If you can find a way of reducing or eliminating greed, and stop the property market being used as a substitute stock market, you may find affordability improves.

Haven't heard any mention of it yet but I would also like to know what the more than 830,000 unoccupied private dwellings Australia-wide on Census night 2006 means (ABS QuikStats), and the role these dwellings play in the affordability crisis. Any clues?

A major contribution to the high cost of housing is the demand caused by the high divorce rate in Australia. I should think that any survey (including the national census) would show a decreasing average number of people per household. Isn't it funny how this never gets much of a mention like on the Difference of Opinion tv forum on this topic in which Mr Disney participated.

BAN ‘AFFORDABLE’ HOUSING

If we ask for ‘affordable’ housing we should not be surprised when first thoughts go to ways to assist home buyers. It is very arguable as to whether this approach ever flows on to help the homeless or renters at the bottom end of the rental market.

If ‘need’ is how we should prioritise our efforts then the homeless or renters at the bottom end of the rental market are our priority. So we should speak only of affordable RENTAL housing and ban the term affordable housing because it fragments our attention. In fact I would like to suggest that we need to get even more targeted on a campaign for PUBLIC housing so that those in greatest need get the most immediate benefit from increased housing supply. We need to turn the argument around and explain how this increase in supply of public housing trickles up to the mainstream housing market.

Still, we must recognise that it is the mainstream that is of greatest interest to the politicians and that we are going with begging bowl into an increasingly competitive market. We may get a few extra dollars, but it is not one that addresses systematic unsustainability of either public housing as it stands or of the housing market in general. Public housing encourages ‘downward envy’ about ‘welfare’, and, in an economy where insecurity over jobs as well as housing continues to increase, it does nothing to resolve the fact that housing security is of more fundamental importance to a tenant than their own independence.

So, in addition to asking for more public housing, we also need to show a model for public housing that is sustainable. We need to show how the benefits of such model would flow on to produce more sustainable and attractive options for all. We need to show how public housing could evolve into a more viable option and overcome its image as an economic liability and something we wouldn’t want in our street.

I believe Neighbourhoods That Work is such a model.
Chris Baulman
www.ntw.110mb.com