Revamp of ineffective social housing list could lift building pipeline

The Queensland government will review its ballooning social housing register to prioritise support and potentially boost its planned construction pipeline, after an audit office report found a poorly managed system and plans that were unlikely to meet demand driven by cost-of-living pressures.

The state’s peak social services body said the report from Auditor-General Brendan Worrall, which has made eight recommendations to overhaul the system, showed it was “not fit for purpose”, while the opposition has urged the government to free up more land.

Speaking ahead of the report’s release, Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch pledged to “absolutely” act on any findings.Credit: Michelle Smith

Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch welcomed the report, saying it had come at “exactly the right time” amid an increasingly competitive private rental market, with further cost-of-living and housing pressures ahead.

“That housing register has to be really accurate so we can look at ... what is the need,” she told reporters on Tuesday morning. “If that requires us to move our targets ... for new builds of social and affordable housing, that’s the data that we need to be able to make an accurate decision.”

Enoch also heaped blame on the former federal government for cutting funds for housing and homelessness services, saying she was looking forward to meeting with her state and federal counterparts at a meeting in Melbourne on Friday.

“The [Labor] federal government made an election commitment to establish a $10 billion housing investment fund to see 30,000 new social and affordable homes built across the country,” Enoch said. “I’m looking forward to making sure Queensland gets its fair share in that.”

The Queensland Audit Office found the social housing register, which featured 30,922 households as of March, had grown by 78 per cent in four years, and current processes to manage it were “not effective”.

It found average annual growth could take the number of applicants to almost 48,000 by 2025 unless the Department of Communities and Housing updated the register to include only those able to be contacted by the department and deemed in “very high need” of housing.

Only those in the “very high need” category, comprising 75 per cent of the list and including homeless people or those with domestic violence situations threatening their safety, had been added since 2019, despite no clear communication from the department that assessments be tightened.

A total of 61 per cent of households on the register were both in this category and able to be contacted by the department through work started in May last year. Ten per cent of applications were inactive.

Others were deemed to have lower needs that could potentially be met by other services, such as government bond loans, rental grants and head leases, or were unable to be contacted.

The department was also found to have no forecasts of how the register may grow in coming years, amid compounding factors such as rising interest rates, interstate migration and the 2032 Olympics.

The average applicant spent two years on the register, though some had remained for up to 25 years. Some applications were missing priority flags, and about 15 per cent of government-managed dwellings were also found to be under-occupied.

The report noted that the current construction pipeline of 6365 new social housing dwellings by 2025, expected to take the total stock to almost 85,000, would not meet demand.

“To help Queenslanders in housing need, the department will need to build additional dwellings and/or expand its use of other products and services,” the report said. “The department needs to take a multi-faceted approach to growing housing pressure.”

LNP housing spokesman Tim Mander said the state had not built enough homes to keep pace with the surging population, and he urged the government to release more land for social housing.

Rising interest rates are expected to put further pressure on homeowners, investors and, as a result, renters. The government has been repeatedly criticised for its plan to build only a portion of the properties needed to meet demand.

Aimee McVeigh, chief executive of the Queensland Council of Social Services, said the housing register alone also did not tell the full story of those suffering housing stress.

“This is an independent report which clearly demonstrates that the current approach is not fit for purpose,” she said.

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