Queensland Greens announce universal social housing plan

2017-08-31

The Queensland Greens have today announced their plan to establish a universal housing scheme for Queensland, building 1 million affordable homes by 2050. 

The Greens will establish a Queensland Housing Trust that will build 200,000 affordable homes in the first 10 years and one million homes by 2050.

“Just like healthcare or education, everyone should be guaranteed a home. We will create the medicare of the 21st century and change millions of people’s lives for the better,” says Amy MacMahon, greens candidate for South Brisbane.

“We would never accept the state government turning hundreds of thousands of children away from schools, or people from hospitals, because we hadn’t invested enough in public education or healthcare.”

“The private housing market has failed. 20,000 of us are homeless, over 29,000 are on the waiting list for social housing, one in five are struggling to pay the rent or mortgage while an entire generation can't afford to buy a home”. 

“Within three years, our plan will eliminate the social housing waiting list and all homelessness, that is the result of a lack of affordable homes.”

“Over the first 10 years, half the homes will be allocated to those waiting for social housing, while the other half will be universally available to anyone that applies.”

“This plan may seem radical but in countries like Austria and the Netherlands virtually everyone has access to high quality, well designed social housing.”

“The private market often builds shoddy, badly built concrete box apartments. The Queensland Housing Trust will be directed to build high quality, sustainable, medium density dwellings.”

“This plan will see an investment of $60 billion over the first 10 years, with $10 billion seed funding from the extra mining royalty revenue announced in our Fair Share plan.”

“We’ll create 16,000 jobs a year and ensure everyone has a comfortable home they can be proud of.”

By 2050 the Queensland Housing Trust will be earning an extra $4 billion a year while also funding further construction entirely through rental revenue.

"We will eliminate any ongoing eligibility checks and give every person a right to their home for life”.

More at: greens.org.au/qld/homeforall

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