Board members announced for new housing finance body

David Cant, Teresa Dyson, Adrian Harrington and Kylie Rampa will be joining chair of the NHFIC Brendan Crotty to oversee the corporation’s operations.

Mr Cant, who is a director of PowerHousing Australia, has more than 40 years’ experience in providing housing for low-income earners, while Ms Rampa is currently the CEO of Property Australia in the Lendlease Group and has 25 years of experience in the national and global real estate industries.

Ms Dyson, meanwhile, is a taxation lawyer with more than 20 years’ experience advising on infrastructure transactions, financing, corporate tax issues, mergers and acquisitions, the not-for-profit sector and tax controversy matters. She is also presently a member of the Takeovers Panel and Foreign Investment Review Board.

Mr Harrington carries more than 25 years of experience in the funds management and real estate industries, currently serving as the head of funds management at Folkestone and as a non-executive director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute.

The NHFIC was established to perform two functions:

• Operate the National Housing Infrastructure Facility, a $1 billion facility that will finance “critical housing-related infrastructure” to speed up the planning process to increase housing supply through the provision of loans and grants and investments.
• Operate an affordable housing bond aggregator, which will provide low-cost, longer-term finance to registered community housing providers. Bonds issued by the NHFIC through the bond aggregator will be government-backed by a legislative guarantee to “drive the best price outcomes for consumers”.

The government previously claimed that the board’s independence had been “enshrined” in the legislation through a provision that requires all financing and investment decisions to be made by the board.

Additional board announcements will be made in the near future, according to the government.

[Related: Parliament greenlights housing affordability body]