By Maria Millers
They think I’m building a house. I’m building a haven,
not with brick, but with tenderness. (“What They Don’t Know” by Jericho Brown).
Housing seems to have moved centre stage in the election debates and while Brown’s poem is a reminder of how nurturing a home can be is shared by many, regrettably not by everyone. Not all homes are nurturing havens and memories of home and an oppressive father for poet Sylvia Plath were very different indeed:
I have always been scared of you,
With your Luftwaffe, your gobbledygoo. (“Daddy”, Sylvia Plath).
But whether nurturing or otherwise what is indisputable is that the right to shelter or adequate affordable housing is a recognised human right enshrined in International Law. But sadly not protected in the Australian Constitution.
In Australia housing policy is treated primarily as an economic issue, not as a rights-based one. The focus is on markets, ownership, and investment – not shelter, security, dignity, or fairness.
Australia’s obsession with home ownership is not just about having a place to live, but is tied to ideas of success and social status. That has definitely created a divide between those who have ‘made it’ onto the property ladder and those left renting or priced out from both. People experiencing or at risk of homelessness include single parents, low income essential workers, First Nations People, young people and even some who despite full time employment, can’t keep up with mortgage or rent..
With Anzac Day this week we should also think about the many veterans who are homeless. The right to housing must include our veterans.
We honour their service with medals,
but leave them without a place to sleep.
There is without doubt a housing crisis. There are just not enough affordable houses or rentals to go around. And this is why housing has become such a hot potato topic. Wages haven’t kept up with house prices. So the old promise of ‘work hard and you’ll own a home’ feels hollow.
We still talk about the Australian Dream, the mythical home of John Williamson’s song which hardly reflects our society today:
Give me a home among the gumtrees
With lots of plum trees
A sheep or two, a k-kangaroo
A clothesline out the back
Verandah out the front
And an old rocking chair.
But the desire to own property remains strong as parents urge offspring to get ‘a foot on the property ladder’ and as we know often provide the deposit.
Perhaps it’s time to go beyond the solutions put forward by all parties and look at the philosophical thinking around housing reflected in the language used.
When you think about it, we have a whole vocabulary built around housing: a potential home is evaluated whether it’s ‘a good investment.’ And somewhere along the way, aspirational became code for a four-bedroom house, two bathrooms, and a mortgage the size of a small country. It’s seen as a pathway into a kind of suburban middle class respectability. We talk about aspirational suburbs, aspirational buyers, getting on the ladder – as if aspiration itself is only applicable to real estate.
So often used in this context it has almost lost its broader meaning. It has stopped meaning hopeful, visionary, ambitious in any way that doesn’t end in bricks and equity.
What that does, though, is subtly devalue other kinds of aspiration: It can be seen in the way anyone choosing to pursue a creative social goal such as artist, teacher, carer or just someone who seeks stability without the pressure of accumulation is not valued.
Whereas taking on a massive mortgage, chasing capital growth to the exclusion of all else is celebrated as success.
As poet WH Auden’s satire on the man who did everything ‘right’ in society’s eyes asks:
Was he free? Was he happy? The question is absurd:
Had anything been wrong, we should certainly have heard. (“Unknown Citizen”, W. H. Auden).
It’s like changing the meaning of any cultural myth: it starts with language, stories, and visibility. If enough people start using aspirational to mean something broader, richer, and more human, the weight of that old narrow meaning starts to crack.
But people still must have somewhere to live, be safe and raise families.
Cities like Vienna, Copenhagen, or even parts of Japan show that affordability, density, and quality can coexist. These countries show how a different approach can work Vienna is such a great example: over 60% of the population lives in social or cooperative housing, and it’s beautifully designed, well-maintained, and integrated into all parts of city life.
After WWII, Australia had a severe housing shortage and in response, the Federal Government offered cheap land, low-interest loans, and infrastructure development to encourage families (especially returned soldiers) to build or buy homes in the suburbs.
At the same time they initiated programs like the Commonwealth-State Housing Agreement(1945) – which invested heavily in public housing. “Lots of people have gone from public housing to do great things in the world…”.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese is a notable example. Raised in public housing in inner-city Sydney by a single mother on a pension, he often credits his upbringing with shaping his commitment to social justice and equality.
Jennifer Westacott, the Chief Executive of the Business Council of Australia, also grew up in public housing in New South Wales. In the sports world, cricketer David Warner and actor Bryan Brown have both credited their humble beginnings in public housing with instilling resilience and determination.
Richard Glover, author and ABC presenter for many years grew up in Doveton, Victoria, a suburb that was predominantly public housing during his childhood. In his memoir Flesh Wounds, Glover reflects on his experiences growing up in this working-class area, where by 1966 around 2500 homes had been built.
Policies from the 1980s saw deregulation, privatisation and tax incentives like negative gearing and capital gains tax discount encouraging people to invest in property At the same time, public housing declined, was neglected and even demonised.
As home ownership started to become harder for many it was less about shelter and more about wealth creation.
Renting became more common, and the dream began to slip away for younger generations and the more vulnerable. Many now see it as either unrealistic or unappealing.
The crisis isn’t just about not being able to buy a home. It’s about lack of stability, security, dignity, and choice. And it’s being felt mostly by the very people who keep the country functioning.
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The 'housing crisis' : more people than shelter. Thanks the Uniparty for 40 years of sabotage on multiple fronts. Slow approvals, land hoarding, reckless bank lending, lack of trades training, extreme immigration intakes, etc - all of which are under the control of authorites who seem to lack basic common sense.
