Students of Australian history will note that the original ‘essential worker’ housing in Australia was Public Housing. It accommodated returned service personnel, workers and their families en masse from the 1940s.

With the stock of social (public and community) housing now languishing well below 5% of all housing stock in NSW, we recognise that despite its origins, social housing is now a rationed product, necessarily reserved for very low income and/or vulnerable households in NSW.

This historical context led our submission to the NSW Legislative Assembly Select Committee Parliamentary Inquiry into Options for Essential Worker Housing in NSW (a mouthful to be sure). While the Committee is focused on establishing an appropriate definition of essential worker housing for the NSW Government to adopt, as well as identifying options to increase housing supply for essential workers, we decided to take a broader view.

We cautioned against narrowly defining an “essential worker” for the purposes of further restricting eligibility of certain housing products. We did offer some suggestions to the Committee about what would be useful in delivering better, more affordable, and appropriate housing options for low to middle-income earners whatever their occupation and their household type. And we also cautioned the Committee against State-wide policies that may embed housing and employment exploitation outcomes for vulnerable cohorts including overseas workers.

The NSW Government (except for in its own role as a large employer or approver of large infrastructure projects) should remain agnostic about how income is earned and instead turn its mind to good governance in resolving existing Affordable Housing framework gaps. Ultimately, we view inclusive renewal and mandatory inclusionary zoning as foundational policies in this arena.

And of course, increasing social housing stock to 10% of all housing stock would enable the NSW Government to widen its eligibility criteria for social housing, with the opportunity of many more low-income workers once again qualifying for ‘workers housing’.

Shelter NSW looks forward to engaging more with the Committee on this topic (with a report to be tabled by 7 March 2025).

NSW Government public housing in the 1940s. Source: Strathfield Heritage.