Allan government facing voter backlash over housing affordability as Suburban Rail Loop concerns mount

Jacinta Allan is facing voter backlash over Victoria’s widening property shortfall and there are concerns the Suburban Rail Loop is hampering efforts to meet ambitious housing targets.

The state’s spiralling housing crisis could cost the Allan government power, according to a new poll.

The state government is facing an electoral backlash over its handling of the state’s widening property shortfall amid concerns the controversial Suburban Rail Loop is hampering efforts to meet ambitious new targets.

On the eve of the one-year anniversary of the government’s Housing Statement — which committed to building 80,000 new homes a year over the next decade – new polling has revealed that almost 70 per cent of voters believe the ­government is not doing enough to make housing more affordable.

And more than half say the government’s ongoing commitment to the $34.5bn first stage of Suburban Rail Loop is making it harder to address the crisis, with support for the project among Labor voters flailing.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan is facing a backlash on housing. Picture: Andrew Henshaw

It has prompted renewed calls for an immediate slowdown of the project, with the Property Council of Australia calling for funds committed to the project to be diverted to addressing the housing crisis.

The RedBridge poll of 1500 Victorians showed that almost half of Labor voters, 46 per cent, said remaining committed to the rail loop was an impediment to the government’s ability to address housing, while just 25 per cent said the project should be a priority.

Pollsters have warned housing affordability could cause significant problems for the government at the next state election, with almost half of voters saying it was a key election issue when deciding their vote.

Labor’s primary vote has plummeted in recent months, with the polling showing it is now 10 points behind the Coalition, 30 to 40, while the parties are tied on a two-party preferred basis.

Housing affordability could cause significant problems for the government. Picture: Diego Fedele

The latest data, commissioned by the Property Council of Australia, showed 41 per cent of Labor voters felt the government wasn’t doing enough to address housing affordability.

Support among some of its traditional voter base was also lagging, with 65 per cent of those with household incomes of less than $1000 a week, and 70 per cent of Victorians who said their finances cause them a great deal of stress, rating the government’s performance poorly.

And 46 per cent blamed property taxes and charges for unaffordable housing and a lack of supply, while 70 per cent of Victorians were in favour of stamp duty reform.

Property Council of Australia Victorian executive director Cath Evans said the polling reinforced concerns about the capacity of the industry to deliver homes and help the government meet its target of 80,000 new dwellings a year.

“This data underscores the critically urgent need for targeted, time-limited stimulus measures to get the pipeline of homes moving,” Ms Evans said.

The government has pledged to building 80,000 new homes a year over the next decade. Picture: Luis Enrique Ascui

“The industry is facing significant and increasing difficulty getting projects to financially stack up, as investors steer clear of Victoria’s fundamentally uncompetitive property tax regime.”

Ms Evans said while the Property Council had been supportive of the Suburban Rail Loop when it was first announced in 2018, there had been a fundamental shift in the state economy since then.

“The Property Council today calls on the Victorian government to commit to a strategic slowdown of the Suburban Rail Loop and to urgently and fundamentally reassess the delivery time-frame of the project,” she said.

Redbridge co-director and former Liberal Party strategist Tony Barry said cost-of-living pressures and their relationship to housing attainability was now the most influential issue voters were considering.

“The big risk for the government is if it falls into the trap of making ambitious announcements but not following through on delivering outcomes,” he said.

Support for the Suburban Rail Loop among Labor voters is flailing.

“This government will be judged by voters on the number of houses, not on the number of press releases.”

Mr Barry’s co-director Kos Samaras, a former Labor strategist, said the housing ­crisis was a huge electoral challenge.

“If the Victorian Labor government can demonstrate tangible, meaningful action to address this crisis, it could potentially shift public sentiment in their favour. It has a huge mountain to climb to achieve this.”

Despite a plan to build 80,000 a year, new data from the Housing Industry Association shows home approvals in the 12 months to July this year reached just 52,419.

