The single most consequential fact about this body is a Commonwealth payment rule.

A tenant in public housing does not attract Commonwealth Rent Assistance, because rent paid to a state housing authority is excluded. A tenant of a community housing provider does. On transfer, the tenant claims Rent Assistance and it is paid in full to the new landlord as rent.

That is why stock and tenancy management transfers happen. New South Wales has been explicit: a key motivation is harnessing additional Commonwealth Rent Assistance funding previously unavailable to the social housing sector, and the tenancy management, asset management and support services community providers deliver are made possible by that income. Legislation passed in October 2016 made transfers of tenancy management automatic.

Follow that through and the picture is odd.

• The same household, in the same dwelling, generates Commonwealth revenue for maintenance if a community provider manages it and none if the state does.
• A household waiting for social housing attracts Rent Assistance in the private market. Housed by the state, it stops. Housed by a community provider, it resumes.
• So a state facing a maintenance backlog can improve its funding position by transferring management, without a single additional dwelling being built or repaired.

None of this is anyone's error. Each rule is defensible alone: Rent Assistance exists to help private renters, and public housing rent is already income-related. Together they make a Commonwealth payment rule the strongest financial argument about who should manage Australian public housing. See A Commonwealth payment rule is the strongest financial argument about who should manage Australian public housing.