Maiy Azize is Deputy Director of Anglicare Australia, a network of charities linked to the Anglican Church.
Last week, Shadow Housing Minister Andrew Bragg offered Australians a solution to the housing crisis: worse housing. The Coalition has since doubled down. Shadow Treasurer Tim Wilson suggests renters don’t need a warm or energy-efficient home, instead they can just put on a jumper in winter.
After years of seemingly unstoppable growth, house prices have begun to moderate. For aspiring home buyers, that will come as welcome relief. But it should also prompt journalists to ask whether they have been telling the wrong story about Australia’s housing crisis.
This month it was Employment Minister Amanda Rishworth announcing changes to the compulsory activities people on JobSeeker can be forced to undertake. The debate always focuses on the details. Which activities should people be required to do? How many appointments should they attend? What new obligations should be added or removed? But after thirty years of evidence, we should be asking a more fundamental question. What if helping people find work is not actually what this system is designed to do?
In the lead-up to the federal budget, “intergenerational equity” has re-emerged as one of the dominant frames in Australia’s economic debate. We are told that younger Australians are being left to pick up the bill for an ageing population. On its face, this argument sounds true. There are real inequities in the system. But the way intergenerational equity is being used in public debate should give us pause.
We are living through the worst housing crisis in living memory. Rents are surging, home ownership is slipping further out of reach, and homelessness is rising and more persistent.
Our tax system should serve the public, not subsidise speculation. Reforming investor tax breaks would be fair, responsible, and is long overdue.
