Public housing in Australia is one part of social housing and the other is community housing.[1] Public housing is provided by departments of state governments. Australian public housing (often historically referred to as "Housing Commission") operates within the framework of the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement, by which funding for public and community housing is provided by both federal and state governments.[2] According to the 2006 census, Australia's public housing stock consisted of some 304,000 dwellings out of a total housing stock of more than 7.1 million dwellings, or 4.2% of all housing stock[3] (compared with 20% in Denmark, 46% "low rent housing" in France and 50% public housing in the UK at peak).[citation needed]
Housing advocates have urged construction of new public housing dwellings to meet the rising numbers of families seeking public housing. Existing public housing stock has been severely underfunded, and older buildings demolished.[4][5] There are also moves towards privatisation and transition into community and social housing models, reinforced through government policies which aim to sell large amounts of public homes into the private market.[6] This has led to recent campaigns to save public housing marked for demolition,[7][8] and advocate for upgrades and maintenance and construction of new public housing dwellings, such as the Bendigo street housing campaign in which homeless people were housed by community in homes left empty by the Victorian state government.[9]