The West Australian
Rita Saffioti will use WA’s iron ore and gold royalties windfall to fund a $434.5 million housing blitz.
The West Australian has revealed that Perth’s housing shortfall is the main target of Thursday’s mid-year Budget update that will include $234m for social and affordable housing, enough to build 329 new homes and refurbish 91 others.
That’s still not enough to rein in the backlog of 22,635 applicants on the public housing wait list.
The rest of the funding boost will go towards water infrastructure for about 5000 new lots, and land development in Alkimos Brookdale, Byford, Casuarina, Hamilton Hill and Yanchep.
A $10,000 cash incentive will be extended to lure another 1000 construction workers from interstate and overseas to WA.
There’s also $14.7m to boost government housing in regional WA, after a shortage was blamed for making it harder to recruit police and teachers.