Australia is in the midst of the worst rental housing crisis since the great depression. We are living in a community that is seeing a reducing inclusiveness and equality. We are seeing more homelessness and a lack of genuine affordable housing.
Buried in this budget of the largest local government in Australia with $33 billion in ‘Community Equity’, and $3 Billion in income, is a budget allocation of a measly $4 million - less than 0.2% of what this Council spends each year - on affordable housing and homelessness.
This budget provides nothing that will ensure Brisbane’s homeless find housing. Homelessness is affecting everyone, people of many different ages and occupations. Homelessness is not just the people in our parks. It’s people sleeping on couches, in garages, in vans and cars, in temporary or improvised dwellings, and in severely overcrowded homes. It is estimated that there are over 10,000 people homeless in the City of Brisbane tonight. While this is what the data tells us, we know that these stats are under-reported. From our hands-on knowledge, we believe the situation is even worse.
This is a crisis of affordable housing. A ‘Queensland Council of Social Services’ report issued last year, found Queensland needs 200,000 affordable homes over the next 20 years. Not any old homes, but ‘Affordable homes’. Of that 200,000, approx 100,000 people would be eligible for social housing. That means they have complex and urgent needs.
This Schrinner Council continues to re-zone and upzone, making it easier for developers to build 50 to 90 story buildings. 50 to 90 story buildings from conception to build, could take 10 years. How many have even started in the Kurilpa TLPI? None!
The council’s own planning reports show that our existing zoning plans have already provided enough potential for tens of thousands of more dwellings. Our existing neighbourhood plans and suburban high streets are already re-zoned with huge capacity for medium to high density. But no one is building. We all know that developers are land banking. As long as their property is increasing in value, then they are making profits. In fact, all of this up-zoning is actually helping developers increase the value of their properties without actually building anything (landbanking!).
Our Greens’ proposal for a Vacancy Tax would force developers to actually build something, or sell up to someone who will. It is now clear that the infrastructure charge discounts and massive tax handouts from the Schrinner council and Labor state government have not made any tangible difference to this crisis. They’ve just made developers richer.
The Greens will not accept the status quo, change is possible, and it starts with holding our governments to account.