We’re all content to blame governments of all levels and stripes for the housing crisis. But the reaction in some quarters to Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews’ ambitious housing plan, announced on Wednesday, illustrates exactly why politicians have been disinclined to embrace reform.
Despite a suite of measures designed to make life easier for property developers — accelerating development applications out of planning purgatory, expediting approval processes for developments with a proportion of affordable housing, shifting planning powers away from councils — developer lobby groups reacted to the plan by instantly demanding tax cuts, claiming they couldn’t afford to build in the current supply chain and labour environment.
NIMBY-dominated councils with huge backlogs of development applications, or that had rejected huge numbers of them, hit back at Andrews for calling them out; a local government figure said the plan “undermines the democratic principle of giving local communities a say in local decisions”.
Samantha Ratnam, leader of the Victorian Greens — one of the worst councils for waiting times is Greens-controlled — claimed the Andrews plan “could well be the end of public housing in Victoria” and did nothing for renters.
The Financial Review ran a weird piece that criticised Andrews for high property taxes, saying the planning change “has to be applauded” but criticising it for “centralising decisions in Andrews’ own office”.
And, inevitably, beneficiaries of the parasitic short-term rental industry attacked the tax Andrews proposes to levy on them. A woman with not one, not two, but three Airbnb properties was given space to complain that she was just a single mum trying to make ends meet. Andrews thus gets attacked for not doing anything to help renters, and for taxing an industry that we know directly pushes rents up and reduces affordability.
It may come as a shock to Crikey readers used to criticism of Andrews here, but his housing package is rightly ambitious and sensible, especially regarding its releasing of government land for higher-density housing with an affordable component, and removing planning permit requirements for single houses and granny flats.
But it needs to be judged in the context of what Andrews is doing elsewhere. As experts like Cameron Murray have argued, simply reducing planning restrictions won’t get developers building more dwellings — they’ll only do so on a timetable that maximises their profits. A necessary concomitant of Andrews’ package is a big investment in social housing as well, and the premier is already delivering that. In 2020 he announced a $5 billion spend to deliver 12,000 new social housing dwellings.
That’s why — as Crikey detailed earlier this week — Victoria has left NSW in the dust on public sector dwelling approvals over the past two years. And that’s on top of around 800 social housing units that will be funded by Victoria’s share of the Albanese government’s $2 billion social housing investment announced back in June.
It’s also why the claim by the Greens — the NIMBYest of the NIMBYs, who love more housing but just not near their voters, please — that Andrews was going to “end” public housing was such arrant nonsense. It’s true that new approvals don’t reflect the net figure, as older social housing stock is replaced. But the alternative is to leave social housing tenants in deteriorating, poor-quality, older housing, with its accompanying health impacts.
Andrews deserves blame for failing to adequately invest in social housing for most of his first two terms, but he equally deserves credit for a huge turnaround in investment since 2020.
This argument has coalesced into a brawl over 44 substandard, post-war public housing blocks that Andrews proposes to demolish and replace in a program that will take until 2051 to complete. The blocks fall well short of current standards on noise, energy efficiency and size, as well as a host of other measures. But Andrews is under attack, mainly from the Greens, because the redevelopment will include not just affordable housing but market housing too — the Greens have accused Andrews of choosing to “privatise at least two-thirds of all these sites”.
Even so, the sites involved will — according to the Victorian government’s figures — increase social housing on the sites by 10%, and see three times as many people living on the sites when completed. But not fast enough, according to a group of Melbourne planning academics who emerged to also attack Andrews. In a paper apparently released yesterday — good luck finding it online — six RMIT academics criticised the plan because it “will not realise a net gain supply within the next decade”.
This argument doesn’t make sense as a criticism of the redevelopment project. The current residents of the towers proposed for redevelopment will be found homes. It is really a complaint that the net impact on total social housing will increase demand for the period in which the new housing — plus the 10% increase — is built. It is thus a complaint that the Victorian government should be spending even more than it already is on social housing — which is a completely legitimate call, but unrelated to the redevelopment of the towers.
