In the last Tasmanian Conservationist, we outlined the deficiencies in the state government’s housing affordability initiatives and highlighted the negative environmental impacts of the current approach to housing, including urban sprawl and high carbon emissions.
This article considers what the TCT and our supporters can do to advance affordable housing that also has positive environmental outcomes.
The need for better strategy and policies
The TCT will focus on providing input to the Minister for Planning Roger Jaensch on development of a settlement and housing affordability policy and advocate for a state policy.
One important change since the last newsletter is the passage of the state government’s Planning Policies Legislation and the statement by the Minister for Planning that a settlement policy would be a priority. The Minister confirmed that a settlement policy would incorporate direction on housing affordability, liveability, population, transport and other infrastructure. In the parliamentary debate the Minister left open the possibility that state policies may follow planning policies. Critically, state policies are hard to change and all state government agencies must comply with them. The proposed planning policy are only implemented through the statewide planning scheme.
The second thing we will do is to flag the need for the government’s ‘Tasmania’s Affordable Housing Strategy’ and ‘Tasmania’s Affordable Housing Action Plan’ to be strengthened. These are critically important in guiding the government’s funding priorities. They have been in place while the housing crisis has unfolded and should be reviewed as a matter of urgency. These are seriously lacking but don’t receive deserved criticism.
At the end of 2018 the state government did seek input on the development of the next three year action plan but the consultation focused on a narrow set of questions directed to selected stakeholders. There has been no review of the strategy. We will urge Minister Jaensch to find out what has worked and not worked with the affordable housing strategy before progressing a settlement planning policy.
My main criticism of the strategy and action plan is they are overwhelmingly focused on the provision of government housing of various forms. The approaches taken to government housing is largely very good, including requiring high energy efficiency outcomes and access to public transport, while lacking ambition and resources. But the action plan includes just one action to increase affordability of private houses for purchase, by providing more crown land. There is a private rental assistance program but it only applies to people on the government housing register.
To get improved sustainability outcomes we need the government to take strategic action to address all types of housing. While the government and housing industry are satisfied that people get into a house, we want to ensure that that house is affordable, appropriate for people’s needs and has low environmental impacts. This may require the government to intervene more into the housing market, including using planning policies to set high sustainability outcomes, require appropriate zoning and to aim for limited or no population growth.
In the last Tasmanian Conservationist, we presented a criticism of the state government’s housing affordability initiatives that are aimed at the private housing market. These are not included in the Housing Strategy and are largely reflex responses to specific issues that arise in the media. Almost without exception these make very little or no difference to housing affordability and will likely have negative sustainability impacts.
What specifically should the government be doing?
The Tasmanian planning policies are intended to clarify the purpose and objectives of the Statewide Planning Scheme. They could be prescriptive in terms of directing where zoning should be applied for higher density and other affordable housing development and require appropriate public transport and other infrastructure. Conversely, the policy could restrict development in the urban fringe and rural towns that are currently developing into commuter towns. A settlement policy could stipulate that new housing estates include some affordable housing and include a range of types and sizes of houses to suit the elderly, singles and families along with green space.
As part of the settlement policy, the government should reconsider its ambition to increase Tasmania’s population to 650,000 by 2030. Encouraging this type of growth makes achieving other objectives so much harder. Given that the Prime Minister says he wants to review the country’s immigration levels, and immigration is largely responsible for our population growth, the state government may be more likely to consider lower targets. Our job will be to lobby all parties to support a reduced immigration intake while not reducing our refugee intake as this is only a small fraction of the total.
We need better information about vacant properties in Tasmania. It is likely that mainland states have much higher rates given the high investment by speculators into high rise apartment development, but we are largely ignorant of the problem in Tasmania. We need to know how many are vacant, why they are unavailable, where they are located and the size and condition of them.
The Australian government has stopped funding government housing in Tasmania and this should be reconsidered. But do we need to go much further and have the government invest in private housing as the New Zealand government has promised (see the article on page 26).The Tasmanian housing strategy states that 47% of low-income households who are buying their own homes are in housing stress. It states that despite the First Home Owners Grant, homeownership in Tasmania is declining as house prices continue to rise. The government refuses to acknowledge this or commit to more effective actions.
It is likely that once government invests to expand the supply of modest-sized affordable houses that the demand will increase and the free market may respond and expand this part of the market.
The Australian Labor Party has promised to amend negative gearing policy to take some pressure off of house prices, but this alone will not be sufficient. It may just reduce supply of houses while reducing prices. As with the New Zealand government it should look to use the increased tax revenue that notionally results from restricting negative gearing to invest into more private housing.
Following New Zealand’s approach the state and federal governments should consider funding programs to improve the standard and environmental performance of existing rental houses with grants for insulation, double glazing and climate-friendly heating.
The New Zealand government’s revolutionary housing policies are in large part a response to severe health problems. The Labor Party housing policy states that a total of 40,000 children are admitted to hospital every year with illnesses related to living in unhealthy houses. If Tasmania has a serious housing-related health problem then it is either not documented or not publicised.
The government reports quarterly on its housing action plan but only reports on number of people and households assisted through different actions and not whether this meets the demand. Targets are arbitrarily set and are not even intended to reflect the actual need in different groups of people.
New Zealand has nationally agreed method of collecting statistics and this provide a clear means of measuring the problem and impact of polices. We need to consider having an independent organisation monitor the housing problem to see if we are improving or not. Key outcomes to monitor include the number of people:
• facing mortgage and rental stress;
• living in housing that is low quality, unhealthy or energy inefficient;
• on the social housing waiting list;
• who are homeless.
Peter McGlone
TCT Director
Photo by Heather Cassidy