Housing undertaking could be huge impact investing opportunity
26 October 2022 at 1:03 pm
Impact Investing Australia describes the federal budget’s housing pledge as possibly the “largest impact investment opportunity Australia has seen”.
Australia’s impact investment peak body says the federal government’s National Housing Accord, and related undertaking to build one million new homes over five years from 2024, could represent the “largest impact investment opportunity Australia has seen”.
In a statement, Impact Investing Australia (IIA) said investors could bring private capital to support the work and help solve one of Australia’s greatest social challenges.
IIA chair Richard Brandweiner applauded the budget funding for these important community and climate projects to help deliver positive social and environmental outcomes.
“At IIA, we have witnessed first-hand how support for affordable and social housing can be life changing for vulnerable Australians, while also driving jobs creation and enabling social enterprises to scale their impact,” he said.
The peak body also welcomed an investment of $20 billion to establish the Rewiring the Nation initiative to provide concessional loans and equity to invest in transmission infrastructure projects that will help strengthen, grow and transition Australia’s electricity grids.
“IIA is hopeful that Rewiring the Nation will lead to opportunities for private investors to join the government in delivering this initiative,” it said in a statement.
Brandweiner added IIA was “encouraged” by the government’s request for the Social Impact Investing Taskforce to revisit its final report recommendations from late 2020.
The taskforce was commissioned in 2019 to identify ways to support solutions for entrenched disadvantage, measurable impact and facilitate private capital investment in the social impact investing market.
“The need for social impact investing is more urgent than ever given the impacts of the pandemic, inflation and the economic dislocation and disproportionate impact on vulnerable Australians,” Brandweiner said.
“By working alongside the government, we can catalyse the investment of private and institutional capital and transform the market to improve the lives of all Australians and build our economy for the future.”
