20 September 2023
Media Release
“We are deeply disappointed by the NSW Budget,” said Denis Doherty from public housing advocacy group Hands off Glebe.
“The NSW Government’s miserly and inadequate approach to the housing crisis has dashed the promises made by Housing Minister Rose Jackson for a more considered and generous approach to housing provision,” he said.
“After 11 years of LNP “compassion free” government, we expected some improvement. Instead we have little more than crumbs with the State Government offering no social housing and only 1,409 affordable homes over the next 16 years — fewer than 100 a year.
“This is a shameful response to the appalling crisis so many NSW families are facing.
“The budget claims that NSW is “permanently expanding the number of social housing dwellings by around 1,500 through the $610.1 million Commonwealth social housing accelerator program”.
“That funding is NSW’s portion of the $2 billion extra that Prime Minister Albanese announced earlier in the year in an effort to get his housing fund through the Senate. But there has not been any matching increase in state funding.
“The NSW Government is engaged in cost-shifting by taking advantage of Commonwealth spending in the same area to cut back their funding on social housing to almost nothing.
“In an ABC interview Premier Minns underlined his government’s refusal to take responsibility for dealing with the housing crisis when he said: “The way we are going to ease the housing crisis in NSW is with the private sector,
“The premier said then he was going to move onto other communities which is an ominous statement for public housing tenants in Glebe. After decimating estates in Cowper St, Wentworth Prk Rd, and selling off around 40 houses on the Glebe Estate by the previous government, it looks as if the Government is looking for more public housing to privatise.”
With thousands sleeping rough, couch surfing and sleeping in cars and thousands more facing insecure and inadequate housing, leaving solving the housing crisis to the profit driven private sector and the Federal Government is simply not acceptable.
We need and we demand far more from the NSW Government,” Mr Doherty concluded.