Deputy Premier announces Homes for Queenslanders plan benefits for Townsville
The Deputy Premier has crunched the numbers. But can the North Queensland construction industry adapt to an “ambitious” $3b housing plan?
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The Deputy Premier and Treasurer said it would be challenging for the North Queensland construction industry to keep up with “ambitious” plans to resolve the housing crisis.
Treasurer Cameron Dick would not downplay the difficulties for contractors and Queensland Government entity QBuild even as he promoted a multi-tiered $3.1b housing strategy while visiting Townsville.
“I’m not going to gild the lily, I’m going to be absolutely fair dinkum about that,” Mr Dick said.
“It is a challenging construction market but when you have a plan over a period that’s properly funded, that gives confidence to the construction industry.”
Last week at a Townsville construction site designed for 40 units for vulnerable youth, Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon was told of the challenges that QBuild had adapted to the project across 18 months, including extreme weather conditions such as TC Kirrily.
And at a local government level Townsville City Council’s budget faced a $59m budget discrepancy as big-ticket infrastructure such as the Lansdown Eco-Industrial Precinct was pushed to the next financial year, due to supply chain issues and unavailability of contractors.
But the State Goverment was determined with its plan to increase home ownership, tackle homelessness, and deliver 53,500 new social homes by 2046.
“The number of homes we will build will vary from year to year, it’s a very tight constrained market at the moment,” Mr Dick said.
“But we’re seeing some loosening up of that market now the Federal Government’s home builder program, which was initiated during the Covid pandemic to support construction … now that’s coming to an end.”
Townsville is also expecting an additional 500 Australian Defence Force personnel in a major restructure starting from next year as well as a jobs boom driven by renewable energy.
Mr Dick said the Federal Government needed to do more to develop housing for defence personnel and to alleviate the local housing market, but he also considered population growth to be a good thing.
“It’s good for the economy, it’s good for the region, but we need to make sure we do that in a balanced thoughtful way for the future,” he said.
The government would also copy a ground lease scheme already used in Victoria to pass on its excess land to developers to use, on the agreement that it would eventually be given back for social housing.
But it could take decades for the housing to be returned to social housing.
“As part of that, we’ll look at what the terms of that lease will be, what the developer is required to do to ensure those houses are returned in an appropriate state back to the state,” Mr Dick said.
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