Overview
Mission Australia welcomes this inquiry into regulation that affects housing supply and affordability. We believe that:
- Australia needs dedicated social and affordable housing, not just broad supply: Social and affordable housing should be considered essential infrastructure that provides a necessary foundation to economic and social participation, while promoting improved health and wellbeing outcomes. Recent measures from Federal, State and Territory governments have recognised this challenge and begun to address the shortage of non-market housing by investing in new dedicated supply. We welcome these measures, but much more needs to be done. We advocate that 6 per cent of all housing stock be social and affordable in the medium term, with a further increase in the longer term - ultimately closer to 10 per cent.
- Approvals processes should fast-track social and affordable housing: Mission Australia welcomes reforms from state governments to introduce state-led approvals processes which fast-track the delivery of housing developments with dedicated social and/or affordable housing. The Federal Government must play a leadership role in facilitating and incentivising these reforms, including through the agreed measures in the National Planning Reform Blueprint and through the use of incentive payments to states in recognition of the productivity and competition benefits of increased non-market housing supply. State planning reform should also be encouraged to implement inclusionary zoning provisions, whereby well-located large-scale residential developments are required to allocate a small proportion for much-needed social and affordable housing.
- Reforms should prioritise densification: We supports increased densification in established suburbs in major cities and regional centres – the middle ring – as part of efforts to boost housing supply. This can include measures such as mixed tenure developments in brown- and grey-field sites, subdivisions and secondary dwellings such as granny flats. Under properly managed plans, which include a community change management component, densification of the middle ring can play a significant role in increasing the supply of social and affordable housing.