{"id":96,"date":"2026-04-28T12:12:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:12:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/96\/"},"modified":"2026-04-28T12:12:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-28T12:12:52","slug":"wa-government-plans-to-build-500-homes-despite-critical-worker-shortage","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/96\/","title":{"rendered":"WA government plans to build 500 homes despite ‘critical worker shortage’"},"content":{"rendered":"

The West Australian government has announced it plans to build 500 homes for public servants in regional areas over five years despite a “critical worker shortage”.<\/p>\n

The Pilbara is set to benefit the most from the commitment, with 305 homes expected to be built in Port Hedland and Karratha.<\/p>\n

The $419 million plan, which is partially funded by major mining companies, will also deliver new homes to Kalgoorlie, Broome, Geraldton and Albany.<\/p>\n

Government Regional Officer Housing (GROH) is provided at a subsidised rate to help attract and retain frontline workers such as police officers, teachers and nurses.<\/p>\n

The initiative has been welcomed, but there are questions being raised as to how it can be done with a shortage of workers and worker accommodation.<\/p>\n

Where will the workers go?<\/p>\n

Master Builders WA chief executive Matt Moran welcomed the initiative to get more critical workers in regional WA.<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

Matt Moran doesn’t know where the workers are going to come from, or where they’ll stay if they turn up. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

“Our concern is how are we going to deliver this?” he said.<\/p>\n

“I know of a builder in the south of state who had to buy four caravans to put his workers in because he couldn’t find accommodation for them.”<\/p>\n

Mr Moran said the government should consider modular construction for worker camps \u2014 \u00a0if workers could be found at all.<\/p>\n

“We have a critical shortage of workers in WA and its even more acute in regional WA,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I know of one builder in Geraldton who had to offer \u2026 cash incentives to get people to work in Geraldton.”<\/p>\n

Premier Roger Cook told ABC Radio the workers would come when the industry could see there was an ongoing need for their services.<\/p>\n

“What we’ve seen in recent times is that if you send the right signals to the housing construction industry around a pipeline of builds that you want to undertake over a period of time, they will make the investment decisions to move the workforce and to have the teams on hand to be able to take on these challenges,” he said.<\/p>\n

Houses go back to private market<\/p>\n

Regional Development Australia Pilbara chief executive Daiva Gillam also welcomed the announcement.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Daiva Gillam is keen to see what land the government decides to release. (ABC Pilbara: Kimberley Putland)<\/p>\n

“What we will see is land being released back onto open market, and houses, which is fabulous, and that should then ease with a less than 1 per cent vacancy rate, which is what we’ve got,” she said.<\/p>\n

Ms Gillam said the next big question was where the government would decide to release land for housing.<\/p>\n

“How much will be released in Port Hedland? They haven’t had a residential land release in around 10 years,” she said.<\/p>\n

When asked whether there would be enough space to support the homes in the Pilbara, Housing Minister John Carey said the state was continuing to work on unlocking land.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

John Carey announced the GROH housing investment as part of the “Seven Cities” plan. (ABC Pilbara: Kimberley Putland)<\/p>\n

“Well, we have to make sure,” he said.<\/p>\n

“We are committed to this bold target of 305 GROH and regional workers’ homes in both Karratha and Port Hedland.<\/p>\n

“We are committed to that and we will do whatever we can, including unlocking further land to make these projects realised.”<\/p>\n

In the Great Southern, Advance Housing acting chief executive Kim Daniel praised the effort to meet demand.<\/p>\n

“Advanced Housing already manages social affordable key worker housing and student housing in the region, but the biggest demand of the regional city of Albany,” she said.<\/p>\n

“The big gap that we’re seeing isn’t affordable, and key worker housing on top of low income housing, so this would make a huge difference.<\/p>\n

“So more housing for government workers frees up the private rentals for other workers or people needing a place to call home.”<\/p>\n

‘Not enough’<\/p>\n

Geraldton, which is home to about 43,000 people, is slated to get 37 extra GROH houses under the scheme.<\/p>\n

“It’s nowhere near enough,” Mayor Jerry Clune said.<\/p>\n

The port city saw an influx of almost 400 people in the 2024\/25 financial year and recorded a 10th consecutive year of population growth.<\/p>\n

\"An<\/p>\n

Jerry Clune says more \u00a0housing is sorely needed, but a few dozen dwellings won’t make much difference. (ABC Midwest & Wheatbelt: Chris Lewis)<\/p>\n

Cr Clune said the housing market was increasingly tight, especially for rental properties.<\/p>\n

“Any rentals and that have been gobbled up reasonably quickly to sort of fit [GROH] staff for hospitals and all that,” he said.<\/p>\n

“I don’t think 37 is [enough]. We’re a growing community and there’s certainly a need to get some new housing in the economy.”<\/p>\n

Cr Clune said there were vacant blocks “everywhere” in the city that could easily be built on without the added cost of ground works.<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

Sandra Brewer says the government has failed to walk the talk on the housing issue. (ABC News: Courtney Withers)<\/p>\n

Shadow Treasurer Sandra Brewer said the government’s track record showed the promise was “simply not believable”.<\/p>\n

Ms Brewer said only 78 GROH properties had been built over a 10-year period.<\/p>\n

“When it comes to housing, this government is all about glitzy conferences and media releases,” she said.<\/p>\n

“What we see in reality is it just doesn’t happen.”<\/p>\n

With additional reporting from Kimberley Putland<\/a> and Mietta Adams<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The West Australian government has announced it plans to build 500 homes for public servants in regional areas…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":97,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[22,21,143,139,147,142,141,146,140,145,144],"class_list":["post-96","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-australia","tag-au","tag-austrlia","tag-government-regional-officer-housing","tag-groh-housing","tag-master-builders","tag-mining-accommodation","tag-pilbara-housing-crisis","tag-roger-cook","tag-seven-cities-plan","tag-wa-government","tag-wa-state-budget"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=96"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/96\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/97"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=96"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=96"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/australia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=96"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}