This is insane.........the scheme was rorted and dodgy dogboxes built to flog to international students when immigration was then increased and foreign property buying rules changed to the economy wheels turning...
Developers could bypass councils and get approval in 6 weeks from NSW planning and it was a 50/50 split...
Government to axe $9 billion housing affordability scheme
at 9:41 am on February 10, 2017 | 11 comments
By Leith van Onselen
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/02/government-axe-9-billion-housing-affordability-scheme/
It’s official. After months of speculation, the Turnbull Government will axe the National Housing Affordability Agreement (NHAG) in the upcoming Budget. From The Australian:
The $9 billion National Housing Affordability Agreement is set to be axed in the May budget following a report revealing that the states and territories had failed to meet almost every benchmark set by the federal government since it began in 2009.
Figures obtained by The Australian revealed that the Rudd government scheme, with a price tag of almost $1.5bn a year in grants to the states, had not delivered any measurable improvement in the provision of affordable housing.
Despite pledges to increase the supply of social housing, the 2017 Report on Government Services (ROGS) shows that public housing stock, instead of increasing as committed, had been falling since 2009, going backwards by 16,000 homes.
Even the transfer of public housing stock to subsidised social housing had also failed to meet any targets to increase the supply of affordable housing.
Furthermore, 20 per cent of that existing stock was now considered to be in an unacceptable state while 8 per cent was uninhabitable…
In principle, I have no objection to the Government providing subsidised rental accommodation (although freeing-up the supply-side of the housing market would likely ameliorate some of the pressures)
In fact, given Australia’s busted rental market – whereby insecure one-year rental terms are commonplace – there is scope to provide longer-term leases that provide renters with greater security of tenure.
That said, if NHAG is not delivering as promised, then it should rightfully be cancelled and replaced with something else.
So what is going to replace NHAG? Well, Treasurer Scott Morrison has already given strong indications that the Government will implement a government-backed bond aggregator scheme that would facilitate investment from the private sector into the rental housing market. Here’s how such a model would work:
“The establishment of a housing bond aggregator would require the establishment of a specialist financing intermediary, whose function would be to liaise with affordable housing providers to determine the amount of debt they are seeking to raise.
The intermediary, or entity acting on its behalf, would then source these funds in aggregate from wholesale markets by issuing bonds to investors.
The funds generated would then be loaned to the relevant housing providers in return for ongoing interest payments”…
Scott Morrison’s recent taxpayer junket to London was aimed, in part, to learn from Londoners about such a scheme. However, it has had mixed success.
Still, it’s worth giving it a crack.