Hitting Home: Premier faces pressure to hold summit on housing crunch

The Courier-Mail’s new series Hitting Home reveals the Premier is under pressure to hold an emergency summit to solve Queensland’s housing crisis.

Annastacia Palaszczuk is facing calls to convene an emergency summit to tackle Queensland’s housing crunch amid startling warnings of an interstate migration boom to put even more pressure on the crisis.

As families take refuge in camp sites, tradies shelter in their utes and desperate renters are forced to make over 100 applications to find a home, advocates are calling on the Premier to show “genuine leadership” and personally take charge.

HITTING HOME - QLD’S HOUSING AND RENTAL CRISIS

‘Sitting ducks’: Faces of Queensland’s housing crunch

Act now: Housing crisis puts Qld families at breaking point

The Queensland Council of Social Service is warning more displaced families will have to turn to cars and hotel rooms, while St Vinnies says it now has to distribute tents as emergency accommodation.

The Courier-Mail on Wednesday launches a series highlighting calls and support for a summit that would bring together stakeholders with key state government decision makers to take on the housing crisis.

Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk is facing pressure to hold a summit on Queensland’s housing crisis. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

It comes as the Property Council of Australia releases the findings of a new survey, which suggests up to 220,000 people from Melbourne and Sydney could make the move to Queensland in the next five years.

Queensland executive director of the Property Council, Jen Williams, said the research showed there were potentially many more interstate migrants to come following the huge influx during the pandemic.

The research involved 1,000 people from Melbourne and Sydney, and was conducted between January and March this year.

Ms Williams warned that Queensland was at the “precipice” when it comes to housing, and said bold decisions needed to be made right now.

“What this means is we need a plan to prepare, not only to protect our enviable lifestyle, but also ensure we have the infrastructure and housing supply to support the population growth, so that we can all enjoy the best of Queensland,” she said.

“The time is right to bring together experts across industry, government and community sectors, to kickstart a bold reform agenda that will turbocharge the delivery of new housing across the state.”

The Property Council will release a new position paper on Thursday, calling for a state government-convened summit to build consensus on the solutions needed to fix the housing crisis.

They want an expansion of catalytic infrastructure funding programs, incentives to stimulate the build-to-rent sector, and systemic changes to planning processes to accelerate approval times.

Q Shelter – a peak body for the housing and homelessness sector – wants a summit as well, saying it should engage all key stakeholders, identify actions and implement solutions.

The organisation’s executive director, Fiona Caniglia, said the scale of the challenge was big enough to warrant the attention of the Premier or the Deputy Premier.

“A Queensland housing summit will bring together private sector, not-for-profit sector, and government sector, stakeholders and leaders to really examine every possible lever and initiative that can be implemented now and also into the future,” she said.

Q Shelter wants an agency set up within the state government – ran by a senior minister – that would co-ordinate the efforts of the existing Housing Department as well as other departments that focus on housing, such as Treasury.

Ms Caniglia said Q Shelter was helping households that were submitting dozens and, in some cases, more than 100 applications for a private rental.

“These are people who are able to live independently,” she said.

“In many instances, they have enough income. They simply cannot rise to the top in terms of being allocated a private rental home.”

Queensland Council of Social Service (QCOSS) chief executive Aimee McVeigh said the state was in the grips of a housing crisis that was getting worse year in, year out.

She said a lot of people experiencing housing insecurity were not even eligible for social housing – pointing to a recent visit to Gympie where a QCOSS worker told her about working tradies living in their utes at the park.

“I think one of the most alarming things is that the biggest reason that people approach specialist homelessness services is domestic and family violence,” Ms McVeigh said.

“It is extremely troubling to think that you have women leaving dangerous and abusive situations to live in the car with their children.

“And we will see more and more of that – more and more families and young children living in cars, tents and hotel rooms.”

Ms McVeigh said QCOSS would back a summit if it was a “whole-of-government” effort that went beyond Housing Minister Leeanne Enoch.

“This crisis is of a nature that cannot be solved by one minister with her department,” she said.

“We would support a housing summit if the Premier is there, we need Treasury there, we need State Development (Department) there, and we need Housing (Department) there.

“We need genuine leadership from the Premier responding to this issue.”

Local Government Association of Queensland chief executive Alison Smith said a state government-convened housing summit would be a “good start”.

“However, our members have called for a national summit due to the complexity of the issue and of the stakeholders concerned,” she said.

“Solutions will involve multiple stakeholders nationally and a national summit would map out the decisions and next steps that need to be taken.”

The local government body has put forward a raft of proposals to address the crisis, including expanding the first homeowners’ grant to existing homes, refurbishments, and renovations.

They also want to look at ways to address abandoned, unused, and vacant properties in a bid to boost housing stock.

Real Estate Institute of Queensland chief executive Antonia Mercorella.

Real Estate Institute of Queensland chief executive Antonia Mercorella said there was no doubt the very high level of interstate migration in recent years had lengthened the queue for rental properties.

She said holding a housing summit would make “good sense”, saying they would want all levels of government to be at the table and for it to be a bipartisan effort.

“We need some innovative thinking,” she said.

“We need to start thinking out of the box about who we are going to bring to that table. We do need to bring people that traditionally we wouldn’t be bringing to the table.”

Ms Mercorella said more needed to be done to encourage investment in Queensland – arguing the state government had done the exact opposite in recent years.

St Vinnies says it has resorted to handing out tents for emergency accommodation at a range of locations across the state, including Toowoomba, Roma and Warwick.

The advocacy group reported an increase in displaced Queenslanders living on the streets and have also handed out tents in Noosa on the Sunshine Coast.

The charity’s chief executive, Kevin Mercer, said families were paying between $300 and $350 a week for a campsite.

He said dire housing availability was not exclusively impacting Queenslanders who were unemployed, which was being reported at alarming rates across the state’s north and central regions as well as the Sunshine Coast, Gold Coast and Brisbane.

“It’s working people who have been displaced out of their homes because they can’t afford the rent increase or the landlord sold the property,” he said.

Mr Mercer said he “absolutely” supported calls for the Palaszczuk government to host a housing summit.

He implored for the summit to be an effective forum to be “solution and action orientated”, including all levels of government and various services and advocacy providers.

“The whole system needs to be around the table,” he said.

Micah Projects chief executive Karyn Walsh. Picture: Steve Pohlner

Micah Projects chief executive Karyn Walsh also threw her support behind a housing summit, which she said would streamline action plans and solutions offered by service providers.

She says advocacy groups were constantly frustrated by the rejection of ideas by government, who she said seem to “get stuck” with various concepts floated.

Ms Walsh said it was critical the government kicked into gear and urgently began construction on speciality housing for the most vulnerable.

“I don’t hear the sense of urgency about that in terms of the scale that we need,” she said.

“Definitely the state government should identify land so that some real projects could begin to be planned and delivered in the next five years.

“We’ve got to start.”

Originally published as Hitting Home: Premier faces pressure to hold summit on housing crunch