Greens leader Adam Bandt and housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather say minor party will now support Housing Australia Future Fund
Still a drop in the bucket of what’s needed and still not immediate enough. Lots of people gonna be doing a tough xmas this year.
Do you know how many god damn houses I could build with 10 billion dollars?
SO MANY FUCKING HOUSES, BECAUSE THEY’D ALL BE WELL-BUILT APARTMENTS.
Why do I feel like this is somehow going to achieve somewhere between diddly squat and fuck-all?
Yeah, it’s a small amount compared to what is actually needed. In the bill digest, it’s mentioned that government’s 2021 review of affordable housing estimated that “the number of social housing dwellings required over the 20 years from 2020 to 2040 would be 614,000, plus 277,000 affordable housing dwellings. It estimated the cost of closing this shortfall at $290 billion.”
That said, the Greens’ pressure on the negotiations has definitely improved the proposal. The first reading of the bill mentioned that the $10B commitment was just going to sent to the government’s investment fund and that withdrawals would be capped at $500m per year. That means that Labor’s original plan was for the $10B to be spread over 20 years. Compare this to the $290b estimate of what the country actually needs over the next 20 years and it’s clear that Labor only ever wanted to fix 3.4% of the problem.
This is not a problem that can be spread over 20 years. People are homeless NOW. They’re hungry NOW. Hungry people don’t stay hungry for long.
Already break-ins are at a point that normal people are ready to kill. They don’t have 20 years to fix this shit; they will be eaten alive in their own homes before then and they will deserve it.
We need drastic overhaul of how we do our zoning laws.
If I were made dictator-mayor of my city (Brisbane), the first thing I’d do is eliminate all low-density residential (LDR) zoning. It would all be replaced with LMR (low-medium density residential), which allows up to 3 storeys for townhouses and apartments.
We need overhaul at the state and federal levels as well. Much, much more publicly-owned housing. Better protections for tenants. Things like levies on empty or potentially even under-occupied homes. A sensible approach to public and active transport, and more public spaces (parks, pools, etc.) to make living in these higher-density environments more comfortable and feasible. But the first thing I’d do is simply allow people by right to build medium density housing on the land they own. Take that control out of the huge developers who can lobby for 40 storey skyscrapers in the inner city and spread it out.
I like NSW governments policy. Highrise depends on infrastructure and not how far it is from the CBD. But it is still not good enough.
We have 220m+ in Parramatta which is 20km from CBD and from what I understand the application for it to be higher was denied because it was too close to the airport.
Macquarie Park, Rhodes are new suburbs with 150m+ (definition for a skyscraper). Many others are getting 100m+, Olympic Park, Liverpool etc.
So it is quite spread out already. Even places very far away from Sydney like Penrith, Rouse Hill, Edmondson Park and Leppington will be zoned for high rise.
But we need to overhaul the zoning laws for the missing middle. In Sydney Bankstown to Marrickville and Revesby to Turella should all be up for 100m towers or maximum allowed due to proximity to airport.
Some actual public housing expenditure is welcome, but for it to be 10% of the handout of developers is problematic in the extreme.
With how damaging the Victorian model has proven here and the near complete inaction on public housing it has whitewashed I’m inclined to think this was a policy better sunk entirely. It spends money and commits capacity to developers that we need to build true public housing.
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Eh, Labor’s policy here is weak, but it’s something. Politically speaking, I think the Greens would have come out looking to the uninformed public like the bad guys, and there would at least be some merit to that claim. This isn’t like Rudd’s climate policy where he refused any compromise and came to the Senate with a proposal that even their own modelling said would take over 20 years to produce any effect and would require paying polluters if we wanted to ratchet it up.
The Albanese government has given some pretty good concessions here. Not perfect, but good enough to be worth passing, while continuing to fight for more in the future.
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Albos policy is weak and was going to lead to less houses built than even the Liberals did in 10 years.
At least greens held out, turned 2 billion into 10 and turned an investment fund (and a promise to build) into actual immediate building.
It’s a good day to be a landlord in Australia
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This is the best summary I could come up with:
The Greens have agreed to support the Albanese government’s $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff) bill, guaranteeing it will pass the Senate after months of bitter negotiations.
Bandt told reporters in Canberra now that $3bn was being spent on public, social and affordable housing “that is not dependent on a gamble in the stock market”, the minor party had agreed to support the bill.
Chandler-Mather, who in June wrote in Jacobin that allowing the bill to pass “would demobilize [sic] the growing section of civil society” angry about poverty, declined to say whether he had recommended the deal to the Greens party room.
Albanese thanked Bandt “for the constructive discussions that we have had” and accused the Coalition of being of “great irrelevancy in Australian politics” for having opposed the bill.
It has been strengthened after months of negotiation, including by Labor promising to legislate to ensure the fund will spend at least $500m of its earnings every year.
The bill, which Albanese had suggested could be a trigger for a double dissolution, was due to be debated again in the October sitting weeks.
The original article contains 412 words, the summary contains 184 words. Saved 55%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
I guess the greens decided they couldn’t get anything more out of Labor.
