Housing — the real arena for federal takeover
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While Kevin Rudd continues his guerrilla warfare campaign on hospitals, playing hit-and-run in hospitals across the country, there’s another and much more pressing issue that could do with a federal takeover: housing. The irony is that health reform is — at least in terms of the primary target, hospitals — a sort of confected issue. Australians aren’t crying out for a more economically efficient hospital system. Instead, they’ve been convinced by politicians and the media that the current system serves them poorly. In any event, however, this at least gives an economically beneficial reform a constituency — one Kevin Rudd is assiduously cultivating with his election campaign hospital tour. A key problem with housing is that there is a strong constituency with a vested interest in no reform — the nation’s homeowners, who benefit from rising house prices — although this is your old-fashioned “false consciousness” for mortgagees, given the Reserve Bank has only one lever to pull at the point in the future when it deems that it must act on housing prices. But those who would benefit from greater supply and more affordable housing don’t garner as much media attention because they’re young families, or on lower incomes, or in outer-suburban areas the media pretends don’t exist until there’s a riot. There’s a sort of parallel between that constituency and those who are in need of real health reform, aimed at communities currently under-served by health services. But housing supply should be a natural Labor issue. Labor identified affordability as a rising concern before the 2007 election, going to the trouble of holding a summit on the issue. Moreover, Rudd backed up Labor’s focus on the issue in government, reversing a longstanding decline in federal social housing funding through a $5 billion social housing component of the stimulus package. The Prime Minister has also driven the issue of urban strategic planning co-ordination through COAG. It’s only a first step, identifying national criteria, but it’s an important start. And in December, COAG announced that Treasurers would be leading a “housing supply and affordability reform agenda”, to be considered “in the first half of 2010.” While all the focus is on health and tax reform, this is one of the most important reform agendas being pursued under COAG. The Rudd government also reversed the historical — and entirely irrational — refusal of federal governments to become involved in urban infrastructure. It’s still unclear whether the coalition supports this altered role for the federal government or in the event the coalition returns to government there will be another reversal of the policy, just as previous coalition governments have reversed Labor urban initiatives. But infrastructure is where, to use the dreaded Ruddism, the rubber hits the road on housing supply. Land release is an issue, yes, as is the development approval process, particularly in NSW. But infrastructure provision is the key — not just transport, but water, power, education and health facilities and urban amenity. Getting infrastructure strategy right is critical. At the moment responsibility is all over the place, split in no rational way between different levels of governments, with funding divorced from responsibility, constant sniping between local and state governments over development approval processes, and the level of government with the deepest pockets and best credit rating historically uninterested. As NSW Premier Bob Carr earned the soubriquet “Malthus of Maroubra” (an inspired invention from Stephen Mayne) for his regular attacks on high immigration. Whatever you might think of his views on population policy, Carr’s frustration encapsulated the basic problem that as Premier he had responsibility to furnish infrastructure and land for a growing population without any control over the rate of population growth or how many new arrivals gravitated towards major cities such as Sydney. The tension between infrastructure supply and high rates of immigration is beginning to be exploited, not just by mainstream political players but by fringe elements whose attitude towards immigration is driven more by xenophobia than sustainability concerns — on the Left and the Right. This will have unhealthy long-term consequences for economic growth, and might have decidedly unhealthy shorter-term consequences for the Rudd government. Establishing a more rational allocation of responsibility for infrastructure planning and funding between different levels of government is critical to addressing the housing supply problem, which will continue to worsen in the face of high demand for labour and the lack of effective co-ordinated action to deliver infrastructure. There’s a lot riding on COAG Treasurers’ deliberations on the issue. Pity there’s no media obsession with housing like there is with hospitals. |
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21 Comments
Quite a good article Bernard. As you put it, the real problem is infrastructure. Yes more land could be released but people don’t realise with endless sprawling suburbs comes crime, pollution and disconnection (ie the USA).
If new land tracts are opened for development we need hospitals, police, roads, power, water and other services which need to be taken into account.
I believe a Federal takeover of housing would probably be a good thing - they may actually have the clout to get past the developers and even start a new ‘greenfields’ city someplace, connected to major cities by high speed rail. That would be a very good start towards decentralising the population and in turn, taking some of the pressure off of house prices.
Good article. The one thing I’d point out is that it is not land release that is the problem, but ‘urban consolidation’ or whatever you want to call the knocking down of inner city houses or old industrial areas to be replaced with high density housing (apartments).
