By Edgar Liu & Hazel Easthope

Reading the news headlines in Australia in the last handful of years, one could be forgiven for thinking that the only housing issue the general public is interested in is its price, particularly if and how first-time buyers can afford to enter the housing market, or when the housing ‘bubble’ will burst. A new book, Housing in 21^st-Century Australia, edited by Rae Dufty-Jones and Dallas Rogers and with contributions from prominent housing researchers from around Australia, presents a very different picture.

In this book, the contributors – including City Futures staff Edgar Liu, Hazel Easthope, Bruce Judd and Ian Burnley – discuss housing issues from the perspectives of people, practice and policy, covering a range of topics that not only highlight how people in different social and demographic groups in Australia live and use their homes but also the policy contexts that drive Australia’s housing markets in their delivery, subsidy and management of stock.

The book’s editors have already joined many others in praising a return of political focus to the city and the built environment at the Commonwealth level following the appointment of a Federal Minister for Cities and the Built Environment by Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull in early October. However, is having a ministerial focus on the urban built environment enough to address the constantly changing needs of Australian households and their housing needs?

There has been a push from advocacy groups to increase the supply and diversity of housing offered by the market as one remedy to addressing the affordability question. In the late 2000s and early 2010s there were some redirections in Federal and State policies like the Nation Building and Economic Stimulus Plan that injected thousands of social and affordable housing units across the country. Other Federal and State policies have followed, particularly to increase the capacity of Australia’s community housing sector or provide subsidies to first-time buyers wanting to build their own homes.

In Housing in 21^st-Century Australia, a clear message emerges about the diversity of households who continue to face difficulties in accessing safe and stable housing. Our chapter on multigenerational households, for one, highlights the decision-making processes that some families go through when deciding their living arrangement. These decisions are often strongly influenced by the policies that afford (or more likely constrain) their choices. For many, adult children staying on to live in the family home may not simply be KIPPERS or Millennials refusing to give up the home comforts and set up their own nests, but rather young adults responding to the need to stay in education for longer while accruing expensive debts in the process, and the casualisation of the workforce in neoliberal economies that provide little job security. Continued retractions of public welfare and the deinstitutionalisation of care of people with disability and older persons have also put the strain back onto the family, creating a sandwich generation in the process. There are, of course, those who just wanted to have closer connections with their family in an increasingly mobile world, but who now feel the stigma of living with family in a western society where ideals of individualisation and independence prevail.

Irrespective of how these households come about, there needs to be a stronger recognition of ‘alternative’ households and how they can be appropriately accommodated. This recognition, of course, extends beyond our multigenerational household example to other socio-demographic groups that don’t fit neatly into the ideal target demographic for the 1- and 2-bedroom apartments that currently dominate Australia’s new housing supply.

All of this means that the new Federal Minister for Cities and the Built Environment is going to have his work cut out for him. In the absence of a Federal Minister for Housing, Minister Briggs will be tasked with grappling with the impact that metropolitan housing markets have not only on the national economy but also on the everyday lives and wellbeing of Australian residents. To do this well will require cooperation across Ministries – not least Social Services, Education and Training, Vocational Education and Skills, Immigration and Border Protection, Health, and Aged Care – as well as with the planning and housing departments across the States and Territories. It will be interesting to see how much of this cross-Ministry and cross-jurisdiction cooperation will eventuate in a neoliberal political arena.

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