The introduction of this Bill provides a strong foundation for a nationally coordinated, ten-year plan with a human rights-based approach informed by independent information and feedback with reporting and accountability on progress.
COTA Australia particularly welcomes the implementation of a National Housing Consumer Council providing a consumer voice and lived experience expertise to inform housing policy and planning and enable important housing issues to be escalated to the Commonwealth housing minister.
Housing as a human right is also an important starting place for an effective national plan that works across different policy areas and enables a range of institutions to work together.
Currently, responsibility for housing policy and service provision is spread across jurisdictions and Commonwealth portfolios. Only a plan, led and owned by the Australian Government, with its control over key housing-related powers including tax, social security and migration, can co-ordinate nationally consistent approaches to housing provision.