We'll build 100,000 well designed homes to rent or buy, available to all.
Private property developers and big banks have created a massive housing crisis. Renters and first home buyers are struggling with record-high house prices and rents.
Queenslanders need more homes but private developers are holding back supply. Private developers make more money when prices and rents are high. Right now rich property developers own more than 99,000 sites for houses and apartments, with Council approvals ready to build.
Meanwhile, there are 43,000 Queenslanders on the social housing waiting list. They have sold off public housing and failed to build enough new social homes. The number of social housing homes per Queenslander has fallen by 10% since Labor came to power.
Both Labor and the LNP would rather let private property developers keep their chokehold over the supply of housing and let house prices and rents keep on rising. The wasteful boom-and-bust cycle created by private developers means regular people pay more, and fewer homes get built.
The Greens would transform the housing system in Queensland, getting the government back in the business of building homes directly, like it used to.
We will create a public property developer to deliver 100,000 well-designed public homes, available to rent or buy at prices Queenslanders can actually afford. Unlike traditional public housing, these homes would be available to all, with doctors living next door to teachers, hospitality workers and cleaners.
The Greens will:
- Create a publicly owned property developer to buy land and fund the construction of well-designed public homes, breaking the private developer chokehold on housing supply, and driving down house prices and rents for everyone.
- Build 100,000 well designed public homes over 6 years by investing $60 billion in construction. These homes would be sold and rented to Queenslanders at prices they can actually afford.
- Save renters $9,000 per year and save first home buyers $225,000 off the purchase price of an average home.
- Grow the construction industry by 30%, by 2031 by creating a steady pipeline of work instead of the developer-driven boom-and-bust cycle.
Clear the social housing waiting list within four years, and make sure the new public homes are available to all Queenslanders to rent or buy.
How the public developer would work
The Queensland Public Developer would manage and fund the construction of 100,000 new public homes over 6 years. The public developer would employ town planners, architects and project managers. It would create new projects and acquire some of the existing 99,000 house and apartments approvals which private developers are refusing to build.
Normally a private developer pockets a big profit, but the public developer would put that profit back in the pockets of renters and first home buyers in the form of lower house prices and rents.
Sustainable, well designed public homes
The 100,000 new public homes would be beautifully designed and well built. Unlike private developers who cut corners to maximise profits at every opportunity, the public developer would be building to a high standard. Homes would have an 8 star energy rating, insulation, high ceilings, large windows that can open, spacious rooms and cross-ventilation. There would be beautiful shared spaces, like shaded rooftop gardens and courtyards too.
Accessible homes
Everyone deserves a home they can stay in for life, so 100% of new public homes would be built to a LHA Silver Level or above under the Liveable Housing Australia Guidelines for universal accessibility. This includes level, step-free access, wider doorways and corridors, and future-proofing to avoid costly retrofits as residents age or accessibility requirements change. A set proportion of homes would be built to Gold and Platinum Levels to help clear the waiting list for social housing for people with disabilities.
Homes to rent or to buy
The Public Developer would offer 70% of the homes to rent and 30% for purchase, at prices people can actually afford.
No corporate profit or overheads
The public developer would not seek out the industry standard 20% profit margin, or pay excessive CEO bonuses, sales commissions and advertising costs.
Favourable planning for public housing
The public developer would benefit from favourable planning treatment. This would allow the State government to identify and acquire land suitable for public homes and upzone that land before its value skyrockets. The public developer would also benefit from exemptions from car parking minimums to facilitate walkable developments close to public transport.
Redefine public housing: homes for all
The 100,000 new public homes would be available to every Queenslander, except those who already own a home.
These would be homes that build community, where a hospitality worker lives next door to a doctor, who lives next door to a bus driver who lives next door to a single parent.
In this way we can create strong, diverse communities of mixed-income households in quality homes. Young people will be able to put down strong roots in their neighbourhood and build the connections with other locals that make Queensland a great place to live. And because all Queenslanders can benefit, we’ll all have an interest in the sustainability and quality of the scheme.
Priority would go to the 25,000 families and households currently on the social housing waiting list, but the remaining 75,000 public homes would be open to any Queenslander. The Greens would completely clear the social housing waiting list within four years.
The allocation of the remaining rented and purchased public homes would be by lottery, but would prioritise those with connections to the local area, for instance those with children enrolled in local schools, those who work in local jobs, or First Nations families.
