Introduction by Croakey: The housing crisis is a critical election issue that is drawing massive public, media and political attention, as the ABC Leaders Debate underscored last night.
And yet the policies put forward by the major parties are not only inadequate – in the case of the Coalition’s plans, they may exacerbate the crisis, reports Alison Barrett below.
Her report also gives an overview of calls to action for the next Federal Government on key social determinants of health.
Alison Barrett writes:
Social service and housing reform advocates warn the housing policies announced by both major parties “fall well short” and may make the housing crisis and inequalities worse.
Michael Livingstone, Acting CEO at Jesuit Social Services, told Croakey the housing policies “fail to tackle the roots of the housing crisis we are in the midst of – and some may worsen it”.
While Labor’s $10 billion commitment to increased housing supply for first homebuyers, including social and affordable housing, was welcome, he noted “we don’t have further details around this”.
As well, he would like to see “more ambitious policies that will make a difference to marginalised people and communities, including those Jesuit Social Services work with”.
And on the Coalition’s policy of allowing first homebuyers of new properties to deduct mortgage interest payments from their taxable income, Livingstone said this “will ultimately increase demand for housing”, increase housing prices and make it harder for first homebuyers to get their foot in the door.
The Australian Council of Social Service also criticised the Coalition’s proposal.
“This policy will likely inflate home prices and increase household debt. It will worsen inequality, providing greater benefit to people on higher incomes while doing little to help people on low and modest incomes who are locked out of the housing market,” said Dr Cassandra Goldie, ACOSS CEO.
Housing policy experts Professor Hal Pawson from University of New South Wales, Brendan Coates from the Grattan Institute, and Dr Nick Garvin, research manager at e61 Institute, told the ABC that the Coalition’s housing policy proposals – including allowing people to use up to $50,000 of their super to buy a home – “will have the greatest benefit for higher income earners”.
Everybody’s Home spokesperson Maiy Azize reiterated concerns about the Coalition’s proposal, saying it will allow mortgage payments to be tax deductible for first home buyers – “a form of negative gearing for non-investors”.
“To make housing more affordable, we need to get rid of tax breaks when it comes to property, not create more,” she said.
Azize said that while Labor’s proposal to build 100,000 homes is a good step, the proposal will also add to demand and there is no guarantee they will be affordable.
“To turn the housing crisis around, the next Federal Government must invest significantly in building more social housing [and] low-cost rentals that are guaranteed to be affordable and won’t drive up demand and house prices,” she said.
Azize also raised concerns about the Coalition’s plans to abolish the $10 billion Housing Australian Future Fund.
This will “rob tens of thousands of Australians the opportunity of a safe, decent, affordable home. Without these homes, people who have nowhere to go will be trapped in homelessness”, she said.
Everybody’s Home is tracking the election commitments made by Labor Party, Coalition and the Greens on housing.
Silences
As cost of living and housing policies dominate public, political and media discourse this Federal election campaign, silence surrounds the causes for the housing and cost of living crises.
“While it is understandable that cost of living pressures dominate our national conversation, we must look more deeply at the root causes of social and economic disadvantage in our communities,” Jesuit Social Services wrote in its 2025 Federal election platform.
As Croakey reported last year, the focus on ‘cost of living crisis’ also does not address equity, and instead should be framed as ‘inequality crisis’.
In focusing on the big-ticket housing items, “measures to tackle homelessness in Australia have been conspicuously absent from the election campaign”, according to Professor Cameron Parsell and Honorary Professor Karyn Walsh in The Conversation.
Croakey notes this seems a significant misstep, given the number of people experiencing homelessness is above pre-pandemic levels.
On Census night 2021, the Australian Bureau of Statistics estimated that approximately 122,000 people were experiencing homelessness.
According to the Australian Homelessness Monitor 2024, more than three-quarters of homelessness service providers and nearly two-thirds of local government authorities reported homelessness significantly increasing since 2019-20.
“In Australia we achieved significant success for a short time during the COVID pandemic when many people sleeping rough were accommodated. It can be done again,” Parsell and Walsh write.
Also missing from many discussions is the link between climate change and housing, and the need for housing to be sustainable and climate resilient.
Leanne Minshull, Strategy Director at The Australia Institute, said at a webinar this week, that their polling indicates young people (18 to 24-year-olds) are “worried about the climate because as much as they want to own a house, there’s no point owning a house if it’s going to burn down or get flooded”.
