Anyone who doubts the housing market has failed probably hasn’t rented or attempted to procure a rental home recently. For those who have, or who know someone who’s felt the frustration, stress and disempowerment that go with renting, this little book will provide a massive dose of validation and affirmation.
The premise is simple – housing, as in shelter from the elements and a place to enjoy a relatively safe, productive and heathy life, is the cornerstone of human rights. Kevin Bell lays it out based on two key viewpoints. Firstly, his personal experience of growing up in social housing and then going on to start the Victorian Tenants Union, and also his perspective as a legal expert and former Supreme Court Judge.
In clear, approachable and sensible language he builds his case from first principles. The financialisation of housing is assigned the Defendants bench. This is the root of the market failure, he explains, the society-wide shift to seeing bricks and mortar as primarily a means of building wealth rather than an essential for basic human life and the construction of a fair society.
“Planning must take account of housing as a human right as a priority,”
In a chat with The Fifth Estate, Bell says that this perspective also arises from Australia’s colonial history of seeing land as a commodity.
“Our creation story as a nation is built on land as a way to achieve wealth creation,” he says.
He says that since writing the book, he has spoken with people from other nations who express surprise around the national obsession with home ownership.
“It’s not really ordinary.”
We don’t legally have rights here
The other aspect of Australia’s social and governance landscape that has enabled the commercialisation of a basic life essential like shelter is the lack of a constitutional charter of human rights, Bell explains.
Basically, without some kind of cornerstone statement of our basic rights as citizens, it becomes simpler to ignore or forfeit them.
Planning needs to change
The planning system and related regulations also reflect the market perspective, rather than the needs of humans. Informal housing is banned, and this is possible because there is no inherent right to shelter.
“Planning must take account of housing as a human right as a priority,” Bell says.
He says that if this occurred, it would encourage greater innovation, including more scope for permitting different forms of housing. For those of us who’ve watched the backlash against permission for tiny houses to be legalised as valid housing, this rings true. While the planning system is busy regulating the placement of activities – which is its purpose – the activity of housing is very narrowly defined.
“It could make a big dint in the homelessness numbers if planning was more permissive.”
Whose home is it anyway?
Another theme that runs through the book is the contradiction between the product promise of renting – the right to peaceful enjoyment of a safe and habitable home – and the actual experience of tenants.
Current tenancy regulations in almost every state are balanced towards the interests of wealth creation for owners, not towards amenity for those paying for the property.
In his time with the Tenants Union, Bell saw many of the issues up close. He says that while there have been some marginal gains for tenant rights, there is still a need for further progress.
The experience of an individual tenant depends on the quality of the real estate agent or property manager, as much as the words on the tenancy agreement.
Lack of education requirements for agents and property managers is part of the issue, and Bell says investment in that is required.
The focus also needs to shift from “squeezing tenants to respecting the rights of tenants.”
“A house is not just a widget – it is a home for the person.”
Bell is adamant that as a society, ignoring the state of things is not an option.
“One of the reasons I wrote the book was a strong sense of urgency – the situation is disastrous. It’s not just ‘critical’, it is morally outrageous that rental housing is beyond reach for so many.”
Favourite quote from the book
“This human right to a decent home expresses a fundamental human need as a universal legal right that government is obliged to observe. The purpose of the right is to enable people, individually and collectively, to live in security, peace and dignity, and to flourish and participate in society in ways that they choose. Unless people have decent housing, their capacity to do so is limited or nil.”
Housing: The Great Australian Right by the Hon. Kevin Bell AO KC, published by Monash University Publishing as part of the In the National Interest series, is available now.