04 October 2024
Labor to enable the construction of 5,000 new affordable rental dwellings

As part of Labor’s comprehensive housing plan to enable 30,000 more homes for Canberra’s growing population, we will deliver 5,000 additional public, community and affordable rental dwellings in Canberra by the end of 2030.
 
We will increase public and community housing every year and grow the Housing ACT property portfolio to 13,200 homes by the end of 2030.
 
That’s over 1,000 more public housing homes, on top of the existing Growing and Renewing Public Housing Program and the Social Housing Accelerator. The delivery of new public housing will be declared as a major project in the next term of Government if Labor is re-elected.  
 
We will achieve this through a combination of future budget investments and strategic partnerships with Housing Australia (through the Housing Australia Future Fund), superannuation funds, community housing providers and build-to-rent providers.
 
A re-elected Labor Government will partner with larger states like NSW and Queensland to purchase, at scale, modular housing to significantly reduce the time, and cost, to deliver new public housing dwellings. 
 
We will also conduct dedicated annual land releases for public and community housing projects.
 
As part of Labor’s plan, we will also increase the Affordable Housing Project Fund to $100 million, supporting the construction of hundreds of additional affordable rental properties.
 
We support the urgent passage of legislation that will enable the Federal Government’s build-to-rent and help-to-buy schemes to be enacted in the ACT. Both of these programs are being held up in the Senate by the Liberals and the Greens for purely political reasons.
 
On top of continuing the ACT Government’s record investments in homelessness services, ACT Labor will invest an additional $5 million to target chronic homelessness, youth homelessness, older women and those escaping domestic violence.

A re‑elected Labor government will also make 75 public housing properties available for specialist housing and homelessness services, including to Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations, adding to the more than 700 already operated in partnership with community housing providers.
 
As we grow public housing in Canberra, we will improve the maintenance program to be more responsive to tenants needs. Labor has already committed to progressively insource public housing maintenance, and this will continue next term by expanding the multi-unit property insourcing program to 10 properties by 2026.

Statement ends

Media contact:
Kaarin Dynon    0422 772 215   [email protected]