The academics also claimed that — to use a journalist’s phrasing — “dislocating low-income communities was known to cause serious harm and even death”. Another expert described the towers as “incredibly tight-knit communities in ways that private high-density buildings are not”.
So now Andrews isn’t just ending social housing, he’s killing social housing tenants.
The same argument was used to oppose the relocation of social housing tenants from the monstrous eyesore known as the Sirius building in the Rocks in Sydney, a concrete blight that tragically remains undemolished. The sale of that building, first proposed by the Baird government, generated $150 million in revenue for the NSW government, which has since funded social housing for more than 600 people — more than three times the 200 people housed in the Sirius building. But the sale was demonised as an attack on social housing and the “community” living in the building commanding some of the most remarkable urban views on the planet — never mind that 400 extra people who desperately needed social housing found a home as a result.
The sight of comfortable academics and planning experts, along with commentators and journalists, urging that low-income people be left to endure substandard public housing in the name of “community” is nauseating. The losers from this mindset aren’t just the current tenants living in accommodation that middle-class Melburnians wouldn’t tolerate for a minute, but people on waiting lists who will wait longer for a net increase in the supply of social housing that would result if opponents had their way.
Between greedy property developers, whingeing business columnists, NIMBY Greens and academics keen to condemn social housing tenants to misery, good luck to any politician trying to respond effectively on housing.
Is Dan Andrews doing right by Victorians with this housing plan? Let us know your thoughts by writing to letters@crikey.com.au. Please include your full name to be considered for publication. We reserve the right to edit for length and clarity.
Thankyou Mr Keane for your extremely honest assessment of this ridiculous attack on the Andrews’ government.
The sheer hypocrisy of these people and their complaints is astounding, to say the very least.
Notice how much time must be spent on finding the most disagreeable thumbnail Murdoch and Fairfax use in order to get ‘the message’ across.
Never mind the 100% bullsht ‘critiques’ from the right. Don’t let that distract you from genuine criticism, which appears to be in short supply.
The Andrews government is basically untouchable, and has become arrogant and corrupt as a natural consequence.
From what I’ve gathered about this situation, the folks in housing commissions will be treated no better than they were in lockdown, and the mass relocations will amount to a generational catastrophe amongst that populace.
But that’s okay, because right wing MSM-sponsored insanity is what everyone’s busy arguing against.
I’m sure if you were take a poll, the vast majority of public housing residents would prefer to remain their substandard homes (which there’s a waiting list of 80,000 for, IIRC), than be uprooted.
There are far more buildings planned than currently exist; surely it would have been possible to leave current residents where they are for now, with a warning of years rather than months that their buildings are to be eventually demolished.
And the fact there’s only going to be 10% more public housing out of what, 200% more dwellings is unforgivable, given how many fall through the cracks these days, despite the galling reality that it’s the best option on the table.
Housing ? What cash vies for middle men and corporate Wsp etc into public private infrastructure ? bigger Australia ? For our wildlife ? Bah humbug not in our backyard ? The myopic narrative…Big money for the top investors but the label off shore investirs Mum & Dad to dividd & conquer … we have lost the plot literally
sic : pies
sic investor dollars for off shore corporate investors who own over and increasing housing stocks property shares as it is big returns for shareholders; the media mislabel them “Mum & Dad investors ” to divide and conquer via (The Drum for example) lobbyland so no right questions are debated like why increase 1.5 million for skilled when we sell once the worlds best education system and once great opportunity for our futures – screw women in later careers and steal our kids future and steal our kids sovereignty
I’m sorry Bernard but you seem to be conflating social housing with public housing? They are not the same thing. Public housing gives renters security of tenure at 25% of their income, whatever it is. Social housing is a completely different model; it can be run by non-profit or for profit providers, does not necessarily provide security of tenure, and can charge much more than 25% of whatever income you are on. If you are going to bash housing experts then please use a journalist who knows the difference between public and social housing, as you are contributing to obfuscation that concretely hurts poor people.
