Coalition accuses Labor of ‘sandbagging seats’ with key housing fund

Labor is using a key housing fund to sandbag seats ahead of the next election, the Coalition alleges.

Senator Bridget McKenzie. Picture: NewsWire / Martin Ollman

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The Coalition has accused Labor of using a key housing fund to sandbag seats ahead of the next election as the political contest over home ownership continues to intensify.

Opposition infrastructure spokeswoman Bridget McKenzie on Thursday attacked Labor’s $1.5bn Housing Support program, arguing that its funding for local councils and state governments to improve planning processes would not help resolve Australia’s housing shortage and would simply deliver “more bureaucracy”.

“We’re focused on getting slabs poured, they’re focused on sandbagging seats,” Senator McKenzie said.

The political brawl over housing funding follows analysis by The Australian that found councils in Labor-held seats, or those targeted by the government ahead of the next election, had disproportionately benefited in dollar terms from the first stream of the program.

Peter Dutton similarly criticised Labor’s approach, arguing it was “not helping the housing crisis” and was ultimately “making it worse”.

Infrastructure Minister Catherine King savaged the opposition’s claims as “laughable”, while taking aim at the Coalition’s track record of targeting public funding towards marginal seats.

“We will not be lectured to by the Liberals and Nationals who ran the Sports Rorts program, and the Building Better Regions Fund, which was criticised by the Australian National Audit Office for ignoring guidelines, ignoring the departmental advice, and for pork-barrelling their own seats,” she said.

Ms King defended the first stream of the program, stating that the 80 successful bids totalling nearly $50m were awarded following a competitive, merits-based tender process.

“It is the Albanese government that has cleaned up the system of grants, and responded to the calls for action on housing,” she said.

The second stream of Labor’s program will similarly allocate funding to state, territory and local governments but for community amenity projects, such as playgrounds, sporting facilities and libraries, as well as enabling infrastructure. The same selection processes will apply.

The housing stoush comes after the Coalition unveiled its $5bn greenfield infrastructure plan last week. Labor has heavily criticised the proposal, with Ms King accusing the Coalition of “copying Labor’s policies”.

Senator McKenzie rejected that claim. “It’s not the same. Ours speeds up building homes, theirs is slowing it down through more bureaucracy,” she said. “Stop shovelling money to the states and start getting shovels in the ground.”

By contrast, the Coalition’s plan to fast-track shovel-ready housing projects will exclusively provide funding for enabling infrastructure to local government, state and territory utilities, property developers and special purpose vehicles to support the construction of 500,000 new homes.

Some housing policy experts have criticised that target as overly optimistic.

Greens housing spokesman Max Chandler-Mather was similarly critical of Labor’s Housing Support program, remarking: “The more you look at Labor’s housing scheme, the worse it gets.”

“The biggest losers out of Labor’s smoke and mirrors plan are the millions of renters and first-home buyers giving up on housing security,” he said. “Nothing in this plan will help build genuinely affordable housing.”