Local accommodation committees
Queensland Teachers' Journal, Vol 131 No 2, 2 April 2026, page no 10.
The key to ensuring that housing meets the Queensland Government’s dual purpose of attracting and retaining teachers to rural and remote Queensland is appropriately designed and elected local accommodation committees.
Tenant representation in the crucial decision-making processes is embedded in the housing policy: “Teacher housing is managed at the local level through an elected local accommodation committee (LAC) who supports the needs of the community, including existing tenants and incoming tenants. Local management is undertaken in partnership with region and central office and allows for flexibility when responding to local issues and contexts” (page 1, Teacher Housing Procedure).
LAC
An LAC is to be established to locally manage teacher housing in centres with one or more multi-tenancy dwellings. Only in centres with no multi-tenancy dwellings would there be no requirement for an LAC. The centre principal becomes the default LAC (this is rare, as centres would normally have at least one multi-tenancy dwelling).
To establish the LAC, a responsible officer (outgoing local accommodation officer, a principal, or the employees’ industrial representative) calls a general meeting, which is to occur annually; usually early in Term 1. The meeting is open to all permanent departmental employees in the centre.
To ensure due process, attendees should be given appropriate notice of the meeting, with the time, date, location chosen to support participation of interested permanent employees.
The meeting has a the two-fold purpose, i.e. to consider:
- the composition of the LAC
- the procedure for the election process through which employees will be elected to the LAC.
Pages 2-4 of the procedure should be provided to all permanent employees before the proposed meeting. Time should also be allocated in the agenda to consider information from the procedure that will guide deliberations.
Composition
The procedure states that “the committee is to be large enough to ensure that all stakeholders are represented but should not be so big that it is unmanageable.” The procedure also states that: “Membership of the LAC should be elected by staff in the area covered by the LAC and consist of:
- teachers who are occupants of departmentally provided housing in the location
- school principal or other school leaders
- cross-sectional representation of school-based staff in the location covered by the LAC.
"In determining cross-sectional representation, consideration should be given to workplace types, household sizes, gender representation, cultural diversity, industrial representation, and multi and sole tenancy representation.”
Each workplace should have an elected teacher-tenant voice. In some locations, a decision will be made to have a principal and/or their delegate from each school on the committee, and then a teacher who is elected at the school through a nomination process. Other centres, through a consultation process and subsequent meetings, have determined that instead of each small school having both a principal voice and tenant-teacher voice, they will elect just one principal or tenant-teacher to the committee.
Employees seeking a committee role need to consider what is required of them in what is a formal but voluntary role, including what duties they are committing to undertake (p3). Legislation, including the Public Sector Act 2022, the Residential Tenancies and Rooming Accommodation Act 2008 and the Work Health and Safety Act 2011 (Qld) apply; as do department policies, including the Standard of Practice.
Where there has been no clear process in place that aligns with the procedure, or where there has been significant turnover in staff, it may take a series of subsequent meetings to firm up the composition and the election process. Advice can be sought from the QTU and the department. If after the election/s there is a gap in representation, for example no multi-tenancy voice, then a further election process can occur to ensure cross-sectional representation.
Local accommodation officer election and allocation decisions
The procedure states that at “the first meeting of a newly convened LAC, a local accommodation officer must be elected as chair and administrator of the committee.” It is at this meeting that the frequency of meetings and procedural arrangements are also established. The procedure states that meetings must be held each time allocations are confirmed, as it is the committee that makes allocation decisions.
A properly established and functioning LAC will make considered and informed decisions in relation to housing allocations that focus on the stated purpose of the housing, which is to both attract and then retain teachers to rural and remote areas.