Public housing in Australia

Public housing in Australia is provided by departments of state governments. Australian public housing operates within the framework of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, by which funding for public housing is provided by both federal and state governments. According to the 2006 census, Australia's public housing stock consisted of some 304,000 dwellings out of a total housing stock of more than 7.1 million dwellings, or 4.2% of all housing stock (compared with 20% in Denmark, 46% "low rent housing" in France and 50% public housing in the UK at peak)

Construction of new public housing dwellings is currently at its lowest rate for 40 years and existing public housing stock is severely underfunded. There are also moves towards privatisation and transition into "community" and "social" housing models. This has led to recent campaigns to save public housing marked for demolition, advocate for upgrades and maintenance and construction of new public housing dwellings, such as the ongoing Bendigo street housing campaign in which homeless people are being housed by community in homes left empty by the Victorian state government.

The state government departments which are responsible for providing public housing have been known by a variety of names due to their history in each state, such as the Office of Housing (Victoria), the Department of Housing (Queensland) and Housing SA (formerly known as the Housing Trust, South Australia). Their official name tends to change with the way each state government prioritises public housing within its departmental structure. For example, for a time in the 1980s, Victoria's public housing had its own department (Department of Planning and Housing). Since the early 1990s, departmental restructuring under the Kennett government relegated its status to the 'Office of Housing' within the Department of Planning and Development. It has since been moved from a 'bricks and mortar' issue to one of health and welfare, now being an office within the Department of Human Services. The management of some public housing has been outsourced to not-for-profit management companies as part of a demand management philosophy to target it towards people with special needs.

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