February 2026

Yet again, a flagship government housing initiative has been hobbled not by a lack of funding or ambition, but by weak planning, muddled governance and the sort of bureaucratic dysfunction that has become a hallmark of Australia’s approach to housing supply.

According to reporting by The Australian Financial Review on February 2, 2026, a secret Deloitte review commissioned by Housing Australia raised a “red alert” over the way Labor’s $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund (HAFF) was being rolled out. The review, which was never released publicly and reportedly not shared with senior executives, paints a troubling picture of an agency rushing headlong into delivery without the structures needed to manage a program of national significance.

Housing Australia, the federal government’s key housing delivery body, commissioned Deloitte as it began allocating billions of dollars and tendering for the construction of 13,700 homes. What the review found should alarm anyone expecting the HAFF to provide timely relief to Australia’s deepening housing crisis.

At the heart of the problem was an over-centralised rollout process. Deloitte found the program relied almost entirely on Housing Australia’s chief of staff, Carol Bellettini, who simultaneously coordinated tenders, managed lending, assessed applications, oversaw record-keeping and handled communications with external parties. Deloitte described this as a “high-risk approach” to business continuity, warning that if Bellettini became unavailable, “the success of the rollout would have been limited”.

This is not a minor administrative flaw. It goes to the core of why large-scale housing programs in Australia so often fail to translate political announcements into homes on the ground. When delivery hinges on a single individual rather than robust systems, delays and failures become inevitable.

The review also exposed significant governance weaknesses. Deloitte found Housing Australia had failed to develop overarching or individual program plans for its major funding schemes, despite those programs having been open to proposals for six months. In any private-sector development environment, such an absence of planning would be unthinkable.

Even more concerning were findings that blurred the line between governance and management. The agency’s then chairwoman, Carol Austin, attended meetings of the board’s independent audit and risk committee, raising concerns that the committee may not have been operating with sufficient independence. Deloitte noted that committee work was at times directed by non-members and later considered by the same board members for approval, leaving accountability unclear.

These governance failures coincided with an aggressive rollout timetable that delivered little in practice. As previously reported by the AFR, Housing Australia signed contracts for just 279 projects covering 18,650 homes in the year to June. By October, only 3,315 homes had progressed far enough to access public funding. During the same period, the agency shed around a quarter of its staff — hardly a recipe for accelerating housing delivery.

Despite the severity of Deloitte’s findings, a subsequent audit and risk committee meeting declined to strengthen governance arrangements, including recommendations relating to independence. According to meeting minutes cited by the AFR, the committee “noted” the recommendations but chose not to adopt them. Housing Australia later argued its governance structures complied with Finance Department guidelines, a familiar defence that prioritises box-ticking over outcomes.

Austin resigned in October 2025, midway through her term, following an investigation into bullying allegations, which she denied. A heavily redacted Treasury report later found no rule breaches. The Albanese government has yet to appoint a replacement chair.

Government spokespeople continue to emphasise ambition over execution. Housing Minister Clare O’Neil’s office described the HAFF as a “generationally important vehicle” delivering homes “at scale”, while Housing Australia’s chief executive Scott Langford recently touted “unprecedented opportunities” as the third and final construction round opened.

But ambition does not build homes. Systems do. Governance does. Planning does.

Even industry participants involved in the program have quietly raised concerns. Michele Adair, former chief executive of the Housing Trust, warned that audit and risk committees must provide genuine independent scrutiny and suggested some directors may have overstepped by actively participating in audit processes rather than observing them.

None of this is new. A 2021 audit of Housing Australia’s predecessor body identified the same governance flaws, including audit committee meetings routinely attended by all board members in breach of federal guidelines. The lesson was available. It simply wasn’t learned.

As Australia’s housing shortage worsens, stories like this underline a hard truth: throwing money at housing without fixing government capability and bureaucracy will not solve the crisis. Until planning, governance and execution are treated as seriously as political announcements, “historic” housing funds will continue to underperform — and Australians will continue to pay the price.