by ROGER CROOK – THERE are at least two people in Australia today who have the power and, I think, the fundamental ability to cause change – all they have to do is use it.
Should they rise to the challenge they will be applauded, feted by many thousands and have a place in the history of Australia; something they have both shown they desire.
- Nothing has happened during Anthony Albanese’s administration, nothing
- Now there’s a need to knock down old social housing because of new thermally inefficiency regulations.
- They were built in the days when power was cheap.
They are both self-serving and arrogant beyond belief; they annoy me intensely; they appear to come from the same side of politics; one has publicly stated his commitment and the other has indicated his position by the manner in which he treats those who don’t agree with him.
BORING
Yet we need them like never before.
One flaunts his wealth, which is considerable. The other flaunts his power, which is also considerable.
Both have assured the people of Australia that they have the welfare of the nation at heart; both have yet to show it.
Both have an annoying predilection for sermonising and being incredibly boring and talking down to people and are not beyond boasting?
One can justify a boast the other, well, not really, well, maybe.
One is the richest man in Australia, Andrew Forrest and the other is our prime minister, Anthony Albanese.
The great national shame in Australia at present is the housing crisis. The national wait list for social housing in April of this year was 190,000.
In June 2022 it was 175,000. (Social housing is for those on low to medium income and those with disability.)
At the Australian average of three people per household, that could mean that more than half a million Australians are waiting for a social house; the average wait time around Australia is more than two years.
That figure may be an overestimate, because by far the biggest cohort on our social housing wait list are mature single women. That raises another question, maybe for another day?
The latest figure for the homeless in Australia is from the 2021 Census when it was 122,494. A bit more than the population of Ballarat, which is 105,000.
One in seven of that number was under 12 years of age; one in four were between 12 and 24 years of age. One in five Aboriginal; and six point five per cent were sleeping rough.
The 2021 Census was affected by the COVID pandemic. In May of this year NSW reported that the homeless in Sydney had stabilised; it has increased in the regional areas, so it is not unreasonable to assume the numbers are increasing across Australia.
I am on the board of a social housing provider, which is a charity and the major social housing provider in the region.
With a population of a little more than 50,000, we have a wait list for social housing of about 620. In recent times it has increased by about 20 per cent a year.
Recently about 200 homeless people in our regional capital, (population: 38,000) responded to an invitation for a cup of tea and something eat, and at the same time have access to those agencies who care for the homeless; from what we were told by those who attended, there are far more than 200 homeless in our small town.
ASSETS
We share the social housing wait list with the State government. Our property portfolio comprises about 450 dwellings, some of which we manage for the State government and some we own in our own right. Our assets are about $40m.
Social housing providers like ours, face many major challenges when building new homes. We have to buy land at commercial prices; we have building costs which are the same as other builders and the quality of our new homes have to meet the legislated standards for thermal efficiency, at present NatHers 7.0.
Our challenge in the social housing business is that the rent we can charge, is far less than what the open market can and does charge.
By and large our rents are between 25 and 30 per cent of the household income. You can do your own calculations; but say for a single person on an aged pension receiving $1144 a fortnight, in our region they would pay $600 to $800 a fortnight for a commercial rent; their rent to a social housing provider would be about $330 a fortnight.
So for us in the business of bringing down the wait list for social housing, life is a financial challenge; we have to maintain our houses and try and find the money to build new ones.
Many of the houses in our portfolio originated with the State government, they are old and thermally inefficient, they were built in the days when power was cheap.
Our old houses struggle to meet NatHers 2.5, improving the thermal efficiency of the older homes is another challenge that we must meet if we are to help our tenants live comfortably and healthy, and in these difficult times, reduce electricity use.
The national challenge is massive, and our rural regional challenge is enormous and, frankly, daunting.
Our local regional social housing wait list is a sad and damning statistic for our region and for our state, it is but a fraction of the national figure.
The national wait list for social housing of 190,000 is a national disgrace. It should bring shame on every politician in both the federal and State governments.
In The Australian newspaper on September 8, Michael Sukkar, opposition housing spokesman, claimed not a single house has been built by the Albanese Government.
The Australian claimed: “Less than $3b of the Albanese Government claimed $32bn has been disbursed for the direct construction of new homes, with no new dwellings understood to have yet been completed after more than two years in office.”
CONTEMPLATE
When I contemplate that fact – despite the smoke and mirrors of the blather that comes from our PM – about the housing shortage nothing has happened during his administration, nothing.
Every Australian has heard his “log cabin” story many, many times; so he understands the challenge people face who are in social housing. Yet he turns a blind eye to those waiting and paying high rents.
So how can Albo and Twiggy find a place in Australia’s history? I should add that the way he is performing, it could well be Peter Dutton, and not the kid from the social housing estate.
The Prime Minister of Australia has great power over the States. Both the State and federal governments own land (I know this is the case as we just bought some and it wasn’t at gift prices).