The problem with this process is not so much the politicians but the public, this kind of development is almost always strongly opposed by resident groups. One of my biggest issues with the Greens (who I generally am sympathetic towards) is that they are far too often found supporting these ‘grass roots’ local groups in opposition to development. If we want a sustainable city with functioning public transport then we will have to move to a high-density setup than we currently have, and that means re-development. We can’t simply push further and further out to the west with every house having two (or more) cars and enormous volumes of air requiring energy guzzling cooling.
Why is there so much emphasis on centralisation? Just because NSW is in the toilet doesn’t mean that everything has to be taken over by the Feds.
Smaller government is usually a lot more effective than big government at service delivery and economic efficiency. Let the states do their thing. (NSW will get better once Labor is out the door)
This amounts to yet another argument in favour of getting rid of States and their governments and reforming local government, so that service deliverers are either national (eg rail, highway) or local (eg buses, water supply and so forth.
And the furphy that denser dwelling ratios are somehow greener was laid to rest in articles appearing Crikey! during the past couple of weeks which indicate that resource usage by inner city dwellers far exceeds that of suburbanites. Bogdanovist, take note.
The issue is that in NSW, it is Government policy to push for more ‘urban consolidation’.
This is dressed up in ‘green’ rhetoric but is really about the state not having either the funding nor the desire to open up new land release areas.
For example, the limited amounts of land being released means that property remains scarce, faiing to meet demand, which drives up the selling price and thus the amount flowing through to the Government in transfer fees.
3% of $500,000 is a lot more than 3% of $250,000, which is the key factor.
John, do you have any links to those articles? My first reaction would be that you can’t simply compare inner city dwellers to suburbanites directly, since there are a range of factors at play (you’re comparing different socio-economic groups for instance). The question is to compare a future Sydney (or other cities) that continue to expand in size compared to one that increases in density.
I’d also question the basic statement of fact you make, but without a reference to support your statement that’s simply competing assertions.
A fine description of a very real problem. Whether Rudd and his merry men have the balls to take it up is another matter.
The $5billion could go a long way to a start to the solution.
In the NT, we have seen the Labor Govt there sell off over 2000 units of public housing stock, pocketing the money, and replacing only about 20 units, then blame investors for not providing enough land or affordable housing. Then the Feds hand over $670million to be spent on houses for disadvantaged indigenes, and the NT Labor Govt just can’t get on with the business of spending this gift from the Feds - let alone fulfilling their duty to replace all the stock they sold off.
No doubt this is a microcosm of what is happeneing elsewhere, so let KRudd have a go. He has allocated the money - now let’s see it get spent.
Urban density does not result in energy savings, as explained by Dr Tony Recsi to SMH’s Michael Duffy. Unfortunately, I cannot locate the reference from Crikey! to the ACF’s article, but this will have to do.
MD: You can justify just about anything these days if it’s good for the environment. How does urban consolidation stack up there?
TR: Actually, it’s detrimental. Data on the internet from the Australian Conservation Foundation shows that carbon dioxide emissions per person are considerably greater in high density than in low density suburbs. This is true even for families of equivalent income. High-density is more energy intensive due to greater operational energy resulting from lifts, clothes driers, more air conditioning use, common lighted areas and so on. There’s also more energy embodied in the building in the steel and concrete construction. This “embodied” energy, spread out over the life of the building, amounts to about four times that of single residences. (http://blogs.smh.com.au/urbanjungle/2008/08/the_myths_of_sy.html)
Mr B, I have thus provided a link, of sorts, to explain my opinion. Am I expected to accept every assertion/thought bubble from you at face value, whilst justifying my own recollections of actual research by reference to original papers? Or can we just agree that we are both trying to be honest and playing fair with each other?
Releasing more land is definitely not the solution. In Melbourne you can get a family house in Melton for 250k. Melton too far from the city for you? Well, vacant land that could be released for new development is not any closer to the city then Melton and would certainly not have as good infrastructure, so I cannot see how that would help much.
The new generation, my generation, wants to live close to the city. As more and more people attend Uni, get used to inner city lifestyle and take up white collar jobs, typically based inner city, then land releases in the outer suburbs will make little difference to affordability.
As a result and as BOGDANOVIST points out the issue or problem is urban consolidation not land releases.
((((one Kevin Rudd is assiduously cultivating with his election campaign hospital tour.))))
fixing the housing problem would also fix the hospital problem, there would be less people worrying themselves to death and needing pallative care over where their next roof is gonna come from…think about it.