In exchange for being the beneficiaries of the property bubble we had to have, a large chunk of home owners have turned a blind eye to fixing the mess. Too many voters see no downside in choosing the Party offering the most goodies at elections. I don't know how best to categorize that - childish or self-centred?
The last two censuses showed 10% of all residential property stands empty, and also that there are many homes with underutilised rooms. Without trampling private property rights, I believe that quite a lot could be done to make existing housing available to accommodate more people.
Some houses stand empty for years while ownership problems are sorted out. Many properties will be developed at some time in the future but remain unoccupied for long periods waiting for this to happen. Many old hotels and motels could quite easily be made over into single person's housing and bed-sits. Large office spaces and empty shops could also be converted to provide accommodation in various forms.
A surprising number of large homes have only one occupant, quite a few of whom would love to have someone to live in except they are afraid of being exploited in some way, or being taxed and losing their pension if they charge board.
The State governments have their housing departments already managing swathes of housing and these surely could manage other forms of housing as nominated above.
Maria Millers, great article, studded throughout with little gems of observation and insight.
Some practical ideas there Lyndal. Many years ago I thought about the future of CBDs - if AI does really take over most white collar jobs, then a lot of those towers are probably going to get converted to studios & apartments. The recent trend to work-from-home adds to that idea. If the parasite class can ringfence the CBDs with barbed-wired enclosures like some cities in China, then move the dial of surveillance to their proposed 'Zero Trust Security' model, and viola, a 'smart city'. Maybe that was the tenative plan anyway?
'Liberal' ideology seem to have forsaken people's desire to be a community. Communities that are self-sustaining and broad in their interests, communities that look after their own, and also form networks with other communities that can provide benefits from their diverse regional bounties. Such communities are founded on the collective talents of its people in labour and intellect. Such communities have always known that they may have to move should their opportunities from natural resources or geographical location expire.
The 'Crown' or 'State', through conquest, 'owned' and controlled land, mostly doling it out in usually large estates to the powerful for their allegiance. It may have been further subdivided to ordinary folk, by either mortgage or tythe. In colonial times, to colonize, for a time, the 'Crown' or 'State' may have allowed 'settlers' or 'squatters' title to occupy. Always there were the associated taxes.
As acquisitive vested interests had ever increasing influence upon the 'Crown' or 'State', so their 'bargains' filled the coffers of the 'Crown' or 'State' and left the ordinary folk exposed to the wiles of the vested interests. And this burgeoned through the advent of 'corporations'. Real estate became an 'investment' for corporations and a serious earner for the 'Crown' or 'State'. Corporations soon became a tool of convenience for the 'Crown' or 'State', providing it arms-length cover against the extractive wiles wrought against ordinary folk (and their communities).
And the lenders and bean-counters became masters of invention in new language and gormless mathematical devices and instruments that ensured extraction of tangibles and the construction of a new industry of pure abstraction to ensure their (invisible) supremacy rather than be servants to those that bring product to society.
Ultimately corporations accrued more wealth and power than many 'Crowns' or 'States', and became increasingly difficult to control. The corporations convinced the lazy 'Crown' or 'State' of their indispensability and comparative efficiency (a myth). And so we were introduced to neoliberalism (the 'trickle-down' myth), the selling off of 'Crown or 'State' assets, corporations avoiding taxes and old ineffective laws, and governments held to ransom by the wealth and power of the agglomeration into mega-corporations and their often invisible and unaccountable financiers and investors.
The 'Crowns' or 'States' of the 'west' had successfully handed and entrenched the power of 'capital' over 'labour' (and community) to the mega-corporations, and left the 'voting' ordinary folk disenfranchised (so much for democracy!). Since then, all real property has skyrocketed in price, been seen as an 'investment' rather than a place for a house and home. It prevails right across the 'western' world and is increasingly bringing ruination to ordinary folk and their communities - a divisive competition between individuals seeking security and shelter, where once there was the aspiration for community.
It has become so saturated after 2+ generations, that either diminishing and third-rate affordable supply vs demand by ordinary folk brings on anarchy, or the chance of govts turning the associated psychology, and ship of reality around may take decades of leveraging the wealth back away from the mega-corporations and super-rich - that monumental fight has started. But it's being smashed by the likes of T-Rump and his flunkies seeking to embed a plutocracy of kleptocratic authoritarianism, and Britain and the EU remain in a pressure-cooker of disintegration, dithering over remaining olde worlde inequities still in place.
Oz calls itself a modern innovative democracy - what garbage, it remains nonsensically hinged to the 'west' and their stupidities. It has obliterated its secondary industries, utterly failed to pursue sustainable decentralization and regionalism, had its moments of reinvention, but they are mere tinkering and short-lived. And by huge measure fails to take full recognition of global inter-dependencies, preferring imported arrogance and deliberately blinkered vision dwelling in the sloth, bias and brutality of the olde worlde and neoliberalism.
A fine article by Maria Miller. And good suggestions by Lyndal, but I feel they will do little in the face of the wrecking ball wreaking havoc on us. Our ludicrous economy has been premised on extraction from ordinary folk by our own land barons, and our political duopoly remains captured by them; our home-grown oligarchs, the mega-corporations, a horrendous (almost fascist) RW mainstream media, and enough of a mind-blown voting populace that inhibits our path to establishing equity and housing for all folk in Oz.
We must rid ourselves of neoliberalism, and (inappropriate type of) negative gearing and Howard's destructive CGT discount and franking credit double-dip. Shorten tried it in what ought to have been a non-losable election (2019), and lost. Now the duopoly doesn't want to talk about it, even though appropriate grandfathering can be implemented - it remains a complete slag on our housing problem, our economy, and our politics.