Labor’s housing agenda in crisis amid complaints, resignations

Resignations and bullying accusations have plagued the executive ranks of Housing Australia, with a senior whistleblower writing to Housing Minister Clare O’Neil to say the agency’s ability to deliver Labor’s multibillion-dollar home-building agenda had been seriously compromised.

Housing Australia chair Carol Austin was last year subjected to a Treasury probe into claims about her alleged behaviour towards senior executives, the outcome of which has been blocked from public release through freedom of information laws.

However, this masthead was briefed on the outcomes of the probe on Wednesday: it found no formal breach of codes of conduct but did find “concerning organisational challenges”, which led in part to hiring a new chief executive and new processes in the organisation.

A document from the review seen by this masthead shows Austin was accused by executives of a series of actions including rolling her eyes, interrupting people, bringing colleagues to tears and labelling ideas stupid without basis.

The agency’s former general counsel and board secretary Rod Saville said Austin’s alleged behaviour had led to the departure of six of the eight top executives – including himself – over a 12-month period.

Saville, a veteran general counsel at organisations such as Westpac and Optus, resigned from his position with the agency in 2024.

In a letter to O’Neil in August 2024, Saville wrote that he had “never worked” with anyone who treated people the way Austin did.

“It became apparent very quickly to me and other senior executives in the organisation that Ms Austin had very little, if any, experience or understanding of housing issues in Australia, let alone social and affordable housing,” he wrote in the letter.

“A good chair, like a government minister, can call on relevant expertise to upskill themselves for their portfolio. Ms Austin, however, unlike Housing Australia’s two previous chairs, seemed to me and other senior executives to have no interest in hearing from the senior executives about housing issues or indeed what Housing Australia was established by government to achieve.”

“She also had little or no understanding of the board’s role. In the chair’s meetings with me and other senior executives her attitude came across as one of disdain, if not contempt, for the executive team.”

In a separate statement to this masthead this week to back up his letter, Saville claimed Austin “frequently cross-examined senior execs at board meetings and in some cases, notably a senior female executive, [brought them] to tears and eventually to leave the organisation.”

“Whenever an exec tried to tell her why something was being done the way it was, she would disparage that exec and tell them she didn’t care what had been done before or why.”

A spokeswoman for Housing Australia responded to detailed allegations from Saville, put to the agency by this masthead, by saying that the allegations had been examined.

“Housing Australia understands this matter was investigated and no breach of the code of conduct was identified,” the statement said. This masthead was assured by the agency that Austin was alerted to this masthead’s questions.

O’Neil’s office declined to comment. O’Neil was appointed housing minister in mid-2024, after the Treasury probe was launched in December 2023, when Julie Collins was the minister.

The crisis at the top of the organisation, Saville argued, was thwarting Labor’s housing agenda, which is key to maintaining voters’ trust as the Albanese government has pledged to reverse decades of poor housing policy.

Labor spent billions at the election on what it said was the biggest post-war housing agenda, including a 5 per cent mortgage deposit scheme, billions of dollars of payments to states to build homes, and the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, which uses earnings on interest to fund affordable housing projects. Despite the spending, Treasury has warned that the government is unlikely to meet its target for the nation to build 1.2 million homes by the end of the decade.

“It is exacerbated by the fact that most of the senior executives have left, so there’s no knowledge of how the organisation should function. And this is reflected in the poor conversion rate for HAFF,” Saville told this masthead.

The ABC reported on Sunday that Labor’s signature housing program was struggling to get off the ground. The ABC also reported this year that a Treasury briefing to O’Neil, who became housing minister in mid-2024, outlined problems with Housing Australia’s speed and capability.

Saville was general counsel, board secretary and chief risk officer at Housing Australia from 2022-24.

Austin is a long-time board director at organisations including the Future Fund, the Grattan Institute and HSBC Bank.

Opposition housing spokesman Andrew Bragg, whose party held up the HAFF last term, said O’Neil’s agency was an “incompetent hellhole”.

“Labor’s built bureaucracy, not houses, over the past few years,” he said.

“It is emblematic of Labor’s failure on housing supply. HA’s mess was all frankly predictable because the national government shouldn’t be doing all these things. It shouldn’t be buying houses, it shouldn’t be granting billions of dollars, and it shouldn’t be insuring the children of billionaires’ mortgages.”

“It’s pink batts 2.0,” he said, referring to the failed home insulation scheme introduced under then-prime minister Kevin Rudd in 2009.

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