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Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:
There's a new bill before federal parliament calling for housing to be considered a fundamental human right.
The bill, introduced by independent federal parliamentarians Kylea Tink and David Pocock, would require the government to create a 10-year National Housing and Homelessness Plan.
One part of the bill states housing should be considered a fundamental human right for all Australians. Here's how this would work.
Since its election in 2022, the Albanese government has had to fight political battles to pass its housing policies.
This includes the Housing Australia Future Fund: a $10 billion fund to provide an annual $500 million for social and affordable rental housing. It passed the parliament last year.
There's also the "Help to Buy" shared equity scheme. Under this scheme, 10,000 households a year would be eligible for a government equity contribution of up to 40% of the purchase price of a new home. It's yet to pass the parliament.
But many in the community continue to struggle with unaffordable rents, barriers to home ownership and rising rates of homelessness.
Housing and homelessness problems are complex because they crossover different areas of policy and different levels of government. There are many agencies that do housing policy.
But so far, the government has not had a clear plan. Its election promise to develop a National Housing and Homelessness Plan is still under development. And at the moment, it does not appear to be addressing important policy areas like tax and finance.
[...] Tink and Pocock have also taken up our research and turned it into the National Housing and Homelessness Plan Bill.
The bill would require the housing minister of the day to develop and implement a ten year National Housing and Homelessness Plan. This would mean taking a view of housing policy beyond three-year election cycles.
The legislation would also set some basic directions for the government's plan, including "ensuring that everyone in Australia has adequate housing," and "preventing and ending homelessness." This reflects the legislation's human rights-based approach.
The legislation would also require the housing minister to be collaborative and establish some new sources of information and advice for government. This includes a "consumer council," including people with experience of homelessness. This would operate alongside the existing National Housing Supply and Affordability Council: an independent group providing the government with expert advice. The consumer council would be able to escalate matters directly to the minister to ensure it's heard.
The existing government agency Housing Australia would be nominated as the lead agency assisting the minister with the plan. A new government officer, the National Housing and Homelessness Advocate, would independently investigate housing policy issues and monitor the progress against the plan. The housing minister would also be required to periodically report to parliament on progress.
At the end of the ten years, the minister would be required to review and develop a new plan.
Importantly, it would still be for the government of the day to decide what's in the plan. The legislation sets objectives and directions, but not policy details. The legislation does not say, for example, "thou shalt repeal negative gearing"! One government might devise a more market-orientated plan, while another might plan for greater non-market housing provision.
[...] The bill formally recognizes housing as a human right for two reasons.
First, it serves as the constitutional basis for the legislation. The right to adequate housing is a human right under the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which Australia ratified almost 50 years ago.
This brings it within the parliament's "external affairs" power. The parliament relied on this power and the human right to housing when it passed the original legislation establishing the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation (now Housing Australia). Basically, it gives the government the legal authority to make such a plan.
Secondly, an effective plan that's going to work across different policy areas and bring in the range of institutions needs a place to start. Human rights provides a way to organize the policy across all the different branches of government that need to be involved.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 09 2024, @08:32PM (18 children)
If you have to ask that, you are on the wrong side of the argument. There is nothing so terrible that someone doesn't gain from it and hence, makes it not entirely bad. Here. some politicians probably got reelected by being tough on landlords.
We call this regulatory thrashing. In the days of yore, this was covered by landlords. Now that the economic ecosystem has been wrecked, the band-aids come out. Government will be your landlord now.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Tuesday July 09 2024, @08:56PM (17 children)
>Government will be your landlord now.
There are some who would prefer that.
Most who would not prefer that would rather own their own residence anyway.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 10 2024, @07:43PM (16 children)
Of course they do. So what?
Let's consider Rosco's story. He had a rental property for 20 years, dealing with renters who knew the tricks for avoiding rent payments. Then when he's trying to sell his property, the state steps in and puts random, destructive squatters in his house. Sure, if you're a renter looking to get out of paying rent, a homeless person who destroys anything they live in, a politician tough on landlords, or maybe a virtue-signaling, voting citizen who isn't directly threatened by the landlord apocalypse. In those cases, you might well prefer the current situation in France. But anyone else?
I doubt you'd be so sanguine about a not entirely bad thing that only benefited billionaires or rapists at the expense of everyone else.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Wednesday July 10 2024, @08:09PM (15 children)
>the state steps in and puts random, destructive squatters in his house
They have altered the deal, pray they do not alter it further.
