One of the federal government's signature housing policies is being audited amid concerns the $10 billion scheme may not be producing value for money.
The Housing Australia Future Fund was set up in 2023 to help tackle a national shortage of dwellings, and aimed to build 40,000 social and affordable homes by 2028.
But slow progress on the construction of new properties, along with reports that the average cost of a home under the scheme was more than $750,000, prompted the Opposition's housing spokesman Andrew Bragg to request an investigation from the Australian National Audit Office.
"This is going to be a massive overpayment of taxpayer funds, which I think is a disgrace," he told reporters in Canberra on Wednesday.
In a letter responding to Senator Bragg, Auditor-General Caralee McLiesh said a probe was already underway, and would be tabled in Parliament in June 2026.
"The Australian National Audit Office (ANAO) will examine if Treasury effectively designed the HAFF and if it established effective delivery arrangements," she wrote.
Senator Bragg claimed the National Anti Corruption Commission may also need to investigate whether big super funds had an unfair say in the design of the scheme.
A spokesman for Housing Minister Clare O'Neil sought to play down the audit, saying it was not uncommon for the office to investigate big projects.
"The ANAO commenced this audit more than a month ago," the spokesman said.
"We look forward to its findings and see it as an opportunity to potentially improve on the HAFF."
The housing fund was initally seeded with $10 billion in funding.
That money was invested in a similar way to other government funds, with the returns being used to build new social and affordable homes.
But the program has come under criticism after it was revealed the first few hundred homes under the scheme were existing dwellings which the government had bought, not built from scratch.
