2024-2025 Federal Budget - Housing

Commonwealth Rent Assistance - Increase the maximum rates

The Government will provide $1.9 billion over five years from 2023-24 (and $0.5 billion per year ongoing from 2028-29) to increase all Commonwealth Rent Assistance maximum rates by 10 per cent from 20 September 2024 to help address rental affordability challenges for recipients.

Budget Speech p 6
Budget Paper No 2 p 167
Budget Overview p 15
Women's Budget Statement p 48
Regional Ministerial Budget Statement p 92
Easing cost-of-living pressures p 2
Media Release

Housing Support

The Government will provide additional funding to build more homes for Australians sooner, invest in more housing-enabling infrastructure, train more construction workers and support social and affordable housing and homelessness services. Funding includes:

• subject to states and territories signing the new National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness:
  • $423.1 million over five years from 2024-25 in additional funding to support the provision of social housing and homelessness services by states and territories under a new National Agreement on Social Housing and Homelessness. The additional funding will increase annual funding under the new agreement to $1.8 billion per year from 2024-25, with over $9.28 billion provided to states and territories over the life of the agreement
  • $1.0 billion in 2023-24 for states and territories to support enabling infrastructure for new housing through a new Housing Support Program - Priority Works Stream
• supporting more community housing providers to access finance through the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator by increasing the cap on the Government's guarantee of Housing Australia's liabilities by $2.5 billion to $10.0 billion, with an associated increase in the line of credit that supports the Affordable Housing Bond Aggregator of $3.0 billion to $4.0 billion
• $88.8 million over three years from 2024-25 to support 20,000 new fee-free training places, including increased access to pre-apprenticeship programs, in courses relevant to the construction sector and delivered through TAFEs and industry-registered training organisations
• support to increase available rental housing by allowing foreign investors to purchase established Build to Rent properties with a lower foreign investment fee, conditional on the property continuing to be operated as a build-to-rent development.

In addition, the Government will:

• target the $1.0 billion for social housing under the National Housing Infrastructure Facility in the 2023-24 MYEFO towards crisis and transitional accommodation for women and children fleeing domestic violence, and youth, including redistributing the mix of concessional loans and grants to increase the proportion of grants to $700.0 million
• provide $1.9 billion in concessional finance to support community housing providers to deliver social and affordable housing under the Housing Australia Future Fund and the National Housing Accord.

Budget Speech p 6
Budget Paper No 2 p 74
Budget Overview p 22
Women's Budget Statement p 24
Regional Ministerial Budget Statement p 72
Media Release

Northern Territory Homelands and Housing

The Government will provide $839.4 million over five years from 2023-24 (and $2.1 billion over ten years from 2024-25) to accelerate housing delivery in remote Northern Territory communities and increase investment in homelands. This will reduce overcrowding and improve housing quality, making significant progress under the National Agreement on Closing the Gap. Funding includes:

• $698.4 million over four years from 2024-25 (and $2.0 billion over ten years from 2024-25) to enter into a 10-year remote housing agreement with the Northern Territory Government to reduce overcrowding in remote Northern Territory communities. The Northern Territory Government has committed to match the Commonwealth's remote housing investment, bringing the total investment to $4.0 billion
• $120.0 million over three years from 2024-25 to continue the delivery of urgent repairs and maintenance of existing housing and essential infrastructure through an extension of the Northern Territory Homelands Federation Funding Agreement
• $20.0 million in 2023-24 to deliver an additional 49 houses under the existing Remote Housing Northern Territory Federation Funding Agreement, in partnership with and jointly funded by the Northern Territory Government, delivering a total of 206 houses under the one-year agreement.

Budget Speech p 8
Budget Paper No 2 p 160
Budget Overview p 22
Women's Budget Statement p 26
Regional Ministerial Budget Statement p 85
Delivering a better deal for small businesses p 7
Media Release