The French more than anyone should be aware that blithely parading their superior wealth ("then let them eat cake!") has potentially dire consequences. While I believe that "landlording" is a sucker's game, more work than the income is worth, it is nonetheless widely perceived as fat-cats with "ownership" raking in money for nothing. If you're there making "passive income" on your real-estate holdings while the country is rioting in the streets for higher minimum wage, earlier retirement and all sorts of other social programs - do you think the writing might be on the wall? There are probably still some walls with spatter-patterns from the last time the aristocracy tested the people past their limits.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 11 2024, @01:04AM (14 children)
Would Rosco agree with you that he's been blithely parading his superior wealth? Instead I think this a case where the narrative has once again outpaced reality.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 11 2024, @01:55AM (13 children)
>Would Rosco agree with you that he's been blithely parading his superior wealth?
Of course not, but a majority of French voters do.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 11 2024, @04:57AM (12 children)
We'll see if that majority stays a majority.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 11 2024, @12:09PM (11 children)
The pendulum always swings, but clearly, in France, it has swung far enough to guillotine landlord profitability.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Thursday July 11 2024, @01:29PM (10 children)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Thursday July 11 2024, @02:07PM (9 children)
The rest of us... landlords? What percentage of the population is landlords? What percentage of the population actively hates landlords?
I'm not saying the US should follow France closely in this change, France's swings to the Left are historically overly abrupt, sharp, and lead to a fair amount of chaos - but also social progress both in France and abroad after the chaos has settled.
The US has been slowly following France for over a century in this regard... yes, we are somewhat of a backward / retarded offspring of Europe in this regard, but historically we do follow them - even if we are laggy about it.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Friday July 12 2024, @05:51AM (8 children)
You have in the past stated that you own your own home. That makes you your own landlord. Imagine if you had to deal with the risk of official squatters every time you moved to a new home. It's stupid policy even when the state is acting in good faith.
Rather this shows an area where France is ridiculously lagging the US by centuries - the Third and Fourth Amendments. The US has a body of law against uncompensated seizure of property by the state with the core established over 200 years ago. It's not perfect, there's still a variety of well oiled exploits like zoning law, rent control, illegally legal asset seizure, etc, but at least when US-based governments do stuff this brazen, the issue can be settled in the courts.
Further, "social progress" sounds like yet another example of a phrase where the noun is neutered by the use of "social". Two examples: zero sum strategies involving wealth redistribution and social programs with built in infinite growth assumptions (particularly public pensions where several workers are required to support a retiree). But I guess I shouldn't be surprised to get so many social wood [soylentnews.org] arguments here.
Here's my take on all that. In a normal market situation (with regulation against fraud, use of force, etc), landlords and renters enter into mutual agreements. Every time the state throws bullshit into these relationships, it harms them. Here, typically by reducing the supply of rental property. Somehow that helps the homeless. Needless to say, I'm not buying it.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Friday July 12 2024, @12:23PM (7 children)
> That makes you your own landlord.
Stretching far for even you.
> Imagine if you had to deal with the risk of official squatters every time you moved to a new home. It's stupid policy even when the state is acting in good faith.
Well, then, I won't be buying any rentals with squatters in them, just like the rental I bid on (to convert for personal ownership use) after, and only after, the squatters had been evicted.
> at least when US-based governments do stuff this brazen, the issue can be settled in the courts.
Unless it's eminent domain, or pushing out existing land use with overdevelopment: https://www.npr.org/2024/03/16/1236266122/florida-man-refused-sell-home-developer-coral-gables [npr.org]
> uncompensated seizure of property by the state
Unless you're accused of drug possession, or harassment of protected wildlife, or any other number of offences which allow your property to be seized and auctioned.
> zero sum strategies involving wealth redistribution
There you are again, focused on money like the only meaningful measure of it is the grand total. Distribution matters. Giving every waitress in America a 100% salary increase is meaningless if there are still the same number of waitresses working - the job is the same, the hours worked are the same, oh, but now they're getting more pay and maybe they can afford to pay their car mechanic and plumber? Only if the car mechanic and plumber don't also get raises.
The meaningful measure of wealth is in its distribution, relative levels, the absolute numbers are meaningless.
> landlords and renters enter into mutual agreements
Like hell they do. The one time I rented a house for the family there was a "standard contract" that all landlords within 50 miles of my job used, it was written by the landlords and very tenant unfriendly. Sure, we could have refused to rent anything at all and the four of us could have tried to live in the pickup truck, maybe on one of the unused floors of my office's parking garage? Not.
🌻🌻🌻 [google.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Saturday July 13 2024, @05:18AM (6 children)
I forget that we have to set the evil bit first. /sarc
Rosco didn't do that either. But it happened just the same - because the state put them there.
