Mr BAYLEY – Minister, you’re very good at articulating the fact that we’re a third of the way through our time period to 2032 and we’re a third of the way to meeting our 10,000 home target. But when it comes to social housing, the most recent dashboard shows that 370 new social homes have been built so far. That’s 19 per cent of the 2000 social homes target, which is to be reached by mid-2027.
Mr ELLIS – When you say the dashboard, are we talking about the same data? Unless I’m confusing the data dashboard, on page 8 it says social housing completed 1417, with a pipeline of 443.
Mr BAYLEY – No, I think it’s 370 from Homes Tasmania.
Mr ELLIS – As in specifically broken down by providers?
Mr BAYLEY – That’s right. The 2000 social homes are across all providers, not just Homes Tasmania. Is that why Homes Tasmania is only at 19 per cent of the 2000 target?
Mr ELLIS – We’re continuing to make significant investments in this space, and we’re going to have to continue to work with, for example, the Commonwealth. We’ve had some discussions here around the Housing Australia Future Fund and the decisions that the Commonwealth have made, and the various different counting treatments that we have for those particular homes.
The main goal is 10,000 social and affordable homes by 2032. We have a range of different sub‑targets as part of that, and we’re continuing to get an understanding of what the federal government process will now mean for us in terms of what we’ll need to be doing in the future with social homes.
Mr BAYLEY – If the federal government doesn’t come to the party to, you know, build the capacity to meet that need, will your government step up and invest more to make sure that we meet it?
Mr ELLIS – We’ll always try and get an understanding of what this means for Tasmania. We’ve been really clear we want to deliver on our main target of 10,000 social affordable homes by 2032, and of course we look to other sub‑targets as well around what opportunities are available there.
Mr BAYLEY – Just going back to the detailed budget statements, we’re talking about debt and paying debt and the grants you get to pay for debt and so forth. I want to make the observation, as was made earlier, that borrowing costs according to the Budget escalate significantly over the forward Estimates from a bit over $11 million up to almost $40 million.
Mr ELLIS – That is because we are building more homes, Mr Bayley.
Mr BAYLEY – That’s great. You say that you get grants to pay for that from the Tasmanian government, which is great, but that grants income significantly reduces across that same period. It peaks at $147 million and then it drops down to $120 million in the forward Estimates at 2027-2028, so there’s ultimately a net loss there for Homes Tasmania, because you are getting less grant money. I don’t understand. Could you talk me through how this works?
Mr ELLIS – I think you’ve misunderstood there. The grant money is not all borrowing cost servicing grants. There’s a range of different grants that are available that the government provides to Homes Tasmania for different services. In terms of the debt service funds provided, there’s $71.3 million total over the forward Estimates to support borrowings, and the total funds provided are as follows: 2024-25 is 24.923 million; 2025-26 is $28.675 million, 2026-27 is $31.145 million; and 2027-28 is $39.974 million.
Mr BAYLEY – I can see that in the Budget. I’m assuming that’s reflected in the grants line item at the very start with those escalating costs, and yet that grant figure comes down to $120 million. That clearly means that Homes Tasmania is getting less grant money overall from the Tasmanian government in the forward Estimates back out to 2027-28.
Mr ELLIS – Footnote 1 says that the variation in grants primarily reflects a profile of funding for the 2024 election commitments and funding from the Australian Government for the Social Housing Accelerator and Housing Support Program. Of course, we’ll continue to work with the federal government and future federal governments around what opportunities might be available there. Certainly, Tasmania was successful through Homes Tasmania for the housing accelerator program.
Ms Morgan-Thomas and I spent a very windy afternoon at a beautiful property in Chigwell where we’re looking to deliver 15 new properties in partnership with the federal government. We’ll continue to work with the federal government. As we noted in a previous Estimates, we can’t count grant money from the feds that hasn’t yet been delivered and that we’ll need to work through a competitive process for, but certainly we’ll continue to work together on ensuring that those opportunities are available.
We want to make sure that we’re putting our best foot forward when it comes to leveraging federal Commonwealth funding. I know that nationally the Commonwealth are quite exercised because they are yet to deliver a single home despite making a $10‑billion commitment nationally, so we know that they want to do more and work with the states, who have a track record.
Mr BAYLEY – Up to which point are our federal government contributions reflected in these Budget figures in the forward Estimates? Is it just 2024-25, the $147 million figure?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – I can speak to some of that. The way the accelerator funding that the minister was talking about, which was a $50‑million grant, comes to us – Commonwealth payments are made to Treasury, not to statutory authorities. They can’t just deal straight with us. That’s coming in over a couple of years. We also are partnering with the Commonwealth Government on the Social Housing Energy Efficiency Program. That also comes in over three years, so those funds are coming into the revenue line.
Mr BAYLEY – How far forward?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – We’re delivering that over three years.
Mr BAYLEY – So, up to 2026-27?
Ms MORGAN-THOMAS – Some of those things finish and some of the election commitments also finish.
Mr BAYLEY – I guess I still see the figures here speaking for themselves in that Homes Tasmania is getting less in grant revenue and ending up needing to pay more in borrowing costs. More of that grant revenue is being soaked up by borrowing costs.
Mr ELLIS – No. The grant revenue we get from the Commonwealth has nothing to do with the grants that are provided for servicing borrowing costs at the state level. As far as I know, they don’t take that into account. I would be pretty disappointed if they do. We’ll continue to work with the Commonwealth Government into the future, particularly in those out years. There are some big opportunities, I think, if state and Commonwealth governments are working together in terms of the housing challenge. Certainly, a lot of Australia’s housing affordability challenge is driven by federal government policy settings that are driving up interest rates and things like that. We welcome the federal government’s interest in investing in more housing around our country and we’d be looking to grow that engagement in the out years.
We mentioned as well that we made some election commitments that this Budget delivers on. Matters for those future budgets will be addressed at the time.