(((((Reserve Bank has only one lever to pull at the point in the future when it deems that it must act on housing prices.)))))
yea ok….why does the reserve bank only kill us slowly with interest-rate rises of a piddly 0.25%…Joe Public sees this and says to him/herself, …”that’s only another $40.00 bucks, hahaha that won’t stop us”..why not kill us until we are dead with a 1%? rise?..even a 2% rise?…some healthy shock and awe would n’t go astray.
The idea that Australia needs more suburbs with home ownership only possible on ‘own block’ with’ own zinc alume fencing’ and ‘own remote controlled’ tilt-a-door and pebble creted driveway’, is what kills our society. Was it yesterday, when they were arguing about the pro-s and con’s of giving children prozac?
There could not be a more depressing and life sapping way of living than as at present in our isolated and far flung suburbs.
The petunias and the vertical blinds silent witness to so much ennui and lonelyness. Oh, those trips to the Mall and foodcourts. May I humbly suggest a trip to Scandinavian cities. Try and get away from studying housing in the US or UK.
People are social creatures. If you house people away from each other, the inevitable result is more Prozac.
Gerard, you seem to know what you are talking about.
Is the article I linked to a couple of messages up correct, in which case Bogdanovist and Andrew G have some reading to do.
Is inner-city living actually more carbon intensive as the ACF study reports? Is a back yard better than having to travel to distant park/beach/garden for open air activity? Should we spend our efforts on fixing the suburbs, rather than cramming the city?
I’d have to agree with Gerard, that’s an interesting post. When suburbs first started springing up people got to know their neighbours and had a real community.
Nowadays we don’t even speak to them.
Sure consolidation / urban planning / even cramming people in on top of each other with communal spaces might force them to interact and get to know each other, but will it work? Or will these areas turn into grafitti plastered ghettoes with hoods occupying the communal spaces?
Bernard, why do you continually make the claim that concerns from the left on immigration level are driven more by xenophobia than sustainability? There’s no basis for this when you look at comments coming from The Greens and other left groups. The Greens in fact call for greater humanitarian immigration, offset by a reduction in skilled migration, and to limit this in relation to Australia’s carrying capacity. Increasing the proportion of humanitarian immigrants would tend to a greater proportion of “non-white” immigrants so hardly portrays a hidden xenophobic agenda.
From the Right I can see that xenophobia’s a big part in their immigration concerns but it plays no part in the population criticisms from the Left, criticisms which are quite valid and should be debated.
In some ways, drawing a line between health and housing reform is an artificial distinction. Housing is an important social determinant of health. Perhaps we need to stop talking about “health reform” when what is really on the table is “health services reform”. So far there’s not much indication that a population health perspective is driving the reform processes or plans.
Australia’s tackling of housing at present is that it is developer and market driven rather than satisfying a social need. The usual method is for a developer to submit to local council a plan to build housing that will make a proft above anything else. The aim is the greatest return for the minimum outlay.
The problem is that every developer and every cashed up cowboy have their own ideas of building and you end up getting ad hoc housing with a pastiche, paper mache type of horrible architecture stretching from Cul-de sac to Rozella Circuits, mile after unrelieved mile.
For the Federal Government to take over housing would or could be a blessing. At present, the higher the density and the closer to the city, the more expensive housing is. This shows where the preferences lie. Most people now don’t have or want a family. Those that have children should have the option to a less dense environment, perhaps medium density townhouses with small court yards etc. The only areas that are at present difficult to sell are the outer areas, again showing that the ‘dream of quarter acre’ is fading fast. The isolation, the time spent in car queues or trains is becoming too much.
After all, if we can grow petunias or tomatoes in pots and still walk to work, the library, the park and meet friends in close proximity, is that not what housing ought to be all about?
The enabling of good housing is not for every Tom or Harry and needs expertise in town planning, archtecture, public transport and all the other infrastructures. A cow boy developer would have to be the last person to cater for our housing.
Housing is a social need.
“After all, if we can grow petunias or tomatoes in pots and still walk to work, the library, the park and meet friends in close proximity, is that not what housing ought to be all about?”
Gerard, if town planning is done properly, ie by other than developers, then there is no reason at all why the above criteria which you cite cannot be achieved via suburban living. You have yet to comment on the Australian Conservation Foundation’s reswearch findings that inner city living is more carbon intensive than suburban.
Given the greenhouse gas and climate change imperatives, I cannot understand your commitment to crowded living.
The problem, it seems to me, is not housing density per se, but the quality of town planning and transport systems. Indeed, higher density housing appears to be the poorer alternative.
Suburbanites should be proud and happy, despite your attempts to stereotype them as being otherwise.
