Vulnerable Queenslanders could be waiting longer for social housing after the state’s department failed to act on all recommendations from the auditor-general, according to a new report.
The Queensland Audit Office found the department had only fully implemented four of the eight recommendations from its previous report handed down in 2023, which flagged the department had not managed the social housing register effectively and was not building enough.
According to the auditor-general, the housing department had only partially taken steps to confirm applicants remained eligible for housing, consistently reviewed applications and consistently performed pre-allocation checks.
The department was still not applying a consistent approach when it came to priority allocation, the audit found.
“While the department assessed it had fully implemented all our recommendations, we found that gaps remain for four of the eight recommendations,” Auditor-General Rachel Vagg said in her conclusion.
“The department has taken steps to increase housing supply and improve its management of social
housing. However, in an environment of increasing demand, the social housing register will continue to grow, and the department will increasingly find it challenging to effectively service those in need.”
The audit also made five further recommendations, which the department has agreed to.
Those include the department will strengthen its internal performance testing, change how it manages applicants in transitional housing, strengthen its oversight of community housing providers, alter its approach to when existing tenants housing needs change, and update its modelling for demand.
At the end of last year, there were 32,848 applicants for social housing in Queensland, with the department admitting reduced staffing had contributed to the jump in applications.
More than half of those applicants were either homeless or at risk of homelessness, with an average wait time of 28 months.
According to figures from the department from March this year, were 26,500 people on the waitlist.
The auditor-general found the department had gone backwards when it came to reviewing priority allocations, with 66 per cent overdue for review, and 11 per cent overdue by more than a year.
The number of applications deemed priority allocations on the register between June and December 2025 dropped from 2160 to just 150, a decrease of 93 per cent.
“During this period, the department increased its review of existing priority allocations and identified many applications were no longer eligible for priority status,” the auditor-general said.
In response to the audit, Housing Minister Sam O’Connor said the waitlist dropping from by roughly 5000 people showed the department was headed in the right direction.
“There is significant work to do following a decade where social housing delivery did not keep pace with our state’s growth. With net growth of just 509 social homes on average per year between 2015-16 to 2023-24,” he wrote.
This week, the government announced it would invest an extra $100 million of the next four years in the state’s budget, with the goal of building 2000 new social and community homes each year.
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