Greens leader Adam Bandt and housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather say minor party will now support Housing Australia Future Fund
Do you know how many god damn houses I could build with 10 billion dollars?
SO MANY FUCKING HOUSES, BECAUSE THEY'D ALL BE WELL-BUILT APARTMENTS.
Why do I feel like this is somehow going to achieve somewhere between diddly squat and fuck-all?
We need drastic overhaul of how we do our zoning laws.
If I were made dictator-mayor of my city (Brisbane), the first thing I'd do is eliminate all low-density residential (LDR) zoning. It would all be replaced with LMR (low-medium density residential), which allows up to 3 storeys for townhouses and apartments.
We need overhaul at the state and federal levels as well. Much, much more publicly-owned housing. Better protections for tenants. Things like levies on empty or potentially even under-occupied homes. A sensible approach to public and active transport, and more public spaces (parks, pools, etc.) to make living in these higher-density environments more comfortable and feasible. But the first thing I'd do is simply allow people by right to build medium density housing on the land they own. Take that control out of the huge developers who can lobby for 40 storey skyscrapers in the inner city and spread it out.
I like NSW governments policy. Highrise depends on infrastructure and not how far it is from the CBD. But it is still not good enough.
We have 220m+ in Parramatta which is 20km from CBD and from what I understand the application for it to be higher was denied because it was too close to the airport.
Macquarie Park, Rhodes are new suburbs with 150m+ (definition for a skyscraper). Many others are getting 100m+, Olympic Park, Liverpool etc.
So it is quite spread out already. Even places very far away from Sydney like Penrith, Rouse Hill, Edmondson Park and Leppington will be zoned for high rise.
But we need to overhaul the zoning laws for the missing middle. In Sydney Bankstown to Marrickville and Revesby to Turella should all be up for 100m towers or maximum allowed due to proximity to airport.
Still a drop in the bucket of what’s needed and still not immediate enough. Lots of people gonna be doing a tough xmas this year.
Eh, Labor's policy here is weak, but it's something. Politically speaking, I think the Greens would have come out looking to the uninformed public like the bad guys, and there would at least be some merit to that claim. This isn't like Rudd's climate policy where he refused any compromise and came to the Senate with a proposal that even their own modelling said would take over 20 years to produce any effect and would require paying polluters if we wanted to ratchet it up.
The Albanese government has given some pretty good concessions here. Not perfect, but good enough to be worth passing, while continuing to fight for more in the future.
Albos policy is weak and was going to lead to less houses built than even the Liberals did in 10 years.
At least greens held out, turned 2 billion into 10 and turned an investment fund (and a promise to build) into actual immediate building.
I guess the greens decided they couldn't get anything more out of Labor.
