After decades of failure in tackling housing affordability, a proposal from several federal crossbenchers will hand back power to the people to solve the issue.
MPs and senators have united to call for a housing affordability citizens’ assembly to use their personal experiences to come up with a solution.
A representative group of 100 Australians from all walks of life, including home owners, investors and renters will participate in a months-long immersion program hearing from experts and then coming up with fixes to the issue under the plan.
An 80 per cent consensus will elevate the recommendation to the government.
Wentworth MP Allegra Spender believes the government, opposition and other minor parties have failed in their job to make housing affordable over the decades.
“This is something that has been effectively a slow motion car crash in terms of public policy on housing,” Ms Spender said.
Stories from MPs across the country highlighted the scale of the issue from an Aboriginal family sleeping on cement slabs in the Northern Territory, to the end of the idea of cheap housing in country towns, and affordability concerns in wealthier electorates.
“You can either have real life people with life experience come up with real life solutions or we can continue to pay money asking those accounting firms like PwC to come up with very little solutions and nothing gets enacted,” Tasmanian senator Jacqui Lambie said.
Ms Spender believes recommendations from the assembly could end the era of political wedging, which she says is a big reason why housing policy has remained stagnant and even put ideas previously ruled out back on the table.
“The prime minister and all the government should be very wary of not listening to a group that is representative of the Australian people who are coming up with consensus,” she said.
The members are in discussion with the government seeking a commitment but will push ahead even without government backing.
Labor and the Greens remain locked in a stalemate on the government’s signature $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund policy.
Labor made a fresh bid to lift a $500 million cap on spending and guaranteed an annual $500 million for housing from 2024/25, which the Greens rejected.
The minor party halved their demand for housing spending from $5 billion to $2.5 billion but remained adamant on their demands for a national rental freeze or cap and greater spending on social and affordable housing.
The opposition remains in talks with the government but has expressed concern with the policy.
“It takes a bit to unite the coalition and the Greens, but on this policy, we are as one in opposition to it,” Liberal leader Peter Dutton said.
William Ton
(Australian Associated Press)
