NRAS: Don’t throw out the baby with the bathwater, says TUNSW

The Tenants Union of NSW (TUNSW) has warned Australians against forgetting the benefits of the National Rental Affordability Scheme (NRAS) following a News Limited article claiming the scheme is being “abused” by developers.

The Australian yesterday published an article claiming that the Central Park development in Sydney is being targeted towards international students, with the article asserting that the phrase “international student” or “international students” was used almost 50 times. According to the article, the 34 page brochure issued by developers Frasers Property Australia and builders Sekisui House Australia in October 2012 also repeatedly describes the development’s main building as “NRAS advantaged.”

National Shelter executive officer Adrian Pisarki, one of the members of the Affordable Housing Summit Group that helped draft the NRAS is quoted in the article saying that although there is evidence that some international students faced affordability pressures, they were not the intended recipients of the NRAS. The scheme, launched by the previous Labor government in 2008, “seeks to address the shortage of affordable rental housing by offering financial incentives to persons or entities such as the business sector and community organisations to build and rent dwellings to low and moderate income households at a rate that is at least 20 per cent below the market value rent,” according to the Department of Social Services.

Responses to the NRAS is has been mixed throughout the property industry.

But in a blog post yesterday, the TUNSW drew readers’ attention to the scheme’s benefits, writing that although The Australian  has reported that 4,000 units constructed under the scheme are being let to university students, the NRAS has subsidised the construction of 14,500 dwellings. According to the TUNSW, there are another 24,000 dwellings in progress. Although the post acknowledges that the income thresholds required to qualify to let a NRAS subsidised property are higher than those for social housing, the TUNSW claims to know of one community housing provider “who reports that 15% of its NRAS tenants had previously been homeless.”

“There's actually an affordable housing baby in the NRAS bathwater!” writes the TUNSW.

“Would the government throw it out, while its other tax settings do nothing but encourage speculation and make housing unaffordable?”