were larger and a high percentage of the replacement builds are single bedroom dwellings – we have actually had a reduction in public housing bedrooms.
The 2018 figure was 160,348 bedrooms down to 157,615 now – 2,733 fewer.
It is little wonder wait times have blown out to over 18 months and the waiting list now exceeds 60,000.
Even then, it gets worse.
In this time, the government has introduced a range of new taxes and standards on landlords that have seen many leave the market.
The new State rental minimum standards saw landlords having to spend (in some local cases $10,000 - $15,000) to bring properties up to the new levels.
They also lost the right of veto on tenants having pets or wishing to make minor alterations to properties, like shelves installed on walls.
These increased costs and regulation changes were a tipping point for many who moved to other investment options or shifted their investments interstate.
If they do hold on, they are passing the additional costs on to tenants, making properties less affordable.
When landlords are selling, few are being purchased by those on the waiting list, so this just places more pressure on the public housing sector.
What the government doesn’t seem to realise is that these landlords are not all wealthy. The majority are mum and dad investors who could not absorb these increased costs, or were not happy with the loss of oversight.
The top occupations of people who own rentals include childcare workers, the disability sector, aged care, mechanics, truck drivers, receptionists, sales assistants, teachers, nurses and police officers. Hardly the top end of town.
And it’s about to get even worse again.
On January 1, the tax-free threshold for land tax rates will reduce from $300k to $50k, hitting more rental property owners, mainly rural.
In addition, there will also be an extra sliding fixed annual charge imposed, starting at $500 for landholdings that are valued from $50k to $100k and rising to $3,675 per annum at the top end of the market.
This will only do two things (1) force more landlords to invest elsewhere, or (2) result in increased costs for renters as the impost is passed on.
In summary, the $3 billion spend on the “Big Build” has delivered 35 less public housing homes to Gippsland in six years – delivered 2,733 less public housing bedrooms – and delivered a massively increased waiting list of over 60,000.
At the same time, the government has introduced policy to force landlords from the sector – and it is planning to hit landlords with more taxes in six weeks’ time.
You could not have made a bigger mess of it if you sat down to try.
As more homes get built, the government needs to stop selling off existing public housing to fund it, so when we get a new public housing residence, it is a net gain, not a replacement home for one gone by the wayside.
Monday, 20 November 2023
