The agency tasked with delivering Anthony Albanese’s $10bn affordable housing fund for low-income families paid more than $24m to external consultants and $6m in annual executive salaries last year, despite having not yet delivered a single completed house under the scheme.
With Labor under pressure to deliver on its vow to build 40,000 social and affordable houses within five years, documents reveal Housing Australia paid out more than $16m for legal, IT and “advisory” contracts last year.
This was on top of more than $7m in the six months prior spent by Housing Australia, which also pays its CEO a salary almost that of the Prime Minister at $560,000 a year.
The exposure of the agency’s extravagant salaries and consultancy fees follows revelations that it will struggle to complete any new social or affordable houses in Labor’s first term in office due to the lack of accredited builders eligible to work on government-funded projects.
Housing Australia administers not only the Housing Australia Future Fund but other government financing vehicles including the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator, National Housing Infrastructure Facility and Home Guarantee Scheme.
The expenditure on consultants relates to its work across all its functions and responsibilities.
The documents reveal 19 staff are employed by the agency on salaries of more than $300,000, including five on more than $400,000 a year.
Contracts listed by the agency show that between January 2023 and December 2023, a total of $16,613,428 was spent on IT, legal, advisory and other services. This was on top of the $7,423,953 spent in the preceding six months. This included $1,630,977 on legal services and $4,553,685 on IT services. A further $3,628,462 was spent on undisclosed “advisory” services to firms including PwC, Paxon, Scyne and Nous groups.
Labor announced as part of its budget savings plans it would slash the use of consultants. The agency was also spending more than $10m a year on executive and key management salaries and what it described as “other highly paid staff”.
The agency defended its wages bill claiming it used “benchmark” standards for remuneration. But independent senator David Pocock questioned the use of taxpayers’ money on consultants that he said amounted to more than what the government spends a year on Foodbank for struggling families.
“Housing Australia has a critically important job to do financing the construction of desperately needed social and affordable housing,” Senator Pocock told The Australian.
“I am concerned, however, that even with a large and highly paid cohort of senior staff, they are so reliant on external contractors, and I question their use of taxpayer money.
“Housing Australia has spent more on external contractors in 12 months than the government is spending supporting food banks over the next four years.
“Meanwhile, the Housing Australia Future Fund that was set up on November 1 last year hasn’t spent a single cent on new social and affordable homes. All new programs take some time to get up and running but with this level of external support, and given how acute the housing crisis is, our community would expect funds to be flowing by now.”
Housing Australia administers Labor’s $10bn HAFF. Legislation to establish it – a key election pledge – passed parliament last year. The first round of HAFF applications for funding closed on March 22.
The government claims funding for projects would soon begin flowing to meet the target of 40,000 new affordable or social housing within five years.
The Australian revealed on Monday the fund would struggle to deliver a completed new project in the first term of office with developers warning only a handful of builders would be eligible to participate in the program.
Rules written into HAFF legislation require builders contracted to work on new social and affordable homes under the scheme to be accredited for working on government-funded projects.
But of the more than 400,000 construction firms registered in Australia, only 568 are accredited by the Federal Safety Commissioner under the Work Health and Safety Scheme for eligibility.
“We are applying longstanding WHS rules relating to commonwealth-funded projects,” a government spokesperson said.
“Housing Australia is already working with applicants and the budget’s additional resources will ensure builders are accredited without delaying the construction of homes. If the Liberals had their way, there would not be one home delivered by the fund.”
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