The great housing debate is on again and as ill-informed as ever. But which politicians are telling the most lies? Michael Pascoe can’t decide because they are all on full Pinocchio-mode.
Whether it is Anthony Albanese’s rampant hypocrisy, Andrew Bragg’s wilful misinformation (I doubt he’s actually as stupid as he pretends), Pauline Hanson’s fantasy non-policy, Chris Minns’ laid-on-with-a-shovel mix of spin and lies, it’s very hard to decide who is the worst on housing, as they are all betraying the nation.
And they’re all good at creating a distraction from the fundamental problem, aided and abetted by the mainstream media.
Exhibit A: The current argy-bargy about access to superannuation for one housing-related reason or another. Gets attention. Grabs headlines. Never mind that it means stuff all.
Bragg, shadow minister for housing and bashing industry super, had pretty much disappeared after the election until his housing standards/superannuation access breakout last month.
Hanson had no housing policy – and arguably still doesn’t – until floating a particularly half-baked super access thought bubble and doubling down on Albanese’s mother supposedly luxuriating in pubic housing.
And then there’s the media’s preoccupation with the worst real estate calamity since the Great Fire of London that has average
Australian house prices crashing
down to, um, a bit more than they were a year ago, off 3.6% from their nose-bleed territory record high.
“The market will fix it”
Once more for anyone who hasn’t been paying attention: housing is the core of the “cost of living” crisis. None of the potential parties of government wants to solve the problem. All hope to muddle through with platitudes. None cares about the million Australians who are collateral damage from three decades of failed and failing policy based on “the market” solving the problem that “the market” created.
And the vast majority of media coverage is no better, ignoring the elephant in the substandard, overpriced, taxpayer-subsidised private rental.
Fiddle with landlords’ tax advantages and Australia’s headline writers unite to unleash the biggest media campaign since the Khemlani affair to take down the Whitlam government.
Suggest the only serious solution to the crisis must include doubling the proportion of social housing … and crickets.
Quick example from the AFR’s grandly titled two-day Property Summit two weeks ago:
Some interesting opinions emerged – Scentre Group CEO Elliott Rusanow “made a point that’s been largely forgotten in the drama of the house price correction: we all demanded bold action from the federal government on housing affordability, and appear to have been plunged into a ‘massive panic’ now that it’s arrived” – but from the coverage ($), not a single mention of that elephant.
Minns’ missing diggings
Yet there was one; it just went unreported. The final speaker on the final day – the dog shift – was Rob Stokes, former NSW Liberal Government Planning Minister and now community housing worker as Anglicare’s housing chief advocacy officer and group executive.
Stokes knows the reality of our social (public and community) housing shortfall, the market failure. He knows governments of all stripes and levels, including his, are to blame. For those who stayed till the death at the summit, he had a sharp dose of reality on NSW policy:
The Minns government came to power three years ago on a promise that 30% of housing built on government land would be set aside for affordable and social housing. That’s now down to just three per cent across the government’s big Woollahra proposal, and that three per cent will be “affordable”, not social, i.e. it will be rented at a discount to very high rent, meaning it will still be high and thus unaffordable for most people.
Minns has form saying one thing and doing another.
“In the new Bays West precinct, what began as a promise to commit 30% of all new homes on surplus public land to affordable housing has dropped to 10%. A pledge of up to 15% affordable in new density zones around public transport has, in some cases, dropped to 3,” the SMH reported ($) in June.
Heading towards an election in six months, the Minns mob is distinguishing itself with announcements and spin attempting to paper over failures and lies. They are not alone in using the “affordable” tag to brush over NSW’s social housing disaster.
The shame file
The shame file that is the Productivity Commission’s report on government housing services shows that the number of public and community dwellings in NSW fell by 4,530 in the Minns government’s first two years.
Never let facts get in the way of Minns spin, his PR department came up with selective numbers to create a different impression: “the largest increase in government-built public, community and affordable homes in a decade”. Funnily enough, the relevant flak didn’t get back to me when pressed for further detail.
Minns claims he will deliver 8,400 new public homes over five years. It is not at all clear if that is a net or gross figure, given NSW’s habit of flogging off existing public housing.
Even if it’s net, it’s still bugger-all given that 17,465 public dwellings were lost in the decade to June 2025, while population surged.
Albo, Bragg and Hanson
Then there’s I-grew-up-in-public-housing-and-I’m-proud-of- it Albanese.
The Federal Government’s entire social housing program boils down to, at best, maintaining the present disastrous status quo, not increasing the proportion of social housing. As previously opined here, Albo’s log cabin story is all very nice; too bad most kids now don’t have the same opportunity.
It’s the social housing, stupid. Opportunity is knocking for Labor
That Albo & Co wrap themselves in the social housing flag but are not doing anything to improve the situation earns the hypocrisy award. The status quo, obviously, isn’t an improvement. Focusing on first home buyers with the CGT and negative gearing changes might
fool some younger voters for a while but doesn’t treat the underlying disease.
Then there’s Bragg with no social housing policy beyond the modern Liberal Party’s distaste for anything to do with “housing”.
On ABC 730 this week, he steadfastly refused to answer Sarah Ferguson’s inevitable question about super access, greater borrowing power, pushing up prices, the very thing he had correctly accused Labor of doing with its 5% deposit scheme.
According to Senator Bragg, private investors, the market, will solve everything. They’ve done such a good job to this point. He flags that there will be a million renting retirees down the track and offers a policy that would make no difference to that figure.
Please explained
And then there’s One Hanson. Oh spare me. She really has NFI beyond whatever populist balloon she’s just been fed.
Her super access plan is worse than Bragg’s. Her attack on the late Mrs Albanese for being a long-term public housing tenant showed she has zero knowledge of the plight of genuine battlers.
There could be no better example of the gulf between the real world being in Gina Rinehart’s orbit than the idea that public housing should only be for short-term accommodation.
A pox on all their houses and the lacklustre commentariat that lets them get away with it.
Michael Pascoe is an independent journalist and commentator with five decades of experience here and abroad in print, broadcast and online journalism. His book, The Summertime of Our Dreams, is published by Ultimo Press.