PS I take it that you live in a mini-box in the CBD. Surrounded by folk you do not recognise or trust. Feeling smug about the proximity to bus and train. Great, but that does not justify your attempts to cram everybody into shoeboxes.
Come on… show us your references which support your prejudices.
Suburban living can’t sustain cities. Australian cities take up space of entire countries with hopeless public transport and unsustainable and costly infrastructures. We are the highest per capita of CO2 emitters precisely because of how we house ourselves.
You can’t house millions on individual blocks and not end up with areas so large it takes hours to get anywhere. Those areas enslave people to the carbon spewing car and driving. Take away the car and no one would survive. The car is not giving people freedom at all.
When you spread a few hundred people over an area the size of a moderate town or city, can you expect a train or bus to service just those few?
Why do you equate city living with shoe boxes? Are the MacMansion boxes with their 3 bathrooms, office room, rumpus room,, games room, triple garage 4 bedrooms for 2.3 children , being miles from anywhere with dad driving exhausted into the remote controlled garage any better? Are those houses environmentally any friendlier?
The wife dusting the verticals and TV console in total isolation with a trip to the Westfield Mall to relieve the ennui and the beige zinc alum fencing. The leaf blowers and whipper snippers the only sounds that greets the Sunday afternoon gloom above the cricket score. You call that ‘a dream’.?
Gerard,
You disappoint so. Your contributions initially indicated a possibility of knowledge.
Your inability to address the single referenced research which is contrary to your position indicates clearly that you are a dreamer.
Opinions are cheap, but you have no God-given right to draw conclusions out of your bottom. Either provide references or live with the alternative - you are a windbag know-nothing.
Perhaps even worse - an apologist for high-rise developers.
Well Mr John Bennetts,
It seems your single reference and defence to Suburban Nirvana is supported by those that run ‘Save Our Suburbs Community’. You could hardly call those opinions unbiased.
No further proof is needed than to simply take a trip around Australian cities and then go to cities such as Amsterdam or Helsinki, Paris or Madrid and compare.
You mention the green house issue of inner city dwellings and carbon emissions and then accuse me of not providing evidence, yet I am supposed to swallow the opinions of ‘Save the Suburbs’, when as statements of facts, your hero Dr Tony Recsei, who is the president of that organisation, mentions people leaving the cities to live in outer suburbia. He furthermore seems to have a distaste for coffee, mentioning the ‘latte sipping lifestyle’ of those that would really prefer to live in the wastelands of the never ending suburbs. You call that ‘proof’?
Well, you could have fooled me but not those that are lining up to escape and live closer to where there is work and life.
I am not a high-rise fan at all. My ‘shoe-box’ consists of a farm of many acres but I have lived in many cities and in many countries. Where is your proof of experience? Perhaps you like to ferret around for supporting evidence consolidating your inflexible defence of your way of life.
You also seem to conveniently ignore responses such as this one in the debate following the defence of suburbia by the President of ‘Save Suburbia’ Dr Recsei.
Here is one :
After having lived in Tokyo, New York and Paris and having moved back to the suburbs of Sydney with children I found them a depressing place - devoid of street life and necessitating a car even to buy a pint of milk. Of all of those cities Paris was the most pleasant because of its efficient public transport, its beautiful apartment buildings and its proximity to just about everything - shcools, museums, parks etc. Paris was a city where one walked everywhere - no wonder the French are all so slim. I wonder if urban consolidation wouldn’t be all the more palatable if the apartment buildings were actually beautiful to look at instead of the hideous eyesores that they so commonly are!
Nice to hear further opinion, but disappointing to note that it is only opinion. If Australians did not wish to live in suburbs, they would not adopt a pattern of flat-dwelling followed by the move to a real house in such numbers. I am recommending fixing the suburbs, rather than thrying to tell so many millions of Aussies that they are wrong.
It’s like the old proverb - Australia is a great place - 100 billion bush flies can’t all be wrong. Well, about 10 million Aussies can’t all be wrong, either.
As for your rural lifestyle, I guess that demonstrates that you favout a big back yard. As do I. I live on a small farm in a rural community and have done so for decades.
It bothers me when dreamers try to lead everyone else to a place where they themselves will not go.
I very much prefer that town planning principles be employed fully and independently of the builders and profit-making in all dwelling situations, and for the profit-makers to pull their noses out of master plans. At least in this, I suspect that we agree, Gerard.
I well remember a Mr Calwell, of Lake Macquarie Shire, as it was then, recommending that the windfall profits which result from rezoning of property should revert to local government. This was while I was in university - perhaps 1966 or so. I still adhere to this visiting lecturer’s position, at least in theory.