Social housing providers need free land; after all the land belongs to the people, all the people.
Gifts of land have been made to some of the people, it’s about time it was for all.
Next, governments could pay for the headworks, connection to water, sewage, power, gas (if available) They could also prepare the land for the next phase, putting a home on it.
Over 80 per cent of the houses built in Sweden are constructed in a factory. A factory that has the ability to work 24/7 every day of the year producing homes for those in need.
The quality of the Swedish houses is high, as good as anywhere and better than many places.
A factory has recently been built in Sweden which produces 2322 square metres of walls, floors, ceilings and rooves each week.
If we had a factory of that size, we could produce the equivalent of 17 average size home units for my town/region every week. Our biggest demand is for one and two-bedroom units, so the size may be less, and the number produced, bigger.
KNOCK OFF
This is where Twiggy comes in; if he bought us a factory of that size, we would knock off our wait list in a year, and the States wait list in a few more years.
That would be the ideal, but I recognise we need to walk before we can run. So let us start modestly with the ability to grow as our skills increase. So, start small and add on as we improve.
Forrest would also need to bring in all the technical expertise we would need to set the whole thing up. We would need experience to upskill and train people, that can only be found overseas, and I suggest in Sweden.
Once the social housing crisis is over, we could then turn our hand to meeting the burgeoning, ever increasing social challenge of the shortage of houses for everyone. The young, the retired and retiring, the aged and the infirm.
There is a need to knock down the old thermally inefficient houses, many of which are on quarter acre blocks and owned by the State.
These days a quarter acre block will comfortably carry more than one home; it’s called urban in-fill, and it will reduce urban sprawl and the associated capital costs of power, water, sewage and transport which no State government can afford.
We don’t have leaders of the calibre seen in WW2; the soft years of the 21st century has given us soft leaders, content to be, rather than self-driven to achieve what people need.
A house is the right of every man, woman and child in Australia; it is a national shame that we cannot provide such a basic need.
There are those who will say it cannot be done.
To them I say this.
At the end of WWII both Britain and America were building a state-of-the-art bomber every hour. They did that because there was a desperate need to win a war. That effort brought victory.
BOMBER
The British Halifax bomber had 254,000 parts; it was made up of 2700 square metres of light alloy sheet, 4800 square metres of rolled or drawn sections, 8000 square metres of extruded sections, about 6000 metres of electric cable, 1600 metres of pipework and 600 to700 thousand rivets used during assembly.
They rolled them out of the factory, did a test flight and sent them into service. In the case of the Liberator, they did the test flight, and then flew them over the Atlantic to Britain!
If our forebears could do that surely, eighty years later, we can match and better them and build houses and give the thousands upon thousands a roof over their heads and the comfort they deserve, and give the young and the aspirational the hope that they may, one day, own their own home? PC
New tabloid explains how Australia and its Constitution have been stolen by corporations
Cairns News has reviewed this publication and finds it one of the most informative newspapers dealing with corrupt government in recent times. It describes in an easy to read format how the political party duopoly has usurped the Commonwealth Constitution of Australia beginning in the 1970’s.
The judiciary is out of control, foreign treaties have eroded Constitutional government to the point of no return, and how unaccountable politicians of all hues since the Covid plandemic have got away with murdering a significant portion of the Australian population.
Communism is rife in the ranks of the unaccountable Canberra bureaucracy which has been dictating policy for decades.
“We the people have been deceived as a nation and at the individual level so covertly but the distinction between our illusion of freedom and a totalitarian takeover is not only blurred….it is almost totally erased,” the editorial stated.
It covers the corrupt private corporate business of child protection services which have been assessed as a serious risk of harm to children and families.
A historically important letter written by former High Court Chief Justice, Sir Harry Gibbs 1981 – 87, is a real clincher as it states “…the Constitution cannot be altered under Section 128 to remove the Crown from the Commonwealth.”
This edition supports the National Strike to “end the belligerent occupation”
We urge readers to acquire copies of this 80 page tabloid for distribution to friends and small business across the nation.
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https://cairnsnews.org/2024/10/25/new-tabloid-explains-how-australia-and-its-constitution-have-been-stolen-by-corporations/
Naaah, free gifts of housing just discourage private sources and discourage private attainment of owning housing.
To pay for more “social” (aka government owned or “public”) housing in Victoria, the Vic Labor govt increased land tax. It has since proved that increased land tax decreases the supply of rental housing more than any other factor, so the net effect on waiting lists for public housing ballooned out more.
Since adding a grand to the minimum bill plus an increase in the rates, Victoria’s landlords have sold off massive numbers & have increased rents by average 30%.
Some country towns in Victoria advertised free land. The effect was to destroy the value of the land in the town. Give it away, means lack of value. As well, the owners of this free land didn’t value it, and didn’t upkeep the buildings either.