Housing: The Great Australian Right
By Kevin Bell
Monash University Publishing, 2024
It's often said that housing is a human right. This timely book puts the flesh on the bones of that claim and takes some first steps towards making it a reality in the Australian context.
Author Kevin Bell, former judge of the Supreme Court of Victoria, Professor of Law at Monash University and specialist in human rights law, has been an advocate in the areas of housing and homelessness for decades.
Bell argues that the realisation of the human right to a decent home must be the purpose of the housing system. He traces the roots of the current housing disaster to the colonial mentality of thinking about housing primarily as a commodity for producing private wealth. This is in contrast to First Peoples' connection to land and how it can be sustainably managed and shared.
The high water mark of Australian housing policy was reached in the early post-World War II era of Prime Ministers John Curtin and Ben Chifley. The Commonwealth Housing Commission was established and public housing was built nationally at around 10,000 dwellings per year for about a decade. In 1956, Liberal PM Robert Menzies came to power and emphasised private home ownership, and many public homes were bought by their private tenants.
Today, public housing construction is at an all-time low of about 4000 dwellings per year.
Bell identifies the John Howard-era of investor tax breaks as putting the foot on the accelerator of house prices culminating in the current disaster. He sees a glimmer of hope in the recent establishment of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and its first State of the Housing System report of this year. The report refers to housing as a basic human need and right.
Further reports put the required rate of public housing construction needed to address the current housing disaster at 50,000 dwellings per year. Bell observes that current funding falls vastly below this level and that a complete paradigm shift to a human rights perspective, enshrined in legislation is what is needed.
Bell puts the human right to decent housing as central to the fulfillment of all other rights. Many of these principles are already codified in international laws to which Australia is a party. These include the United Nations Declaration on Human Rights, the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.
The Australian government has an obligation to respect, protect and fulfil these rights. However, at present Australia is the only liberal democracy without comprehensive legal human rights protections. Canada, another former British colony, has taken some positive steps towards establishing a human rights framework for housing.
Ultimately, Bell argues that as long as Australian plans to address the housing disaster remain only policy based and without legal backing, we will fail. Recognising this fact is just the first step in making change. What is now needed is a great wave of activism and social movements that understand the political and class forces that must be overcome in order to achieve that change.