Commonwealth Land (Affordable Housing) Bill 2026
Senator DAVID POCOCK (Australian Capital Territory—Independent ACT Whip) (11:39): I present the explanatory memorandum and move: That this bill be now read a second time. I seek leave to have the second reading speech incorporated in Hansard. Leave granted.
The speech read as follows— 'For too long, Australia's housing system has worked for some Australians rather than for all Australians. This must change to improve equity across and within generations'. These aren't my words, they're a quote from the latest report by the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council, the independent expert body that advises the Australian Government in this area, in its 2026 report.
Boostedinvestment in social and affordable housing is one of the Council's five key reform proposals to address our country's housing crisis. Why this Bill is needed Underlying this recommendation is the reality that, relative to population, Australia's social housing sector has been in steady decline for most of the past 30 years. At the same time, the national shortfall in private rental homes affordable to low income renters has progressively grown.
Successive governments have turned their back on the need to re-start the routine annual social housing development program that effectively ended in 1996. And efforts to provide more moderately subsidised homes targeted at low income workers have remained small in scale. One result has been rising rates of homelessness.
The latest official national figures are for 2021—now way out of date. But a recent New South Wales Government survey found that rough sleeping had more than doubled in that state over the past five years. Because of rising rents relative to incomes a vastly wider group of low income Australians is being placed at growing risk of homelessness due to resulting financial stress.
We are now living in a world where, according to Anglicare's latest rental affordability report, less than 1% of all rentals available to let in March 2026 were affordable to a couple on the Age Pension. Worsening affordability at the bottom end of the private market directly reflects Australia's intensifying shortage of social and affordable housing. More broadly, analysis by property data company Cotality shows that, since the pandemic, median rents as a ratio of median incomes across the entire private rental market have tracked further and further above the 20-year norm.
As a result, rental affordability in 2025 was the worst on record. With all of this in mind, it is at least good to note that, as one of its six overarching priorities in this area, the Albanese Government's recently published housing policy statement commits to 'growing the social and affordable housing sector so more Australians have a stable place to call home'.
And credit to federal, state and territory governments that national efforts on social and affordable housing investment in the 2020s are a big step-up on the irresponsible neglect of the previous decade. But, given the scale of need, these efforts remain far from sufficient. Worse still, the federal government's flagship social and affordable housing investment program is on the brink of exhaustion.
By the end of this year, the Housing Australia Future Fund will be maxed out, unable to extend the current program beyond 2029 and therefore facing a cliff-edge at that point. So the Albanese Government urgently needs to bring forward proposals to, at the very least, maintain the current level of new investment into the 2030s and beyond. Ideally, it would be striking a long-term agreement with states and territories to expand collective efforts to this end.
Funding future investment in social and affordable housing We may not be in government, but we crossbenchers do, of course, recognise the public finance challenges posed here. But taxation income and public debt are not the only resources at the government's disposal. That much is plain from the National Housing Accord of 2022, where the Commonwealth itself committed to identifying surplus federal land that could be used for social and affordable housing.
This chimes with progressively growing calls from community campaigners for Australian public land sales to incorporate affordable housing obligations on purchasing developers. Participants in these debates have often suggested that non-market housing should form at least 30% of residential units developed on former public land. This is consistent with the position of the New South Wales Government's former Greater Cities Commission which, in 2022, indicated that 'City Plans will set a target of up to 30% for the proportion of social and affordable housing in residential developments on government land'.
Similarly, in 2022 the Minister for Cities in the former New South Wales Coalition Government committed to the stipulation of '30% affordable housing' as part of the large-scale Rozelle Bays renewal project—largely on former public land. Further, along with a demand that all Government departments identify surplus and under-used land, New South Wales Premier Chris Minns stated in 2023 that 'a minimum 30% social and affordable homes [should be] built on [such] sites'.
While these arguments originate from New South Wales, they are equally relevant elsewhere in Australia. And now, as a major federal case in point, we have the Defence Department's plan to sell off a huge swag of obsolete sites, many of them in prime locations. As yet, though, there has been no commitment that Defence land purchasers will be obliged to include social or affordable housing within any resulting residential development.
Especially given the clear commitment stated in the National Housing Accord, we should surely demand Government assurances here. But this is just one instance that highlights a bigger and more systemic issue. With some estimating its market value at $3 billion, the Defence property sale is, in itself, a big deal.
But government land disposals take place all the time and should be subject to a consistent principle; one that chimes with broader housing policy objectives. Of course, not all surplus government sites are potentially suitable living environments. But whenever government cashes in land destined for housing development there should be a default expectation of a social or affordable rental contribution within that.
Purpose of the Bill, in summary This Bill will therefore create a standard obligation on the Commonwealth Government and its agencies to require inclusion of affordable housing within residential developments on surplus Commonwealth land disposed to private entities by sale or long lease. As I'm using it here, the term 'affordable housing' includes very low rent social housing for low income Australians as well as more moderately discounted rental homes for essential workers and other working households facing financial stress in the private market.
Under this legislation a proportion of such residential developments will be normally reserved for qualifying, income-eligible Australians to be housed at below-market rents. Beyond its contribution to addressing the national shortage, the application of such practices will help to ensure some degree of social mix within developments otherwise likely to be wholly dominated by higher income residents.
This will yield a wider social dividend in combating the ongoing income-based social polarisation of Australian cities. Applied to sites in expensive inner urban areas, such obligations will also have an economic pay-off by enabling the low-income workers essential to central city economies to live close to their employment. How the law will work My proposed law will normalise conditions of sale, sometimes termed covenants or easements, mandating the inclusion of affordable housing within subsequent residential development on ex-Commonwealth sites.
Alongside other policy levers, the stipulation of such conditions will provide another means for the Commonwealth to utilise its resources to support the acknowledged objective of increasing social and affordable housing provision. To clarify a land purchaser's obligations, the bill includes a clear definition of 'affordable housing' as a rental dwelling to be rented at a maximum of 75% of market rent or 30% of tenant household income, if that is lower.
Maximum allowable household incomes will be specified under regulations. Partly to aid in the oversight of land purchaser compliance with these rules, affordable units must be managed by registered community housing providers which are subject to regulation. Recognising that land-title mechanisms differ between States and Territories, the legislation is also designed to operate according to relevant legal and administrative frameworks within each jurisdiction.
Provisions also ensure that affordable housing obligations are preserved if ex-government sites are on-sold. Recognising that not all ex-government sites are suitable for inclusion under the regime, the Bill also clarifies that it is targeted on larger uncontaminated sites in urban Australia or in non-remote locations. Finally, to check that the law is operating as intended, the bill includes a requirement for a review of the resulting Act five years after commencement.
No one would sensibly suggest that a measure like this is any kind of game changer for Australia's housing crisis. But this is a huge and complex problem with no silver bullet solution. There is no substitute for a wide-ranging and long term national housing strategy.
A strategy led by the Commonwealth but also involving state and territory governments. But that strategy will need to incorporate measures that pull every policy lever with a bearing on our housing system. This bill could form a small but worthwhile element within that wider effort.
Senator DAVID POCOCK: I seek leave to continue my remarks later. Leave granted; debate adjourned.