Qld budget 2025: Cairns’ housing request a slam dunk for state government
Cairns Regional Council is requesting the first stage of funding to address the city’s housing crisis in next week’s state budget, but it’s not expecting to receive the full sum - this is why.
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Cairns Regional Council is hoping for the first stage of state funding to address the city’s housing crisis in next week’s budget, a southside councillor says.
Cairns Regional Council will be requesting the first stage of state funding to address the housing crisis in next week’s budget.
The local government’s $450m Securing Cairns’ Housing Foundations plan to open up 3800 new lots in the southern growth corridor seeks $150m each from the state and federal governments, as well as an equal ratepayer contribution.
After a failed federal campaign where only Peter Dutton offered $33.8m towards the request, the council’s attention will now turn toward next week’s state budget.
Division 1 councillor Brett Moller said he does not expect to see the council’s request met in its entirety.
Instead, council will be looking for funding from the statewide $500m Residential Activation Fund.
The fund is a $2bn pool over four years, with $1bn dedicated to regional areas to help deliver trunk infrastructure for new homes.
It’s a certainty to be included in the state budget, with the Premier just last week confirming the government had received 170 applications for $1.79bn worth of projects.
However, the recipients of funding are not expected to be announced until July.
An equal distribution of the $1.79bn of applications would award each recipient about $10.5m, which in Cairns would produce about 89 lots.
Mr Moller said while council had applied for $150m, it was seeking only $23m more immediately, to undertake new planning on trunk infrastructure within the southern growth corridor.
“Our top priority ask is still declaring a priority development area over the Mount Peter area, and this $23m will help with the planning of infrastructure in that area,” he said.
It comes as the council and developers had been sparring in recent months over whose responsibility it was to fund new trunk infrastructure at greenfield development sites.
Mr Moller said he accepted the council’s most immediate request of the state government wouldn’t directly fund new infrastructure, but backed the council’s position of there already being sufficient supply of land.
“There’s been a call to unlock the southern corridor, to provide housing supply. We have, in our priority infrastructure area, sufficient supply,” he said.
Mr Moller said the strategy was to continue being “strong advocates” to have the Mount Peter Area declared as a PDA – which would shift some of the onus of delivering trunk infrastructure on the state government as a stand-alone operational cost, outside of its $2bn Residential Activation Fund.
He said replanning the southern housing zone would create leverage for the council to seek further commitment towards the $450m plan from the state and Commonwealth in the future.
“As we get more detailed in the planning, we ascertain a sharper focus on the costings, and then it’s for our council, state government and federal government to work together on the funding for trunk infrastructure to address housing supply.”
Member for Mulgrave Terry James dismissed concerns from the building sector that creating a new master plan would slow down development in the city.
“I support the council with their PDA (request),” Mr James said. “It’s been protracted by the previous Labor government.
“We’re open for business. I understand that there are some hurdles in the way and our government will look at speeding up the process.”
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Originally published as Qld budget 2025: Cairns’ housing request a slam dunk for state government
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