The crisis of affordable and secure housing is widely seen as the number one problem facing Australians.
Opinion polls confirm that the cost and availability of affordable and quality housing is at the top of people’s minds. There is a generational pessimism that young people will ever own their own home.
Everybody’s Home has found that renting a unit now costs more than half the median take-home pay of a single worker in every capital city. It said that even those on six-figure incomes face rents that exceed 30% of their income. To pay the national median rent, someone on $40,000 would need to spend 89% of their income. For $70,000 earners, it’s 56%; for $100,000 earners, it’s 41% and for those on $130,000 earners it’s 33%.
Since the group’s last annual Priced Out report, renters have to find an extra $48 a week — nearly $2,500 a year — to cover the national median rent.
While this is being widely reported, so too are scare campaigns in response to the federal government’s modest reforms to negative gearing and Capital Gains Tax (CGT).
A widely-aired suggestion, following a report from National Australia Bank and the Ray White Real Estate group, that the landlords would have to lift rents by 30% to compensate for the tax changes, has been found to be a concoction. As Media Watch pointed out on August 24, both groups had predicted a combination of some rent rises and some falls in property prices — which have started to happen since the tax changes.
Meanwhile, the campaign to combat the great rental rip-off and defend the dwindling public housing sector continues.
The Australian Council of Trade Unions (ACTU) has sent a working proposal to the federal Labor government that it substantially increase the construction of public housing and set the standard private rental lease period at two years.
The ACTU is calling for one in 10 new homes to be public housing — a five fold rise from present, where just one in 50 new homes being built is public housing. It is also calling for the overall level of public housing to rise to at least 6% of total housing stock.
Action for Public Housing and Campaign for Accessible and Maintained Public Housing, which are campaigning to save the Waterloo Estate from demolition, have supported the ACTU’s initiative and called on Unions NSW to push for more public housing in NSW. They said the ACTU’s plan, if actioned, would “deliver housing security for workers”.
Clearly, the ACTU plan recognises the widespread pain, as a result of insecure housing, but also the growing inequality between generations.
ACTU President Michele O’Neil said Australia once built public housing “at a scale that matched working people’s needs”. She pointed to the Hawke government period in which one in 10 new homes was public housing. She said a government that is serious about fixing the housing crisis would lift the public housing stock “to free up homes in the private rental market and make renting more affordable for everyone”.
The federal Treasurer’s dismissive “We’ve already got our plan” response highlights the challenges ahead.
The necessary alliances between the workers’ movement and communities concerned about housing as a human right need to grow into something a lot more powerful.
Green Left believes the right to a secure and quality home is a basic human right. No-one can function without a roof over their heads and as Australia is a rich country, it is not so much a question of resources as politics. We will continue to campaign for the massive expansion of public housing, so that any worker who wants it can get into it — for perpetuity. You can help by becoming a supporter.