Eligibility for the roughly 70,000 existing social housing homes in Queensland would remain the same as now. The new universal eligibility for renters and first home buyers would apply only to the 100,000 new public homes.
Savings for renters
Similar to today, rents in the 100,000 new public homes will be capped at the lower of 25% of household income or 70% of market rent. For the rental household this means a saving of $170 per week on rent or $9,000 a year.
As well as direct savings for renters living in public homes, renters in the private market would benefit from lower rents as the public developer boosts housing supply. The Greens are fighting for a rent freeze and guaranteed lease renewals for all renters in Queensland.
Savings for first home buyers
First home buyers would save $225,000 off the purchase price of their first home, and tens of thousands of dollars in interest repayments over the life of their mortgage.
First home buyers in the 100,000 new public homes who later want to move or upsize will be able to sell their homes back into the scheme at the purchase price plus CPI. However they won’t be able to rent out their property or sell it into the private market. This way, these homes contribute to an affordable stock of housing forever.
Developers created the housing crisis
Housing is a basic right, just like healthcare and education. Especially in a housing crisis, the supply of homes cannot be left up to private developers who make bigger profits more house prices and rents go up.
Any time house prices and rents look like stabilising or even declining, private developers stop building. They wait for house prices to grow and hold back supply to make bigger profits.
Right now wealthy private developers are sitting on more than 99,000 sites for houses and apartments, with Council approvals ready to build. They are holding other greenfield and brownfield sites zoned for 580,000 homes.1
Despite the generational housing crisis, instead of building more homes, private developers are delaying and cancelling projects. Commencements of new homes in Queensland are now 34% lower than in 2016, and 27% lower than in 2021.2
The billionaire founder of property development corporation Meriton, Harry Triguboff, laid out this strategy explicitly: “I am holding a lot more than I am selling at the moment, and as the value of property goes up, the value of what I have kept rises.”3
Instead of cracking down on private developer land banking, Queensland Labor is handing out $350 million in cash to developers who own prime sites near transport and services but who have failed to build homes on them.4
A public developer will break the chokehold that private property developers have over housing in Queensland. It will make homes cheaper by cutting out the huge private developer profits, and bypass developer land banking which restricts the supply of homes. Instead of cancelling projects, the public developer will keep building quality public homes.
A reliable pipeline of work to grow the construction industry
A pipeline of guaranteed work will smooth out the wasteful boom and bust cycle driven by private developers.
The boom and bust cycle increases house prices and rents, but it also hurts construction companies. It pushes up the cost of building homes and drives workers out of the industry.
Building firms insolvencies are already the highest in 10 years.5 More than ten Queensland building businesses go broke every week.6
Alongside an expansion of QBuild, a reliable, low-risk pipeline of projects would create good, steady jobs with union protections and safer working conditions.
The Greens’ public developer would grow the residential construction sector by 30% by 2031. That means an additional 11,000 new homes per year above the long-run trend, including both public homes and private homes. Over the first six years of the scheme, Queensland would add 260,000 new homes across the public and private sectors combined.
Labor has failed on social housing
Queensland Labor has allowed social housing to decline. There are 43,000 Queenslanders on the social housing waiting list. They have sold off public housing and failed to build enough new social homes. The number of social housing homes per Queenslander has fallen by 10% since Labor came to power in 2015.7
Funding the public housing build
The public developer would invest $60 billion in construction, land acquisition, maintenance and other operating costs over six years. This investment would be funded by $20 billion in direct State government spending, $20 billion in State borrowing and $21 billion in income from selling and renting public homes at affordable prices.
Government borrowing would be repaid over the life of the 100,000 new public homes from the proceeds of rent and sales.
The direct government spending would be funded by Queensland Greens’ Fair Share Plan to raise mining royalties to 35%. The Greens can deliver this historic investment in public housing, because we are willing to take on big corporations and make them pay their fair share.
Sources:
1 Queensland government, Residential land development indicators as at May 2024.
2 ABS series A83801960X. Dwelling Units Commenced, Queensland fell from 49,078 in 2016, 44,908 in 2021 to just 32,593 in 2023 on an annualised basis.
3 The Australian, 21 December 2021.
4 The “Incentivising Infill Fund” does not guarantee any new homes will be built beyond developers’ existing plans.
5 AFR 2 April 2024 ‘Tsunami’ of headwinds faces builders as collapses surge by a third
6 ASIC Insolvency Statistics
7 The number of community and public housing homes per 10,000 Queenslanders has fallen from 147 per 10,000 residents in 2015 to 134 in 2023.