Tasmania's housing debt write-down has unleashed a queue of other states asking for the same treatment, even as federal Housing Minister Michael Sukkar talked up the island state's "unique challenges" around housing affordability that led to the $157.6 million waiver.

Western Australia, which has the second-largest housing debt to the Commonwealth of $343 million, said the federal government had "walked away" from its historic responsibility of funding remote Aboriginal communities and should forgive a debt that would cost the state $18.2 million in interest and $17 million in principal repayments this year alone.