Albanese Proposes the Privatisation of Public Housing

LABOR’S FEDERAL BUDGET RESPONSE. By JACK VERDINS

The cornerstone of the Albanese budget response is a massive kick in the guts for the homeless and those at the front of the Public Housing waiting lists around Australia.

The pledge of $10 Billion for “Social and Affordable” housing, refers to subsidized housing run by private Community Housing businesses. It is NOT Public Housing. These businesses have profit targets and don’t take those on the lowest incomes. Many refugees, sole parents, those working part-time, aged pensioners and people on disability support, ( and of course homeless people ) get rejected by Community Housing Associations who openly cherry-pick their tenants.

In contrast public housing is owned and run by the government, and rental is limited to 25% of household income, no matter how much this may be. The catch is that with no investment in incremental public housing for 20 years, the waiting list in Victoria has blown out to 110,000 people and an exponential increase in waiting time for those at the front of the list.

‘Social, Community and Affordable Housing’ may have a feel-good homespun sound to them, but they are, in fact, the end result of a cynical privatization of Public Housing by stealth.

Notably, the $5.3 Billion Victorian Big Housing Build in last year’s state budget pledged to work exclusively with Community Housing businesses and private developers, and would in some cases “kick in” public land to build on. No wonder big institutions and overseas investors have been moving in and supporting the privatization strategy, leading National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation CEO Nathan Dal Bon to comment on “… evidence of Australia’s Community Housing sector emerging as a new investment asset class”. This is “finance speak." We need to be concentrating on social welfare. It is alarming to see Anthony Albanese and the Victorian State Government playing along with this, versus doing the hard yards and taking responsibility for the poor and needy.

On a local level, we saw Labor’s ‘Big Housing Build’ in practice recently. Planning Minister Richard Wynne proposed that the City of Yarra donate a prime piece of council land, on which the government would build 100 private dwellings, plus 60 so called 'Social', and 40 'Affordable' housing dwellings. The Greens Councilors from The City of Yarra are to be congratulated on rejecting this. The land would have been lost forever with no gain in public assets. Insulted by the rejection, Richard Wynne stormed off, promising that other councils would be more grateful for such an offer.

One can only hope that they will also be aware of the ‘sleight of hand’ underway, and be willing to stand up to it.

The general public needs to be aware that the term ‘Affordable Housing’ is not being used in its ordinary sense. “Affordable Housing” as Labor defines it, refers to housing that can charge up to 80% of market rents. The rent is often set at 75%, in order for the landlord to claim charitable status and tax breaks.

Labor’s proposal was to build on public land in Collingwood. The median private rent for units in Collingwood, is $450 per week. 75% of this is $337 per week which is hardly affordable for those on low incomes.

We need Public Housing built, not so-called ‘Social’,‘Affordable’ or ‘Community Housing.’

Meanwhile those at the front of the housing waiting list continue to wait, and live off the kindness of others, or exist under the stress of paying a big slab of their income to private landlords.