The obvious rebuttal is what happens when everyone has the same wealth - but it's not enough to feed themselves? Absolute numbers that are a measure of what needs and wants can be provided are far more meaningful than relative levels that can be arbitrarily calibrated to generate grievance.
I didn't mention money even once (aside from quoting someone at one point who did use the term "money"). You've mentioned it several times. The person with the erroneous focus on money is not me.
You just did in the above example. And I bet if we go through your life, we find several other times you've done the same.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Saturday July 13 2024, @06:58PM (4 children)
>>Well, then, I won't be buying any rentals with squatters in them, just like the rental I bid on (to convert for personal ownership use) after, and only after, the squatters had been evicted.
>Rosco didn't do that either. But it happened just the same - because the state put them there.
No, Rosco had an "extra house" in France, and these recent changes in French laws and enforcement mean that many people like Rosco will be divesting of that dubious asset - possibly buying in Florida: https://www.fox35orlando.com/news/florida-homeowners-fight-squatters-new-law-ends-scam-desantis-says [fox35orlando.com] Note, I'm not exactly cheering DeSantis on, just pointing out: different conditions in different countries. Just like you might purchase an "extra house" for cheap in South Sudan, but you probably wouldn't want to.
>>The meaningful measure of wealth is in its distribution, relative levels, the absolute numbers are meaningless.
>The obvious rebuttal is what happens when everyone has the same wealth - but it's not enough to feed themselves?
Are we anywhere near such a situation? I mean, when ADM gives up growing food for profit and nobody else wants to work the fields, maybe - but that's far off fantasy at this point in time.
>Absolute numbers that are a measure of what needs and wants can be provided are far more meaningful than relative levels that can be arbitrarily calibrated to generate grievance.
Nothing arbitrary about the top 2% having a net worth 12x (and higher than) the median and 50% of all wealth being controlled by the top 2.5%.
>>There you are again, focused on money like the only meaningful measure of it is the grand total. Distribution matters. Giving every waitress in America a 100% salary increase is meaningless if there are still the same number of waitresses working - the job is the same, the hours worked are the same, oh, but now they're getting more pay and maybe they can afford to pay their car mechanic and plumber? Only if the car mechanic and plumber don't also get raises.
>I didn't mention money even once (aside from quoting someone at one point who did use the term "money"). You've mentioned it several times. The person with the erroneous focus on money is not me.
Oh, I think you did even without using the word. Look at the logic behind your statements.
>>> landlords and renters enter into mutual agreements
>>Like hell they do. The one time I rented a house for the family there was a "standard contract" that all landlords within 50 miles of my job used, it was written by the landlords and very tenant unfriendly. Sure, we could have refused to rent anything at all and the four of us could have tried to live in the pickup truck, maybe on one of the unused floors of my office's parking garage? Not.
>You just did in the above example. And I bet if we go through your life, we find several other times you've done the same.
Laid off from a 12 year job with my wife 4 months pregnant, out of work looking for 4 months finding nothing within a 300 mile radius, finally land a job with benefits in Houston - where exactly was my negotiating power with the rental market there? Take it or leave it is not a negotiation. Taking such an offer is not a mutual agreement, it is a necessity.
When I put a gun to your head and demand you sign a quit-claim deed to your home, does your signature represent mutual agreement between us?
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(Score: 1, Disagree) by khallow on Sunday July 14 2024, @06:37AM (3 children)
It wasn't dubious before the state made it so. Funny how the social progress of France makes Florida with all its glaring drawbacks such an attractive investment option for actual human beings.
We aren't need such a situation where we can't feed ourselves because we aren't near a situation where relative wealth is considered more important than absolute wealth.
It's clearly irrelevant to your argument what numbers you use. The top x% will have net worth higher than y% people who don't bother to collect wealth at all. Also you're clearly ignoring wealth from future earning power which is the classic part of wealth traditionally ignored by the broken measures of wealth today.
I do look at my logic and I'm just not interested in your straw man building.
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 14 2024, @11:52AM (2 children)
My ancestors were successful farmers in Tennessee in the early 1800s, they also held significant value in dubious assets which the government forced them to divest, in the 1860s. Many of them diversified into the ship building industry, one descendant later became Secretary of the Navy. For better or worse, (mostly worse) my direct ancestor on that side became a school teacher, then died of tuberculosis around age 30.
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(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 14 2024, @03:43PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 14 2024, @08:39PM
Can't pick your ancestors.
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(Score: 2) by JoeMerchant on Sunday July 14 2024, @02:09PM
>The obvious rebuttal is what happens when everyone has the same wealth - but it's not enough to feed themselves?
Meanwhile: Making Ends Meet: Nearly half of Florida families can't afford expenses - YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jtfLor0Eq0w [youtube.com]
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