Housing

Serious stuff, this public discourse about housing.

Housing affordability. Housing location. Housing design. Housing quality. Housing sustainability. Housing "look" as it fits with a streetscape.

Not trifling matters any of them. Devillishly intertwined too.

Not trivial either - the debate can quickly resolve into passionate "haves" versus "have nots" camps.

Can be the ruin of a perfectly good family gathering before getting to politics or football results.

The "haves" in this neck of the woods typically have $1 million to $5 or $6 million as "skin in the game" when discussion turns to housing.

They also mostly have (in my direct experience) social consciences, compassion, children & grandchildren wanting to become homeowners - an understanding of how hard it has been to spend a lifetime climbing the property ladder.

Of course there are a handful who have married (and divorced) well, who have inherited from wealthy grandparents, won the lottery or imported some gear the constabulary did not find out about.

A mere handful, statistically irrelevant.

Virtually all housing in Eaglemont, Ivanhoe, Heidelberg and East Ivanhoe is privately owned - just not necessarily by the present occupant, who might be renting.

If someone is renting in these suburbs it is highly likely to be by choice of location and lifestyle rather than lack of choice of housing options.

Time in the market, spending your earnings on mortgages and home improvements, while forgoing niceties such as overseas trips, smashed avo, the nags and the fags are the mainstays of gaining home equity.

Priorities setting, self-discipline, good health, a good job, good luck and even a good birth, all play a big part in getting that home equity. I am told the Bank of Mum & Dad would be the 10th largest home lender in Australia if it was an institution.

This should not be considered sanctimony. Far from it.

Poor health, poor employment, poor education, poor luck, poor family circumstances are all exceedingly more likely to be visited upon people, than to have been chosen by them.

The results of these issues too often compound as housing difficulties - as housing is our highest domestic cost. A society wide problem that should be owned by the entire community.

"There but for the grace of God go I" and all that.

Enough of the sermon - there is a point to all this.

And the point is this.

The State Government has a direct, legitimate, valuable and necessary role in housing provision, including social or welfare housing.

The Federal Government has a political interest in the housing market - in making money available to the States so housing levels (a.k.a. homelessness, housing affordability) does not become an election issue.

Local government has a ....... has a.......has a........?

Just what is the local government role in housing?

We know local government has a regulatory and enforcement role in housing through zoning, planning, records keeping and associated inspections.

In additional we can expect local government to have a research role, an assistance role with Council clients (eg aged care, people with disabilities or disadvantages with whom Council is properly supporting) and, most importantly, an advocacy role to other levels of government.

But being a player in the "housing market" as accommodation owner, developer, land provider, or subsidising, in one form or another, "housing affordability"?

You need to school up, listen up, speak up in this Banyule Council-initiated housing policy review that is happening now.

There are discussion papers, workshops, pop up information sessions, even neighbourhood walks to engage you in this matter.

It is important for you to be aware, and be involved.

Without you lifting a finger, without you poking out an email or phoning an elected person, this Council initiative will still flow through to a Council policy, a Council action, a Council cost to you and a Council incursion into your life - what your neighbourhood looks like, who your neighbours are, how you can build or extend.

Best you put in your two bobs worth.

The Age, 25 July

"The Construction, Forestry, Mining, Maritime and Energy Union’s proposal to levy the profits of major corporations will inflame the political debate over housing supply alongside a separate Labor party push to overhaul housing policy, as the Greens maintain their blockade against the government’s signature reforms."

Will Banyule Council be voting on housing motions at the ALP Federal Conference? No, but that is where policy decisions will be made.

Will Banyule Council be sitting in State or Federal Parliaments voting on housing legislation? No, but that is where housing legislation will be made?

Will our 2 Greens councillors vote their party line on housing on the floor of Council, or follow the "will of the people"?

Will our single ALP member on Council vote as "bound by the Party"?

Another Slant on Renting v. Owning!

This is a long-forgotten government intervention in the domestic housing market.

Not content with the our latter-day rumblings about bi-annual rent freezes, the wartime and post-war reconstruction era governments turfed out owners and rented their properties out under the guise of supporting the war effort on the home front.

The Herald, 16.11.1950, Page 12

Owners Kept Out Of Houses
Will someone organise property owners to make a united protest to Government against the unjust legislation imposed on them in the past ten years?
It is fantastic that five years after the war, owners — many of them elderly, or in bad health, or returned soldiers who gave up their homes during the war for patriotic reasons — must still live in makeshift accommodation while tenants occupy their homes and refuse to quit.— "W.M.," Eaglemont

(Nilss)