'Radical' Queensland Greens proposal to spend $60billion on state's social housing

The Queensland Greens have promised to push for the construction of one million social housing properties by 2050, if they win seats in the upcoming state election.

The left-leaning party openly admitted the plan seemed “radical” but said the mass construction of government-owned housing would tackle looming social and economic issues facing the property market.

“The private housing market has failed,” Greens candidate for South Brisbane Amy MacMahon said. “20,000 of us are homeless, over 29,000 are on the waiting list for social housing, one in five are struggling to pay the rent or mortgage while an entire generation can’t afford to buy a home.

“Just like healthcare or education, everyone should be guaranteed a home.”

The Greens would push for the establishment of a Queensland Housing Trust, a government organisation that would build 20,000 homes a year, culminating in one million built by 2050.

Census data from 2016 showed there were almost 10 million dwellings Australia-wide – meaning the Greens would build about one-tenth of that in Queensland in more than 40 years.

Under the plan, the Greens claim homelessness and the strain on social housing would be eliminated within the first few years — but it won’t come cheap.

“This plan will see an investment of $60 billion over the first 10 years,” Ms McMahon said. Her party plans to fund the project with rental revenue from the houses and increased mining royalties. 

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The Greens claim 16,000 jobs would be created each year. 

In the first 10 years, half of the houses would be reserved for social housing and the rest would be given to anyone who applied.  

“We would never accept the state government turning hundreds of thousands of children away from schools, or people from hospitals, because we hadn’t invested enough in public education or healthcare,” Ms MacMahon said. “This plan may seem radical but in countries like Austria and the Netherlands virtually everyone has access to high quality, well designed social housing.”

Housing minister Mick de Brenni has been contacted for comment, but the state government has implemented a plan to build 3300 low-cost homes within three years and invest $1 billion.