A report released this week by the Climate Council shows that one in 23 properties across Australia is at high climate risk, “due to extreme weather, fuelled by climate pollution from coal, oil and gas”.
Equitable reform
The Jesuit Social Services ‘Federal Election Platform highlights access to safe and secure housing as one of the most critical foundations needed for people to thrive, Livingstone told Croakey.
“One of our key asks of the incoming Government is to deliver a legislated National Housing and Homelessness Plan that includes a minimum target of 10 percent social housing in all states and territories by 2036,” he said.
“As part of this, there should be a national target of 15,000 tenancies with support for young people, as outlined by the Home Time campaign.”
“Our political leaders must commit to equitable reform that will enable all Australians to flourish,” he said.
This should include targeted funding for state and territory governments to deliver specialised housing support to people with multiple and complex needs, whose needs aren’t being met through existing social housing systems.
“Stable housing makes it much more likely that people facing interconnected challenges can access the services that support them to make progress in other areas of their life,” Livingstone said.
Early intervention and prevention
In addition to calls for more targeted and equitable housing reform, this election, Jesuit Social Services urges the next Federal Government to fully implement, through Commonwealth Government funding, the National Children’s Commissioner’s 2024 report, ‘Help way earlier! – How Australian can transform child justice to improve safety and wellbeing’, including appointment of a Cabinet Minister for Children.
“A focus on children within Cabinet would…provide an opportunity to consider…critical issues from the perspective of their disproportionate impact on children and young people – including poverty, inequality and cost of living, the housing crisis and climate change,” says Jesuit Social Services.
Their election platform has a strong focus on children, including calling for additional funding through the Second National Action Plan for implementation of online interventions that prevent child sexual abuse legislation and legislation for technology companies to ensure children’s safety online.
Jesuit Social Services calls for the establishment of a First Nations Self-determination and Strengthening Fund for Aboriginal Community Controlled Organisations (ACCOs) to enable smaller or emerging ACCOs to build their capacity in partnership with established organisations of their choosing.
They also recommend the next Federal Government:
- Expand the Disaster Ready Fund with a dedicated stream for the community sector to strengthen disaster resilience in vulnerable communities
- Commit to long-term funding for community-led Justice Reinvestment sites as part of the National Justice Reinvestment Program
- Ensure National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reforms enable equitable outcomes for all participants.
“By addressing these underlying problems through prevention and early intervention, we can transform individual lives, break cycles of disadvantage and abuse, and create lasting social and economic benefits for all Australians,” they write.
Priorities for a fairer future
ACOSS urges the next Federal government to raise all income support payments to at least the Pension rate of $82 a day – currently, JobSeeker is $56 a day.
“Keeping people in poverty is a policy choice. This is not a complex reform – raising the rate is one of the most effective and immediate things the next government can do to address the cost-of-living crisis for people on the lowest incomes who most need support,” ACOSS recently wrote on LinkedIn.
ACOSS is also calling for more investment in labour market programs, including wage subsidies and VET places, and tax reform to raise the public revenue for a “fairer future”.
“If we invest what’s needed to fund essential services and income support, transition to a net zero economy and increase the supply of social and affordable housing, we can create a more equitable society,” ACOSS write.
ACOSS supports the calls of First Nations-led organisations to deliver the funding and resourcing needed to implement Priority Reforms under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, including through shared decision-making models.
It also supports a process of truth-telling and treaties with First Nations peoples, “as essential steps towards justice and self-determination”.
Invest in social housing
In its 2025 election platform, ACOSS also call for significant investment in social housing to meet need, with a clear pathway to social housing comprising 10 percent of all housing stock.
Low levels of social housing, combined with rent and cost of living increases and domestic and family violence are driving Australia’s high rate of people experiencing homelessness, according to ACOSS. They call for federal investment in homelessness services to ensure they can meet demand.
ACOSS also calls for reforms to halve the capital gains tax discount for investment properties phased in over five years and limit negative gearing deductions to income from the same asset class for all new investment properties.
As First Nations people are disproportionately affected by the housing crisis, ACOSS is urging the next government to work with First Nations communities and organisations to develop and resource a First Nations led national Housing and Homelessness Plan.
Acknowledging the link between climate change and housing security, ACOSS calls on the next Federal Government to fund home energy upgrades for all low-income and First Nations housing – public, community, private renters and homeowners – to “ensure homes are more affordable to heat and cool, making them cheaper to run, healthier to live in, and better for the environment”.
