Regional Capitals Australia has welcomed the pre-election commitment from the Federal Liberal-National Coalition to allocate $5 billion to housing enabling infrastructure.

The announced Housing Infrastructure Programme is aimed at unlocking 500,000 new homes. Funds will be used to get zoned land across the nation, including in regional capital cities, housing development ready.

Deputy Chair of Regional Capitals Australia, Mayor Peter Cater said in regional capital cities, housing shortages have been driven by surging workforce numbers for major regional infrastructure projects, along with growing internal migration and an undersupply of diverse housing stock.

“Regional capital cities are developing at their fastest rate in history with migration from major capitals seeing growth rates at almost 12% above pre-covid levels,” Carter said.

“This is impacting all forms of housing from social, affordable, rental and the traditional new home buyer market.”

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“The rental market is particularly challenging in regional capital cities, with vacancy rates sitting at just over 1% this month.”

In a recent survey by Regional Capital Australia, 87% of the membership agreed that a critical bottle neck in the housing market was development ready land.

“We have enough land to support our growing populations however our member councils do not have the budgets to front end the rapidly growing cost of enabling infrastructure such as water, sewerage and roads,” Mayor Carter said.

“Without critical infrastructure, new housing cannot be built, it is as simple as that.”

“Housing shortages in regional areas are a massive constraint on local employment, service delivery and amenity, but also on national initiatives such as the renewables boom, food, fibre and minerals exports and disaster recovery efforts,” Mayor Carter said.

“More needs to be done to address this national challenge.”

“We welcome this commitment from the Federal Coalition and should they take office at the next election we look forward to working with them to make sure regional capital cities get their fair share of this important funding,” Mayor Carter concluded.