The ALP has recently declared its Big Build policy, a major program of building what it calls “social housing” - predictably all the money is going to private community housing (or private “affordable” housing) and not public housing. Indeed it seems that public housing will actually be reduced, as old public housing will be “replaced”, and all experience tells us it will be private community housing that replaces it. “Social housing” has become a term generally intended to deceive. It is used to mean private community housing, but the public is intended to hear “public housing”.
The Reason Party has made a point of its evidence-based approach to policy and this is very welcome. We hope that it will extend this approach beyond opposing various social bigotries, there is a lot of unreason out there!
As advocates of public housing we have a very strong case based on the evidence, assuming any of the social goals that a housing policy may reasonably be supposed to aim for. In particular it is by now widely admitted that public housing is second to none in dealing with homelessness.
What stands against our advocacy for public housing is a very well funded opposition which has, without engaging in open public debate, succeeded in infiltrating the relevant political and academic establishment to a remarkable degree. The advocates of community housing have treated the supposed inherent inferiority of public housing as a fact that needs no evidence, and accordingly have provided none. They argue that support for public housing is behind the times, and that its replacement by community housing is inevitable. These are not rational arguments but appeals to the most cliched logical fallacies.
We hope we can trust a political grouping which has named itself the Reason Party to see through this, and make it transparent to the public. This would help start a rational public discussion of housing policy.
Homelessness expert Professor Guy Johnson from RMIT has conceded that Public Housing is superior to all other models, including community housing, in combating homelessness. He also said that Poverty is the main driver of homelessness. Again, the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute (AHURI) notes that diirect provision of Public Housing is the best way to solve the housing crisis. It is more efficient to cut out the middle man in other words.
Preventing actual homelessness is of course only a small part of public housing’s broader function of preventing housing stress. Homelessness is the extreme case of housing stress. The recent tendency for academics to recognize public housing’s superiority in this extreme case is welcome, but it should be just the beginning of a broader reality check.
Well said. The lack of transparency regarding this issue is unconscionable.
ReplyDeleteThis Big Housing Build is just another example of governments- of whatever flavour, ALP or Liberal, adopting privatisation as their go-to policy, qualified by the gate-keepers in the mass media. The talkback shock jocks and the newspapers are all going along for the ride. Harold.
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