INDI MP's Helen Haines' push to have regional areas properly recognised in the Federal Government's $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund have been voted down.

The amendments rejected on Wednesday would have ensured the housing needs of people in regional, rural and remote Australia are clearly considered under the Bill; and required reviews of the fund’s spending to consider the extent to which the new laws meet the housing needs of regional, rural and remote Australians.

Dr Haines noted that one in three Australians live outside the big cities yet she has to constantly remind the government about how the housing crisis is impacting people in regional, rural and remote communities.

“What I put forward were common-sense amendments to ensure the housing needs of regional, rural and remote Australians are explicitly considered in this legislation,” Dr Haines said.

“Regional communities will continue to be overlooked unless laws recognise our specific needs, and agencies are required to be transparent about how money is distributed to meet those needs.

“Without these amendments there is no guarantee that the billions of dollars announced for housing will flow to regional Australia, and the communities where it is needed most.”

The fund's capacity of solving the housing crisis has also been brought into question with experts calling for more funding to meet the demand.

Social housing expert Liam Davies, who is an RMIT lecturer in housing and urban planning, has warned the $10 billion fund will be greatly insufficient due a decline in social housing to the tune of 69,000 dwellings over the last decade, at time waiting lists are growing.

“The HAFF is a $10 billion fund which will spend its interest earnings on social housing," Mr Davies said.

"It is like a term-deposit for social housing, where the money will not actually be spent, just the investment earnings.

“According to the government, the $10 billion HAFF will support construction of 30,000 dwellings over the next five years.

"This is an average of 6000 dwellings per annum.

“The social housing system has not grown at the same rate as the general housing stock for many years.

"According to the Productivity Commission, between 2011 and 2021 social housing shrunk from 4.6 per cent of all dwellings to 3.7pc of all dwellings.

"In proportional terms Australia has almost 69,000 fewer social housing dwellings today than 10 years ago.

"That is an average proportionate decline of 6900 dwellings per annum."

Meanwhile, Productivity Commission data shows that the waiting list has increased from 140,578 in 2018 to 174,624 in 2022.

Mr Davies said National Cabinet has agreed to a target of 1.2 million new dwellings over the next five years.

He said to maintain current social housing stock of 3.7pc, around 45,000 of these dwellings would need to be social.

"This is much more than what the HAFF is promising," he said.

“To get social housing stock back to 2011 levels, we need around 124,000 social housing dwellings over the next five years (69,000 to cover the shortfall and 55,000 to maintain social housing as 4.6pc of stock).

"This is over four times what the HAFF is promising.

“Evidently the HAFF will not get us close to where we need to be.

"At best, the HAFF will slow down the decline of social housing in Australia.

“Much more investment is required to deliver the amount of social housing Australia needs, and while the HAFF won’t hurt, it won’t come close to solving the problem.

"What would make a real difference, would be a commitment to spending the whole $10 billion on housing, not just the interest.”