The economic crisis has got most of the political attention in recent months, somewhat obscuring the potential significance of the delayed COAG meeting of the federal and state governments which is taking place this weekend.
Even such examination that has occurred of the COAG meetings has tended to focus on how big a pot of money will be offered to the states by the federal government in extra health and education funding. This is important of course, but many of the problems in these areas are structural and policy based, not purely a matter of extra resources. The level of public debate on these aspects of the issue seems to have diminished in recent times, although no doubt there are plenty of suggestions being put forward less publicly – particularly to government Ministers and advisors.
Even more concerning from my point of view is the way housing seems to have dropped off the debate. A major new round of agreement on housing funding is also meant to be part of the COAG decisions, yet it has received minimal public attention or political focus.
It has always frustrated me how little political attention housing policy and funding receives. In my view it is just as significant as health or education – indeed failures in housing people seriously impede the changes of effectively delivering education or health. Despite this, it receives little attention.
Much of the policy legwork in the housing area over the last few years has been done outside parliamentary and political circles. Back in September, a range of national non-government organisations who have been working on reforming policy in this area for many years held a National Housing Advocacy Day in an effort to maintain pressure for much needed reform. The groups – National Shelter, the Australian Council of Social Service, the Community Housing Federation of Australia and Homelessness Australia – have six recommendations for housing:
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- A growth target should be established involving an increase in the stock of public and non-profit housing by 30,000 additional dwellings by 2012.
- An Affordable Housing Growth Fund should be established with funding of $7.5 billion over 4 years strictly ear-marked for expanding the stock of public and non-profit housing, contributed on a proportional matching basis by the Commonwealth and the states/territories.
- An Operating Subsidy Program should be established, with funding of $3.5 billion over 4 years provided by the Commonwealth.
- These funding arrangements will require approximately $5 billion over 4 years above funding currently provided by the Commonwealth and state/territory governments through the Commonwealth–State Housing Agreement.
- New stock should meet standards relating to quality, disability accessibility and energy efficiency.
- Commonwealth Rent Assistance (CRA) should be reviewed to ensure that it best meets the needs of all low-income renters. As a first step, the maximum rate of CRA should be increased by 30% (approximately $15.00 per week) for low-income households currently receiving the highest rate of CRA, at a cost of $500 million per annum.
Even though the budget situation of governments has deteriorated significantly, there is still plenty of talk of spending large amounts to stimulate the economy and maintain employment. Significant chunks of that could be spent on boosting social housing stock, including helping to overcome the serious housing shortage in many Indigenous communities. This would deliver on both the economic and social goals in a far more direct, effective and fair way than the ridiculous spending of another lazy billion dollars on boosting the first home owners grant.
The Labor government took some important early steps by actually having a Ministerial housing portfolio, and developing some measures to start addressing the housing affordability crisis – including the National Rental Affordability Scheme. The enabling legislation for this has just passed the Senate this week.
But major aspects still remain undone, not least the development of a national affordable housing agreement between the federal and state governments. That needs to the subject of serious focus at COAG level, rather than an afterthought. Perhaps once health and education agreements are finalised, some more time can be spent getting the housing policy and funding settings right, rather than pushing through an agreement as an afterthought.