Demolishing public housing and building “social housing” is a sleight-of-hand that I expect outlets like Crikey to pick up on and report. To reiterate. They are NOT the same thing, and the net loss of public housing that will result from this plan is appalling. Please do better.
https://rahu.org.au/public-social-community-or-affordable-demystifying-housing-terms-in-victoria/#:~:text=This%20is%20what%20RAHU%20is,kicked%20out%20for%20no%20reason.&text=The%20term%20'social%20housing'%20encompasses,part%20is%20good%2C%20but%20underfunded.
Could not agree more. In all the housing discussion, there is lots of conflation of the terms public, social and affordable. Next time a developer says X build will include y% affordable housing, ask for their definition of affordable.
Yes very important. Roughly, public housing is as you say. Originally much of its population were people on low incomes but still working. The 25% of income rents gave the tenants a stable place to live and bring up children and provided sufficient revenue to keep the system going. As their lives benefited from housing stability, their incomes often improved and they paid more rent. To a large degree now, with insufficient amounts of public housing, much of it goes, necessarily, to people at the absolute margins with little income, which increases costs and lowers revenue.
Social housing profiles now look more like what public housing was, stable housing with rents people on median or below wages can afford. Affordable housing is housing people on average wages can afford to rent or buy. That is, it looks like housing as it was before Keating drank the neo-lib kool-aid and Howard gleefully turned housing int a speculative commodity. Market priced housing is the result everybody is expected to bear.
The intent to turn profits from the latter into more of the former is not a bad one but the math is tricky and the vested interests more so. Adding in high penalties for land left undeveloped and properties left vacant would be a big boost and complement to this reform. Basically one needs to cut speculative profits on housing to the bone.
I wouldn’t be so quick to demonise social housing. I lived in it for a decade and a half through one of the NFPs, rents were capped at 70% of market rate, they adjusted it right down when I had a couple of periods of unemployment, was a great experience. We’re going to need a few different approaches to crack the housing crisis, they absolutely are a part of it.
Agree.
The silence across the entire Australian media on this is deafening.
40 years of no investment in public housing and reliance on a private sector with naturally less risk appetite to build “social housing” is one of the major drivers of the housing crisis that nobody is talking about, and governments are resultantly able to shirk their responsibilities to actually govern AGAIN.
I congratulate Premier Andrews on this program. Sure it could be said to be a little late but at least he is attempting to rectify the problem. I’d expect nothing less than the whinging and whining from the cheap seats. Andrews is damned if does and damned if he doesn’t. Perhaps the other state and territory leaders could initiate something similar instead of ignoring an extremely complex issue.
Go Andrews. Ignore the nay sayers. They are pushing their own agenda at the expense of people needing accommodation.
Thanks Bernard, it was a surprise to me that you weren’t citicising Andrews and his government from the outset.
According to The Age on-line today, two of the tower blocks proposed for demolition are currently empty. I suspect, but cannot prove, that many of their former social housing occupants have been re-housed in the nearby estate which was re-built as a joint venture with the private sectorsometime in the past 10 years.
Near my Sth Melbourne workplace, a 1970’s three level public housing estate is currently being demolished to make way for a redevelopment with new public housing mixed with private. These were walk up buildings (that’s right, three level) about which the residents took legal action to prevent their relocation (some say eviction). Local press gave prominence to the resident who needed a wheelchair. How she, or someone with similar mobility issues, was expected to manage the stairs is one of life’s mysteries. There will be a higher density of dwellings on the new development (the former layout was a very inefficient use of space) and there is close access (ie next door) to public open space for exercise and to let kids run around. It seems like a step forward, and just the sort of thing which the Greens and the NIMBYs are complaining about.
On another point, it would be good if a journalist asked The Greens about the energy efficiency of the old tower blocks, and how they expected them to be habitable with the increased temperatures we regularly now experience in summer in Melbourne. Do The Greens expect public housing tenants to suffer heat stress while we slowly roll back decades of global warming?
Global warming can’t be rolled back. Even if we all stopped emitting tomorrow, it would at best stay as bad as it is now. Most likely it’s just gonna get worse. The old housing can only get even more unlivable.