On 13 July 2026, ABC Four Corners aired Unaffordable, an investigation into whether Australia’s affordable housing system is delivering for the people it was designed to help.
The program raised serious questions about rent-setting practices, eligibility definitions, vacancy rates, and accountability. It examined affordable housing rental listings across NSW and Victoria over eight weeks and spoke to renters who say the system has not matched the promises made to them. The program did not set out to undermine affordable housing as a concept. What it exposed was a weak system, one without adequate data, consistent definitions, transparent compliance monitoring, or genuine consumer access. Those are exactly the problems that the Progressive Residential Affordability Development Solution (PRADS) is being built to solve. This briefing sets out, issue by issue, what the program raised and how PRADS is designed to address them.
The central point: Australia’s affordable housing shortfall, 44,500 homes annually over 20 years at a cost of $290 billion, cannot be funded by government alone. The only way to materially close this yawning gap is to partner directly with the private sector by mobilising existing capital and property management services at scale.
PRADS is the proposed national digital infrastructure that makes this shift possible in Australia by creating the compliance, transparency, and accountability that private capital requires before it will commit, and that government requires to ensure accountability for enduring affordability so that it can confidently open the door. The Four Corners program showed the real‑world consequences of not having this critical enabling digital infrastructure in place, including why its absence is materially affecting outcomes now, and why its delivery is urgent.
Definition: What Is Affordable Housing and Who Is It For?
What Four Corners exposed
The program raised the definition problem, citing academics including Phibbs and Hayward, but did not resolve it. This left audiences confused about what affordable housing actually means and who it is for. The distinction between affordable housing and social housing was never clearly drawn, which allowed the program to conflate two very different things. Affordable housing has a different definition, and more importantly, a different perception by the market. A significant portion of the market, particularly the real estate industry, perceive affordable housing as social housing.
What PRADS is designed for
PRADS will document, for the first time in a single national register, based on income bands, eligibility criteria, and affordability parameters that apply to each registered dwelling. HAA is working with National Shelter, CHIA, and the property industry to develop a nationally consistent banded eligibility framework, modelled on the approach proposed by the National Affordable Housing Summit Group. While a single national definition requires legislation that is beyond HAA’s remit, PRADS can provide the transparency layer that makes the parameters of each scheme visible to government, tenants, and the public. The confusion the program created is a data problem. PRADS solves it.
Rent Setting: Transparency and Independence
What Four Corners exposed
The program showed that developers could use their own benchmarks to set affordable rents, without independent verification. The Macquarie Park example, where Mission Australia was involved in a development where rents were set in a way that drew public criticism, illustrated how a system that relies on self-reporting without independent oversight can produce outcomes that damage public trust in the entire affordable housing model.
What PRADS is designed for
PRADS requires that the rent for every registered affordable dwelling be set by back-solving from independently verified income data for the relevant Local Government Area, using average wage figures determined annually by the relevant jurisdiction’s (state or territory) Valuer-General’s Department, not by the developer or the property manager. This mirrors the NRAS model of independent valuation at the outset and at regular intervals thereafter. Every rent set under PRADS is transparent to the Housing Registrar, to the tenant, and to government, and is reported annually. No developer can set their own benchmark. The system sets it for them, and it is publicly verifiable.
Eligibility and Fairness: The 30 Per Cent Rule
What Four Corners exposed
The program showed a case where a renter could not access affordable housing because the rent, while below market, still exceeded 30 per cent of their income. The program’s framing suggested rents were not affordable to those in greatest need. In fact, the 30 per cent income threshold is not, and was never intended to be, a universal rule. Rigidly applying it can produce outcomes as unfair as no rule at all. For example, a renter who saves significantly on transport, childcare, or other costs by living in a particular location may be genuinely better off at 32 per cent of income than the rule suggests.
What PRADS is designed for
PRADS is designed to calibrate affordability to the specific Local Government Area, using real income data for the occupational categories the housing is intended to serve, rather than a generic national threshold. It would also provide a documented and dynamic framework for exceptional circumstances that deliver fair outcomes, as the NRAS demonstrated was both necessary and manageable. Every exception would be recorded and reported annually, creating an accountability trail visible to government and auditable by the Housing Registrar. The goal is genuine and enduring affordability, not the mechanical application of a rule that may not reflect the tenant’s real experience or the nuances of a local market.
Consumer Access: Vacancies and Closed Waiting Lists
What Four Corners exposed
The program reported that one major affordable housing development, at a point in time, had a vacancy rate of around 10 per cent. While every new development takes time to fill its tenancies, it was not a helpful example for a sector trying to demonstrate its value to the public. The program suggested that limited consumer awareness and reliance on closed waiting lists managed by individual community housing providers were contributing factors. An organisation using only its own waiting list and a small number of referral agencies is, in effect, operating in a limited capacity and needs to access a broader market.
What PRADS is designed for
PRADS is already integrated with realestate.com.au, Australia’s largest property platform. REA Group has already launched an affordability filter on the platform and has confirmed that demand for PRADS-tagged listings significantly outstrips the current supply. Requiring that affordable housing be advertised openly through mainstream channels, accessible to all eligible applicants and not only those on a specific community housing provider’s
waiting list, is core to the PRADS model. Vacancies cannot persist when availability is transparent. HAA’s position is that open access should be mandatory, not optional, for all affordable housing funded through planning and other incentive schemes.
