Housing Policy (Affordable, Social)
Housing Policy (Affordable, Social) (21330) reads social housing as a share of Australia’s dwelling stock, once a year at 30 June. It asks whether the stock of social housing is keeping pace with the growth of housing overall. A falling share means social housing is growing more slowly than the dwelling stock as a whole, whether or not the number of social dwellings is itself rising.
What it counts. Social housing here is every dwelling in the national social housing programs: public housing, state owned and managed Indigenous housing, community housing and Indigenous community housing. The comparison is with every residential dwelling in Australia, occupied or not.
What it does not measure. It is a measure of the standing stock, not of new construction. The share of new dwellings built for government ownership is read quarterly by Government-Owned Dwelling Delivery (21381). Nor is it a measure of affordability or of demand for social housing.
Primary metric: social housing stock share, Z-Score
Metric typology: single-input annual Z-score. A share is used rather than a count, so the reading follows the balance between social housing and the dwelling stock rather than the size of either.
| Source | Reference | Measure |
|---|---|---|
| Australian Institute of Health and Welfare | Housing assistance in Australia, Table DWELLINGS.1, All programs | Social housing dwellings at 30 June |
| Australian Bureau of Statistics | Total Value of Dwellings, Table 1 (A83728645A) | Number of residential dwellings, June quarter |
The record runs from 2012 to 2025. It begins in 2012 because the dwelling count is first published for the September quarter 2011, so 2011 has no June-quarter figure.
| At 30 June | Social housing dwellings | All dwellings (’000) | Share % | Z-Score |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2012 | 426,488 | 9,097.6 | 4.6879 | +1.6595 |
| 2013 | 428,030 | 9,226.9 | 4.6389 | +1.4556 |
| 2014 | 427,580 | 9,366.8 | 4.5648 | +1.1470 |
| 2015 | 427,774 | 9,562.1 | 4.4736 | +0.7672 |
| 2016 | 432,846 | 9,774.5 | 4.4283 | +0.5784 |
| 2017 | 435,661 | 9,974.8 | 4.3676 | +0.3256 |
| 2018 | 436,213 | 10,161.4 | 4.2928 | +0.0142 |
| 2019 | 437,718 | 10,350.2 | 4.2291 | −0.2513 |
| 2020 | 436,333 | 10,518.3 | 4.1483 | −0.5877 |
| 2021 | 440,192 | 10,720.7 | 4.1060 | −0.7639 |
| 2022 | 442,752 | 10,886.3 | 4.0671 | −0.9261 |
| 2023 | 445,622 | 11,041.2 | 4.0360 | −1.0555 |
| 2024 | 451,754 | 11,200.1 | 4.0335 | −1.0659 |
| 2025 | 451,799 | 11,357.5 | 3.9780 | −1.2971 |
The gold line is the share in each year, from 4.6879% in 2012 to 3.9780% in 2025. The grey dashed line marks the 2012–2025 mean of 4.2894%, the level at which the reading is 0σ. The share is lower than in the year before in every one of the thirteen years shown.
At −1.2971σ (30 June 2025), social housing is 3.9780% of all dwellings, the lowest share in the record. Between 2012 and 2025 the social housing stock grew by 25,311 dwellings, or 5.93%, from 426,488 to 451,799. The dwelling stock as a whole grew by 2,259,900, or 24.84%, from 9,097,600 to 11,357,500. The share has therefore fallen while the number of social dwellings has risen: social housing has grown at about a quarter of the rate of the dwelling stock.
The decline has been continuous. The share is lower than in the previous year in all thirteen year-on-year steps. The smallest fall was in 2024, from 4.0360% to 4.0335%, the year the social housing stock rose by 6,132 dwellings, its largest annual increase in the record. In 2025 it rose by 45, and the share fell by 0.0555 percentage points.
Position. 9.7, indicative.
With fourteen annual observations, the record is too short to rank the reading against its own history. The position is therefore read from the Z-score, as the share of a normal distribution lying below −1.2971σ. It is published in the same form as an empirical percentile and will become one when the record reaches twenty observations.
Because the share has fallen every year, any year standardised against the full record sits further below the mean than the year before it, and the latest year sits at the lowest point. The Z-score here describes the length and steadiness of the decline, not a sudden change in 2025.
The marker shows the node’s certified Z-score, −1.2971σ at 30 June 2025, on a scale from −3σ to +3σ. The dashed centre line marks 0σ, the 2012–2025 mean. The marker is a position on the Z-score scale, not a percentile.
- A change of measure, September 2026. Readings of this node published before September 2026 were a quarterly index of social housing against occupied private dwellings, with the dwelling count estimated between Census years. The node now reads the annual share set out above, built entirely from published figures. The two are not comparable, and the difference between them is one of measure, not of conditions.
- A short record. The baseline holds fourteen annual observations, fewer than the platform’s standard minimum for estimating a mean and standard deviation. The Z-score is correct for the record as it stands and will settle as the record lengthens.
- A trend, read at its end. The share has fallen every year, so the latest year is always the lowest. See Section 4.
- All dwellings, occupied or not. The comparison is with every residential dwelling, including those unoccupied on the day. A count of occupied dwellings alone is available only in Census years.
- Annual, at 30 June. Social housing counts are published once a year. No quarterly figure is estimated between them.
- Reporting coverage. The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare notes that its figures may not be comparable across jurisdictions or over time, and community housing counts depend on reporting by providers. Transfers of dwellings between programs, such as from public to community housing, change the split between programs but not the total used here.
The other seven components of Legislation & Policy Analysis (21300).
The series explained in six tiers, from plain English to expert.
- Certified 24 September 2026 at −1.2971σ at 30 June 2025, on one input: social housing as a share of all dwellings
- Position 9.7, indicative; empirical ranking begins at 20 observations (currently 14)
- Baseline 2012–2025, N 14, below the standard minimum-observation floor
- Findings are presented on the basis of data and evidence alone.
