Building homes on flood ground? Queensland’s public housing gamble erupts
Queensland is chasing housing targets like there is no tomorrow. The problem is in Burketown, tomorrow usually comes with water. Brand new public homes are going up on land locals say floods regularly. The mayor calls it absurd. The government says it is mitigated. Meanwhile half the state is on alert for heavy rain and rising rivers. So the question writes itself. Are they building homes… or setting them up for the next flood to test?
Burketown, 2023. This is what “flood-prone” actually looks like.
Burketown, a remote town in the Gulf of Carpentaria, is now ground zero for this fight. The Queensland government is pushing ahead with seven public housing builds on land residents say goes under when the wet season bites. This is not a maybe. The area flooded in 2023 and It flooded again in 2024. People there have watched the water swallow roads, yards and anything not bolted down. And yet the concrete keeps pouring.
To locals, it feels less like planning and more like arrogance. Like someone stared at a map in Brisbane, tapped a random block and said build it. Never mind that when the monsoon rolls in, that same block turns into a shallow lake.
Locals are furious. The concrete keeps pouring
The Burke Shire mayor has not sugar coated it. Building there is a clear risk, not theoretical, not political. A plain old technical planning mistake waiting to become a tragedy that everyone will pretend they did not see coming.
The government insists the homes sit above the defined flood level and that mitigation measures are built into the design. On paper, that sounds tidy. On the ground, people who have seen water rip through town are not buying it. They have watched the soil turn to sludge. They have watched the river climb without asking permission.
Yes, the housing crisis is real. Queensland is under pressure to deliver roofs over heads. But chasing targets on land nature already rejected is not bold leadership: It is a gamble.
“You can hit housing targets all you want… but water doesn’t care about your KPI.”
Queensland is literally drowning right now and they still build here
The issue is that this is not some distant future scenario. This very week, multiple parts of Queensland are under alerts for intense rainfall and rapidly rising rivers. The Bureau of Meteorology is warning of flash flooding and dangerous conditions.
So this is not abstract. The risk is present. The state is in the middle of a volatile wet season with active warnings, and yet homes are being built on known flood ground as if timing did not matter.
It is impossible not to say it. The timing is wild.
Because once the first timber frame goes up, what happens if the water rises again? What happens when the next once in a decade flood shows up for the third time in two years? The materials, the labour, the public money could end up as debris carried away by the current. That is the physical reality of building on flood prone ground in a state already dealing with extreme weather.
It is not exaggeration. It is Queensland in an unpredictable season.
Tradies know this smell: desk decisions, site consequences
Any tradie reading this feels the same chill. On site there are rules you do not mess with. You do not build where the ground cannot hold. You do not ignore known risks. You do not frame up something you already suspect will fail. That is not politics, that is basic jobsite logic.
But bureaucracy runs differently. Projects get delivered, ribbons get cut, targets get reported. And when the water eventually returns, someone else deals with the aftermath.
Burketown is not asking for miracles. It is asking not to build public homes on land that will likely be damaged again. Public housing should not be a gamble. It should not feel like a wet time bomb waiting for the next storm.
Trending News
Queensland is chasing housing targets like there is no tomorrow. The problem is in Burketown, tomorrow usually comes with water. Brand new public homes are going up on land locals say floods regularly. The mayor calls it absurd. The government says it is mitigated. Meanwhile half the state is on alert for heavy rain and rising rivers.