Pork-barrelling will not solve the housing crisis

The use of the Albanese government’s $1.5bn Housing Support Program to sandbag battleground Labor seats with taxpayers’ money is one reason The Australian tends to be sceptical about such schemes. Millions of dollars have been distributed, an analysis by chief political correspondent Geoff Chambers reveals, much of it for uses that will have a negligible impact on the nation’s housing shortage.

The main point of the scheme appears to be political, paving the way for local announcements that will create an impression of action on the nation’s housing crisis, while Labor struggles to pass its Help to Buy shared equity scheme, which would help as many as 10,000 first-time buyers purchase homes.

Out of $50m spent in stream one of the Housing Support Program, more than $36m was directed towards applications in Labor seats and Coalition seats vulnerable to the ALP and teals at the next election. Labor state governments, including in Queensland, which votes on Saturday, were beneficiaries. And seats held or targeted by teals were also a priority, in line with Labor’s push to keep the Liberal Party out of former blue ribbon seats that have fallen to teal independents, such as Warringah in NSW.

Spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to assist local councils in hiring extra bureaucrats, funding local development plans and establishing new planning degrees at universities will create a lot of photo opportunities in the lead-up to the election but it will benefit narrow interest groups in key seats more than those desperate to find affordable housing. If anything, it would be more likely to increase the red and green tape that holds up new developments.

Stream two funding, to be announced in coming months, will be geared to practical action such as the creation of footpaths, roads and parks for new housing estates. Vulnerable Labor seats favoured under the scheme include Reid, Richmond, Robertson, Dobell, Parramatta, Paterson, Barton, Hunter and Eden-Monaro in NSW; Blair in Queensland; McEwen, Cooper and Wills in Melbourne, and Lingiari in the Northern Territory. Almost $2.1m was awarded to three councils in the Coalition seat of Leichhardt in Far North Queensland, where popular LNP member Warren Entsch is retiring. The seat is a prime target for Labor. So is the former Labor Western Sydney seat of Fowler, won by independent Dai Le. The first round of funding also included more than $3m for the Inner West Council in Anthony Albanese’s Sydney seat of Grayndler, for a new geographic information system and precinct master plans for five housing investigation areas.

Instead of paying councils to hire extra bureaucrats to talk about the housing crisis – the 176,000 new homes built across the nation in 2023-24 fell 64,000 dwellings short of housing targets – governments at all levels might find better value in the Business Council of Australia’s recent proposal to accelerate land releases and building approvals. The BCA wants the states to be granted the power to strip low-performing councils of their role in building applications. It is also advocating a report card system to track local councils’ performance on approval processes. Slow responses by too many local government areas that take months to respond to planning applications are a major impediment to developers, builders and potential homebuyers. Past rorting of sports grant programs by Labor and the Coalition, and misuse of regional grants through pork-barrelling by the Nationals, is a well-trodden path for both sides of politics. Transparency and accountability are essential.