The 10 Per Cent Trade-off: Policy Clarity and Accountability
The program criticised the Victorian Government’s policy allowing developers to pay a cash contribution of 3 per cent in lieu of delivering 10 per cent affordable housing on site. The Minister’s response, that it was up to developers, was perceived as weak by viewers who understood that a planning value uplift, a density bonus or approval concession, is a benefit granted by government on behalf of the community.
Allowing that benefit to be converted into a cash payment at the developer’s discretion, without a clear line of sight or accountability for how that payment is being used by the state or territory, or what subsidised social or affordable housing it ultimately produces, is difficult to explain or defend to the public at large. PRADS is designed to address the accountability side of this directly.
Under the PRADS model, every planning incentive granted in exchange for an affordable housing commitment would be recorded on the register, along with the obligation it generates. Whether the commitment is met through on-site delivery or a cash payment, the outcome would be tracked and reported. Government would be able to see, in real time, what it has granted and what affordable housing outcome has been delivered as a direct result. HAA’s policy position is that cash opt-outs should be the exception, not the rule, and that where they are permitted, the amount should be determined case by case rather than fixed at a blanket rate, and the funds should be tracked to their eventual housing use.
Duration of Commitment
The program challenged developers on the length of their affordable housing commitments, with the former Mirvac CEO and Chair of the National Housing Affordability Council, raising the question of whether short commitment periods undermine the value of the model. This is primarily a policy question that sits at the legislative level rather than within PRADS’s operational scope.
However, PRADS directly addresses the accountability dimension: every registered dwelling’s commitment period is recorded on the register and against the title, including the expiry date of the affordability restriction. Government can see exactly when each commitment expires and can make informed policy decisions about minimum duration requirements based on real data rather than anecdote.
What PRADS Is Designed to Provide That the Current System Does Not
The Four Corners program exposed a system that operates without adequate accountability infrastructure. The problems it identified are real. They are also fixable. PRADS is designed to address all of them in a single, nationally consistent digital platform, once built.
Problem identified by Four Corners
How PRADS solves it
No consistent definition of affordable housing | Affordable housing has too many different definitions to get a consistent national approach. It also suffers from a perception bias which makes its continued use questionable. Documented income bands, eligibility criteria, and parameters for key workers, specific to the workforce needs of every LGA, removes the need for a definition with every registered dwelling in a single national register with below market rent obligations to meet the local workforce need and income band. Further, if a national definition is agreed at some point, PRADS provides a dynamic digital system ready to adapt and capture the right information to track genuine affordability. |
Developers setting their own rent benchmarks | Rents would be back-solved for each LGA based on their workforce needs from independently verified LGA-level wage data set by the state or territory Valuer-General. No self-reporting. Transparent to government and tenants. |
Rigid 30% income rule producing unfair outcomes | LGA-calibrated affordability thresholds and a documented framework for exceptional circumstances, reported annually, would replace the rigid 30% rule. |
Closed waiting lists and high vacancy rates | Open listings on realestate.com.au accessible to all eligible applicants, not just those on a CHP’s waiting list. This supports a more mobile market and our growing cohort of key workers and Australian’s who need more options for finding housing closer to where they work. |
No record of what incentives were granted or what was delivered in return | Every planning incentive, concession or cash contribution with its corresponding obligation would be recorded on the register and against the title, giving government real-time visibility of what was granted and how this translated into direct housing outcomes. |
Short or unclear commitment periods | Commitment duration and expiry date would be recorded on title as a legally enforceable covenant and on the register, visible to government, developers, owners (current and prospective) and renters in real time. |
No real-time compliance monitoring | Housing Registrar would have live visibility of every registered dwelling: rent charged, tenant eligibility, occupancy, and live compliance status. This dynamic data is rich and will also support the design and delivery of ongoing government support and intervention programs that most effectively address the pinpoint issues impacting delivery of affordable housing supply. |
CHP-only delivery channel limiting scale and geographic reach | Accredited private sector Responsible Housing Managers would participate alongside CHPs, increasing delivery capacity by encompassing the entire property management ecosystem. |
The Opportunity
The Four Corners program has done two things simultaneously. It has exposed real weaknesses in the current system, and it has created political pressure that, if not addressed constructively, could damage public confidence in affordable housing as a model and erode the political will to maintain the planning reforms that make private sector participation possible.
The constructive response is not to defend the system as it stands. It is to demonstrate that the problems the program identified are known, named, and already being addressed through practical reform. PRADS is a foundational component of the next wave of reform. It is not a government program. It is a proposed national digital infrastructure built on trust that will make the system work as it intended: transparent to tenants, accountable to government, and investable for the private capital that Australia needs to close its 33,500-home annual shortfall of the 44,500 social and affordable dwellings needed each year for the next 20 years (HAFF is aspiring to achieve 11,000 homes every for 5 years).
HAA is already working with the Commonwealth and most state and territory governments. Active discussions are underway with the Victorian, New South Wales, Tasmanian, Queensland and South Australian governments, and with the Federal Housing Minister’s office. But we are keen and ready to do more and ramp up delivery of PRADS sooner. As such, we stand ready to brief any Ministers, their departments, and Housing Registrars across Australia’s states and territories on what PRADS offers at any time.
Glenn King, former Managing Director of PEXA, has agreed to chair the national PRADS co-design working group. The platform is ready to build. What’s needed now is a clear government signal to unlock collective action across the sector and make PRADS a very real and immediate part of Australia’s housing response. Progress only moves at the speed of trust. PRADS is designed to rebuild that trust on a foundation that can be verified, not just promised.
