'Waste may dog' housing stimulus

THE affordable housing stimulus package is likely to be beset by the same problems as the school buildings stimulus program

A SENIOR executive of the taskforce into the federal government's troubled school buildings stimulus program has warned that the $5.6 billion affordable housing stimulus package is likely to be beset by the same problems of poor value and waste.

David Chandler, who was the deputy chairman of the taskforce into the $16.2bn Building the Education Revolution program, said governments lacked the appropriate skills to determine whether they were getting value for money when it came to building infrastructure.

He said to correct the problem, the federal government should immediately implement the key recommendation of the taskforce -- made one year ago in its final report -- that a Productivity Commission review be conducted into the building industry.

"The Australian's coverage forced the review into the costs of school buildings, but no one knows what those affordable housing buildings have cost," Mr Chandler said.

"With the cost of that public housing, there would be some real shocks in there but no one will ever hear about them."

Mr Chandler said while school communities were active in making complaints about value for money, those authorities receiving homes under the Social Housing Initiative had no incentive to make complaints.

Since the handing down of the BER taskforce's report, Mr Chandler has subsequently made submissions to a Victorian parliamentary inquiry into delivering infrastructure.

Mr Chandler said yesterday a key problem identified by the BER taskforce -- and one that remained an issue -- was that governments typically relied on internal procurement procedures and "box-ticking", rather than looking at the actual costs per square metre of buildings being delivered.

That information existed for school buildings only because it was collated by the BER taskforce.

Minister for Housing and Homelessness Brendan O'Connor was unavailable for comment yesterday, but the federal government has previously claimed it was obtaining value for money under the scheme.

Last week, Mr O'Connor announced that the Social Housing Initiative had delivered 17,800 homes across the country, 340 more than originally promised. He said the government expected about 19,700 homes to be completed by the end of the year.