CFMEU backs build-rent-buy scheme expansion as part of housing fix
The Construction Forestry Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU) has called for the federal government to expand build-to-rent-to-buy schemes.
The Greens’ housing policy, released yesterday, calls for the government to build 360,000 homes over five years that would be available to rent and buy at discounted rates.
CFMEU National Secretary Zach Smith said the Federal Labor Government was already involved in building houses to rent and buy in the ACT.
“The federal government building houses to rent and buy isn’t a pie-in-the-sky dream, it’s already happening in Canberra,” Mr Smith, who is also the union’s ACT secretary, said.
“Federal Labor should look at the ACT scheme and expand it so we can give more Australians access to the right to affordable home ownership.
“Just because you’re a low-income worker doesn’t mean you should be stuck in a never-ending cycle of renting and locked out of home ownership forever.
“Housing is a fundamental human right that our society is failing to provide. Build to rent or buy schemes are just one piece of the complex housing puzzle Australia must solve.
“We need a massive increase in the nation’s public housing and affordable housing stock.
“The CFMEU’s plan to tax the outrageous profits of just a tiny portion of corporate giants will raise the $511 billion we need to build almost one million homes over the next two decades.”
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9 comments
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Roswell
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Terence Mills
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Jim K
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A Commentator
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Steve Davis
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Lyndal
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Terence Mills
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corvusboreus
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leefe
Return to home pageGreat idea. That will get us a few more submarines.
When it comes to public housing we seem to be moving closer to the Singapore approach particularly with the Greens policies.
Public housing in Singapore is subsidised, built and managed by the Government of Singapore . The majority of the residential housing developments in Singapore are publicly governed and developed, and home to approximately 80% of the resident population.
These high-rise apartments are maintained by the government but individual owners do have equity ; profiteering is ruled out as the government ultimately set the resale value.
The population of Singapore, roughly that of Melbourne, live in these well maintained housing precincts which are self-contained satellite towns with their own schools, supermarkets, malls, community hospitals, clinics, hawker centres (food court) and sports and recreational facilities. Every housing estate includes Mass Rapid Transit (MRT) stations and bus stops that link residents to other parts of the city-state.
There is much we can learn from Singapore and it is clear that the Greens have been drawing from the Singapore experience. Perhaps the greatest success of the Singapore approach is that community housing is there to put a roof over your head and remove the housing from the property lottery that we have created in Australia.
Well said Terrence. Maybe it’s time to do the same here. The dog-eat-dog system that shelter should mirror a casino mentality has proven a negative for community building. Scrap the tax rulings that created this farce. Force investors to take their profits and send some study missions to Singapore to see what works.
I wonder whether the interest and motivation of the CFMEU has anything to do with having a domestic building program classed as a “major project”, thereby allowing the union to claim coverage and obtain major project wages and conditions.
I don’t think the recommendations of the CFMEU are routinely altruistic.
An interest in having affordable housing for the needy is by definition altruistic.
An interest in having a workforce enjoying protected wages and conditions is by definition altruistic.
Suspicion of the motivations of others is Hobbesian — a product of a lifetime of conditioning by liberal propaganda where selfishness is king.
The Nsw Housing Commission used to permit a rent to buy scheme some years ago. One advantage was that tenants were more caring and house-proud if they planned to buy. But the scheme was not well controlled. People bought their house and sold it at a profit, which meant further increases in house prices across the board in those localities. Also owners installed tenants in their old Housing Commission houses, which pushed up rents. And of course this all led to declining numbers of subsidised homes available for the increasing numbers of people needing cheap rent.
Any rent to buy scheme needs to have some safeguards to prevent profiteering
Lyndal
One of the features of the Singapore public housing system is that these apartments are not considered as commodities, they cannot be rented out to third parties, in the majority of cases ‘owners’ have equity (they are owners not tenants) and pride of ownership is very evident. Properties can only be sold through the Housing & Development Board (HDB) and prices are controlled.
https://www.hdb.gov.sg/residential/selling-a-flat
The good thing is that Singapore and several Scandinavian countries have already done the hard yards on public housing, we just need to go and study what they have done.
For the subject interested;
A UNSW article on public & co-op housing solutions in the ‘Nordic’ countries, with links to the original Australia institute + Deakin uni research paper.
https://www.unsw.edu.au/newsroom/news/2022/04/more-affordable-housing-with-less-homelessness-is-possible–just
Terrence:
Those developments are easier to pull off in a place like Singapore which has a larger population density.
I’m not arguing against the concept per se; – it’s the right way to go – but there are difficulties with connecting such developments with existing urbanities. Transport in particular, in a nation the size of Australia, is always going to be more expensive and more complex than in a relatively small nation such as Singapore.