HIA Victorian director Keith Ryan said while the government was speeding up planning approvals, property taxes were a growing burden and building homes on greenfield sites had been “very slow”.

Intrapac Property chief executive Max Shifman said the government was yet to unlock “meat and potatoes” reform to deliver housing at scale and had instead focused on easier projects that deliver a smaller number of new homes.

“We urgently need the government to address the meaty parts of the planning system we are struggling with to get close to their dwelling targets,” he said.

A state government spokeswoman said: “We want more homes for families and young people and the Housing Statement has helped us deliver them – including through fast-tracking home approvals, working with council to clear the backlog, and building thousands of social homes.

“Today, Victoria is number one in Australia for approving homes – and number one in Australia for building them.

“We’re not going to slow down, we’re going to double down – and over the next few months, we’re going to outline new key policy changes to enable even more homes to be built.”

Urban fringe plans ‘a bureaucratic, political go-slow’

The Allan government has been accused of “killing affordable family housing” in Melbourne’s outer suburbs “by stealth” as plans for 45,000 potential homes are delayed for years as thousands of high-rise apartments are built in inner and middle suburbs.

Tens of thousands of potential family homes in Melbourne’s outer southeast, north and northwest are being held up for years by government red tape and under-resourcing, property leaders say.

A report into one precinct in Beveridge North West, which proposes more than 16,000 homes, has been sitting with the planning minister since October 2022. Residential developers have also been waiting years to build 13,190 homes in Clyde South, 12,884 homes in Melton East and 3000 homes in Devon Meadows.

Evolve Development founder and managing director Ashley Williams said the plans to build urban communities on Melbourne’s fringe – known as precinct structure plans – were “definitely a bureaucratic, political go-slow”.

“They’ve put the growth corridor on the go-slow and essentially killed affordable family housing in growth corridors by stealth,” he said.

The Housing Statement, released one year ago, revealed a plan to build 60,000 homes across 10 key “activity centres” across suburban Melbourne.

It also committed to building 70 per cent of new homes in established suburbs and 30 per cent in growth corridors.

The Allan government has been accused of killing affordable family housing in Melbourne’s outer suburbs by stealth. Picture: iStock

Planning Minister Sonya Kilkenny announced 365 new apartments had been fast-tracked at the old Melbourne University site in Liberal leader John Pesutto’s seat of Hawthorn on Tuesday.

She denied that the government was neglecting development in the outer suburbs, claiming all PSPs listed in the Housing Statement were “progressing”.

“We’re supporting all Victorians to have that choice about where they live,” she said.

Latest data from the State Revenue Office shows first-home buyers continue to swarm new housing estates.

Suburbs around Truganina, Mickleham and Clyde were three of the top 10 postcodes for stamp duty concessions given to first-home buyers in the 2022-23 financial year.

There hasn’t been an inner-city suburb in the top 10 for more than a decade.

Terry Talarico and fiancee Monique Chetcuti, who bought a home in Melbourne’s outer north to grow a family, said they would never see themselves living in an apartment.

“I don’t understand why they (government) are wanting to push everyone closer to the city,” Mr Talarico said. “Let the people do their own research and see where they want to live, and show some support for where people want to be.”

Terry Talarico and fiancee Monique Chetcuti bought a home in Melbourne’s outer north. Picture: Wayne Taylor

Mr Williams suggested the state government had a political motivation for its focus on building up and not out.

“The more apartments you build in an area, the more the area shifts towards the left,” he said. “There’s certainly an undercurrent of that with the government’s plan to build so many apartments in established areas.

“Growth corridors tend to lean slightly to the right.”

He said apartments were “two to three times more expensive” to build per square metre than building a house on a block of land in the growth corridor.

UDIA chief executive Linda Allison urged the government to get a wriggle on, saying PSPs were taking longer from start to finish than they did five years ago.

“We’d like to see a greater sense of urgency right along the process around getting these PSPs approved,” she said.