The Accord's initial target of one million new well-located homes over five years from 2024 was updated at National Cabinet in August 2023 to 1.2 million homes. (Although to be fair, it looks like we won't hit it [1]).

The Accord was created in response to the housing crisis - with scary numbers like a national rental vacancy rate of 0.9%, and advertised rents 10.2% higher in capital cities and 9.7% higher in regional areas over the 12 months to September 2022. The residential building industry was facing capacity constraints with building activity expected to decline from recent peaks.

The Commonwealth committed $350 million over five years from 2024-25 to deliver 10,000 affordable homes, with states and territories matching this for another 10,000 homes. These 20,000 affordable dwellings are allocated across jurisdictions: NSW (3,100), Victoria (2,546), Queensland (2,049), Western Australia (1,076), South Australia (700), Tasmania (220), Northern Territory (96), and ACT (175).

Key commitments under the Accord:

Commonwealth:

• $3.5 billion in payments to state, territory and local governments

• Availability payments through Housing Australia Future Fund and National Housing Infrastructure Facility

• Identifying suitable Commonwealth land

• Australian Skills Guarantee extension to housing projects

  
  

States and Territories:

• Expedited zoning, planning and land release

• Identifying opportunities near train stations and TAFE campuses

• Working with local governments on planning reforms

• Building a strong Community Housing Provider sector

  
  

Institutional Investors (including superannuation funds):

• Increase investment in affordable housing where in best financial interests

• Work on financing approaches that leverage institutional capital

• Develop workable financing approaches

  
  

Construction Sector:

• Build to seven-star energy efficiency ratings

• Support apprenticeship programs

• Provide data on housing supply pipeline

The recurring theme here is that with housing, there's no silver bullet solution. it's a gigantic problem with demand and supply side pressures, and to fix it it's got to be death by 1000 cuts. This means bringing all these different parties together and that's what Labor have done.

[1] https://www.realestate.com.au/news/australia-predicted-to-miss-national-housing-accord-annual-targets-until-2028-hia/

[2] https://treasury.gov.au/policy-topics/housing/accord#:~:text=On%2016%20August%202023%2C%20National,states%20and%20territories%20last%20year

[3] https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/sites/ministers.treasury.gov.au/files/2022-10/national-housing-accord-2022.pdf

[4] https://ministers.treasury.gov.au/ministers/jim-chalmers-2022/media-releases/national-housing-accord-working-together-help-tackle