A FEDERAL government social housing program worth $1.8 billion to provide thousands of homes for disadvantaged families in NSW has been labelled ''another BER'' after a review found budget blowouts, delays and millions of dollars owed to subcontractors.
An audit undertaken by the NSW Finance Department found 445 projects had been completed but 57 were still not built, six months after the deadline.
At least four builders who won contracts have gone bust, leaving dozens of subcontractors and other small businesses out of pocket by $15 million. The NSW Finance Minister, Greg Pearce, said: ''This is another BER. It's more pink batts.''
The social housing project, which has been controversial in many neighbourhoods around NSW because it bypassed councils, was part of the Rudd government's stimulus spending to combat the effects of the global financial crisis.
Launched with $5.6 billion in funds, the projects - mainly residential blocks of up to 20 flats - were to be built by last Christmas. The former Labor government ordered Housing NSW, an agency more familiar with maintaining tenants and existing buildings, to oversee the $1.8 billion in works.
But Mr Pearce will strip the agency of responsibility for delivering the remainder of the projects and give it to Public Works NSW.
The review found 445 projects had been completed, providing 5228 individual dwellings. But the costs of delivering them had blown out by $62.6 million, with cumulative delays that equate to a total of 69 years. Of the 57 projects still to be completed, developments were $12 million over budget and 26 years' worth of cumulative delays had been notched up so far.
Four companies building a total of 135 dwellings were insolvent and a further five were on ''life support'', the government said.
Mr Pearce said his office had received hundreds of letters of complaint from worried contractors who had been left unpaid.
''For months honest tradespeople and small businesses have been pushed to the wall by yet another wasteful, mismanaged, ill-conceived Rudd-Gillard stimulus steam train.
''It is completely unacceptable that this has occurred, especially at a time when housing is less affordable than ever,'' he said.
The building industry is unwilling to accept any blame for problems with the social housing program.
''Some people are seeking to portray the building industry as incompetent when actually the incompetence was with the government whose imperative it was to rush this thing,'' a senior industry source said.
Mr Pearce said Labor had put unrealistic time frames on some projects, extracting liquidated damages for projects not complete by last Christmas.
''Financial assessments of builders were not rigorous. Contracts were entered into with builders and project management companies who had poor financials.''
The former government also kept ''throwing money'' at insolvent companies, he said.
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