Should adequate housing be considered a human right?
The Australian Human Rights Commission thinks so, including it in a list of rights that should receive legislative protection.
That call for a Human Rights Act was backed in May by a parliamentary committee chaired by the Labor MP Josh Burns.
Now the crossbench will take up the cause, with the independent senator David Pocock and the MP Kylea Tink set to introduce a private members’ bill in both chambers this week.
The bill would require current and future governments to implement a 10-year national housing and homelessness plan in line with objectives including improving supply and affordability and ending homelessness. Recognising “the right to adequate housing is a fundamental human right” is one objective of the law.
The government has been developing its own national housing and homelessness plan. But in an open letter to the minister, Julie Collins, advocates have raised “serious doubts” that this will go far enough.
Signatories include former New South Wales Liberal planning minister Rob Stokes, the former Liberal MP for Bennelong John Alexander, the former Labor senator Doug Cameron and the co-convener of Labor for Housing, Julijana Todorovic.
Private members’ bills are usually doomed by government indifference to go nowhere but, with Labor being outflanked on left and right on housing policy at the moment, the crossbench are planting a seed in fertile terrain.
Housing will be front and centre this parliamentary sitting fortnight, with Labor bills to establish its Help to Buy shared equity scheme and tax changes to encourage build-to-rent investments listed to be debated.
Help to Buy seems pretty friendless.
The Greens are using the bill as leverage for their demands of cutting negative gearing and capital gains tax concessions, capping rent increases, or at least shaking out more direct funding for housing.
They did the same last year when Labor tipped in an extra $3bn to help pass its Housing Australia Future Fund, and Max Chandler Mather drove the issue and Anthony Albanese’s patience to breaking point.
On Help to Buy, Albanese has been blunt: “The Greens can vote for it, or they can vote against it,” he said in February.
Liberals on the parliamentary inquiry into the bill, including the shadow housing affordability minister, Andrew Bragg, said the policy was “shuffling deck chairs as the Titanic sinks”.
On build-to-rent incentives, the Greens are yet to finalise their position but complain the policy amounts to more tax concessions for developers and that 90% of homes built will be “unaffordable”.
Bragg, who is arguing for a big expansion of the Coalition’s super for housing policy, has used the build-to-rent scheme as evidence Labor is seeking to help superannuation funds own others’ homes rather than helping Australians buy their own.
In a speech to the Housing Industry Association on Wednesday Bragg described build-to-rent tax concessions and the increase in commonwealth rent assistance as a “perpetual renting plan”.
“At its heart is a corporate housing policy to ensure that a generation of Australians become renters for life.”
As usual in the final parliamentary fortnight before the winter break the government wants to ram through as much legislation as possible, meaning last-minute deals and a guillotine requiring bills be voted on is always possible.
But informed parties suspect progress is more likely on a long shopping list of other legislation: the vaping crackdown, the government’s NDIS reforms, climate disclosure requirements for big business, the bill establishing the net zero authority, the ban on live sheep exports, and prominence legislation for who gets pole position on your smart TV.
The two housing bills could set off a rerun of the Housing Australia Future Fund debate. That included the Coalition and Greens voting to delay the legislation, Labor accusing them of an unholy alliance on par with the decision to block the carbon pollution reduction scheme, and threats of a double dissolution.
The Greens are determined to present themselves as the party of renters and the Coalition wants aspiring homebuyers to get itchy for their super.
With the policy means generating so much conflict maybe it might be nice to start by agreeing on the ends.
If the objective is to end homelessness and guarantee a right to housing, perhaps the crossbench, the Human Rights Commission and luminaries on both sides outside parliament have the right idea.
