Target for new social houses ‘missed’

LABOR says the government delivered only 17 new social houses in December, missing its own target by 80 per cent.

However, Housing Minister Guy Barnett says there is no monthly target and to say it has not been met is “totally baseless”.

Labor housing spokeswoman Ella Haddad said the government said it was building 10,000 homes in 10 years, or 83.33 a month.

“These (Dashboard) figures show just how off the mark they are and how out of touch they are on the needs of Tasmanians,” she said.

“This inaction is particularly worrying, given that the average time to house applicants continues to rise, now sitting at 77.9 weeks.”

Ms Haddad said Labor would repair the 215 untenantable social houses “left in ruins by the Liberals”.

“This would get hundreds of people off the housing waiting list, and would also create jobs for Tasmanians,” Ms Haddad said.

Mr Barnett said the government was “getting on with the job of delivering homes for Tasmanians in need”.

“Our target of building 1500 homes by June 2023 is tracking well, with 735 of these homes completed as at 31 December 2022,” he said.

The dashboard figures showed that over the past 12 months, there had been between 50 and 100 households housed into social housing each month, and an average of 69 per month.

“This is slightly lower than in previous years as uncertainty from Covid led to lower turnover across the housing market, including flow-on effects for social housing,” it said.

“The results show that in addition to the almost 14,000 households already in social housing, there were 2836 households assisted in the past year through the variety of programs that Homes Tasmania manage.”