The Tasmanian Liberal Government recognises the real struggles many Tasmanians are experiencing with their housing situation and we are responding with serious action.
The September CoreLogic report states that Australia's "annual growth rate is now tracking at the fastest pace since the year ending June 1989". The plain facts are that record rising house prices are a national and international trend. Clearly Tasmania is not unique in facing rising house prices.
Unlike many other jurisdictions, we are taking action by investing $615 million into the supply of social and affordable housing and homelessness initiatives. This is in addition to the Government’s $30 million annual funding of 17 existing Specialist Homelessness Services including Housing Connect Front Door and Support, crisis shelters, brokered accommodation and supported accommodation.
We are also responding by investing $2 million to develop a comprehensive Tasmanian Housing Strategy. This will investigate all the opportunities available to the State Government to influence the housing market through regulatory systems, strategic land use planning, policies, taxes, subsidies, and capital investment.
Ultimately, increasing housing supply is the only way to combat rising house prices, get Tasmanians off the Housing register and into suitable homes. This is why we are building an extra 2,000 new homes by 2027, on top of the 1,500 already being built over the next three years, bringing the total to 3,500 new homes by 2027 to help our most vulnerable, which includes our record investment to help around 5,000 Tasmanian households out of housing stress or homelessness by 30 June 2023.
Right now there are 538 new homes under construction and we remain on track to build 1500 new public houses by June 2023.
In the last financial year, our Government invested $90.9 million on capital expenditure for housing. In contrast, the last time Labor was in government they managed to invest only $28.9 million, which is one third of what our Government invested last year.
We currently have 1170 units of new social housing, supported accommodation and homeless accommodation projects in the pipeline of works. These are projects where land is secured and we have progressed project milestones.
Labor’s lazy unbudgeted announcement on housing during the election suggested they would deliver the same number of new homes as our Government, for $80 million less. Tasmanians won’t be fooled and Labor is yet to explain this enormous gap in this fantasy policy.
Unlike Labor, we are building more than empty promises. In 2020-21, 99.7 per cent of Housing’s capital budget was spent. This means almost every dollar committed has translated to real world action to assist those facing housing stress.