In addition, ACOSS urges the Federal Government to reduce emissions to net zero by 2035 and amend the Climate Change Act to ensure people and communities experiencing disadvantage benefit from the transition to a clean energy.
Addressing the homelessness emergency
“Australia’s homelessness emergency needs to be a first-order priority,” Homelessness Australia write in its 2025 election platform.
The national peak body for homelessness in Australia says that “Australia’s broader housing crisis has created a national homelessness emergency. We are seeing the worst homelessness numbers in our lifetimes – and one of the highest rates of homelessness across the OECD”.
Homelessness Australia calls for the next Federal Government to increase investment in homelessness services by $670 million per year, drive a sustained increase in social housing towards a target of 10 percent of housing stock and boost key social protections that prevent homelessness, including increasing the rate of income support.
It also calls for:
- Establishment of a Homelessness Prevention Transformation Fund
- Creation of a national plan to prevent child and youth homelessness
- Establishment of a national tenancy sustainment program for people with more complex needs
- Expansion of proven models of housing with support for young people
- Development and resourcing of a First Nations led National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
- Full inclusion for people with disability.
People with Disability Australia – the national cross-disability rights and advocacy organisation – calls on all political parties and candidates to commit to seven key priorities to “advance disability rights and ensure the full economic and social inclusion of Australians with disability”.
These are:
- Invest in the National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS)
- Fund nationally consistent foundational supports – disability-specific supports available to all people with disability and where appropriate, their families and carers, such as aids and equipment or home care
- Raise the rate of JobSeeker and the Disability Support Pension “to above the poverty line”, as well as increase Commonwealth Rent Assistance
- Make housing accessible by mandating the “liveable housing design silver standard” in the National Construction Code across all jurisdictions
- Ensure disability representation in Federal Government, including a Minister for Disability Inclusion in Federal Cabinet
- Protect disability rights through a Human Rights Act and improvements to the Disability Discrimination Act
- Support diversity in the public sector.
The upcoming election is a critical moment to secure long-overdue commitments to economic security, human rights and full inclusion for people with disability, PWDA write in its election platform.
“Recent government responses to key disability reform processes – the Disability Royal Commission and the NDIS Review – have failed to meet the disability community’s expectations.”
First Peoples Disability Network reiterates calls for all parties to commit to implementing the recommendations of the Disability Royal Commission, in particular Recommendation 9.1, to support the establishment of a First Nations Disability Forum to lead further development and implementation of the Disability Sector Strengthening Plan (DSSP).
The network is urging all parties to commit to nine actions which aim to create genuine systemic change First Nations people with disability.
“One critical measure of a civil society is how the rights of those who experience discrimination are protected…. By any measure First Nations people with disability are amongst the most disadvantaged of all Australians yet their voices remain unheard throughout this election campaign,” said Damian Griffis, CEO of First Peoples Disability Network.
First Peoples Disability Network (FPDN) recommends:
- Long-term investment in FPDN, through five-year secure funding.
- Reform the NDIS for First Nations people, to ensure fair access, funding equity, cultural safety, and co-design while investing in community-led education about NDIS rights.
- Jobs for Mob with disability and remote workforce, with targets embedded across the Australian Public Service. The First Nations Disability Forum and parties to the Disability Sector Strengthening Plan (DSSP) should collaborate to develop a strategy for First Nations local workforces in remote communities.
- First Nations Disability Strategy, to be developed in alignment with First Nations perspectives and implementation of Australia’s Disability Strategy and the Closing the Gap Agreement.
- Closing the Gap on disability. Support and funding for the National Agreement on Closing the Gap, ensuring sector strengthening plans receive ongoing funding. Disability as a cross-cutting outcome requires additional and long-term investment to begin to make a difference in the lives of mob with disabilities.
- Full implementation of the Disability Royal Commission Recommendations, in particular Recommendation 9.10 First Nations Disability Forum, in full.
- Create a dedicated, resourced, targeted advocacy stream under National Disability Advocacy Program for First Nations people with disability.
- The Commonwealth must lead national policy reform for Indigenous people with disability in prison. FPDN calls for the end of profit-driven private prisons and call for public accountability under human rights frameworks.
- Support FPDN as Global Convenor – Australia must show global leadership in Indigenous disability rights by resourcing FPDN to lead the Global Network of Indigenous Peoples with Disability.
Election platforms and further reading
- Australian Council of Social Service
- Jesuit Social Services
- Homelessness Australia
- People with Disability Australia
See Croakey’s extensive archive of articles on housing as a determinant of health
