Although I enjoy the security of owning my own home I have a great deal of respect for the idea of public housing that is available to people at a reasonable rent and with secure long term tenancy, If you leave aside the investment potential of home ownership the most important thing that everyone needs is the reassurance of knowing that you will be able to continue living where you do for as long as it suits you. Personally when I was a renter (in the dim dark past) I found the short term (usually six months, a year if you were lucky) leases were never that conducive to any feeling of permanence or security that also meant that most renters never have any sort of commitment to their community either. After all who wants to put in the effort to making friendships with people who won’t be around for very long?
Publicly owned housing is a social asset that makes life in our cities workable for those on modest incomes and the idea that the government should increase of housing stocks by building more gets the tick of approval from me. However the current government seems to be making a dogs breakfast of the task , despite throwing vast amounts of cash at the shortages.
And the walls came tumbling down
As at two weeks ago, only 73 new houses had been completed under the $5.4bn spending package, announced in February, while hundreds of existing homes had been demolished to make way for new buildings.
While Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek defended the scheme yesterday and said it had also funded repairs to 7000 homes, the opposition attacked the spending as a con and a waste.
“They’ve tried to make out that they are adding all these homes to the public housing stock,” opposition housing spokesman Scott Morrison told The Australian. “But the way that they’ve been doing it is by knocking other ones down.
“You’ve got to ask yourself whether it is value for money to knock down a perfectly good house just to build one in the same place.”
The opposition attack follows months of complaints about spending on new school buildings under the stimulus package, including claims the government has demolished perfectly good school rooms to make way for new buildings.
If the aim is to increase the total amount of housing available then spending 5.4 billion only to end up with less houses on the books seems like a very big FAIL to me. And the way that maintenance spending on existing housing is being spun is like wise rather disingenuous as well.
Ah well what do we expect from the government of Brother Number One but an excess of spin and a lack of substance ?
Sadly not surprised Comrades
Filed under: Australian Politics, ERR???, Federal politics, House design, Life and Work balance, Living with Nature, Political Correctness, Scams | Tagged: Kevin Rudd, Latte Lefties, Tanya Pliberse
