HOUSING AUSTRALIA This book is dedicated to Bert and Cis HOUSING AUSTRALIA CHRIS PARIS With contributions {rom Andrew Beer and Will Sanders M Copyright © Chris Paris 1993 All rights reserved. Except und er the conditions described in the Copyright Act 1968 of Australia and subsequent amendments, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. First published 1993 by MACMILLAN EDUCATION AUSTRALlA PTY LTD 107 Moray Street, South Melbourne 3205 Associated companies and representatives throughout the world National Library of Australia cataloguing in publication data Paris, Chris. Housing Australia. Bibliography. Includes index. ISBN 978-0-7329-0695-5 ISBN 978-0-7329-0694-8 ISBN 978-1-349-15160-8 (eBook) DOI 10.1007/978-1-349-15160-8 1. Housing - Australia. 1. Beer, Andrew Philip. 11. Sanders, Will. III. Tide. 363.50994 Typeset by Typeset Gallery, Malaysia Contents Prefaee and Aeknowledgements Vi Introduetion Vlll Chapter 1 Houses, Hornes, Needs and Profit 1 Chapter 2 Theoretieal Frameworks for Housing Studies 16 Chapter 3 The Soeial Relations of Australian Housing 39 Chapter 4 Housing Poliey and the Polities of Housing 56 Chapter 5 The Demography of Houses 78 Chapter 6 Housing and Residential Environments 97 Chapter 7 Housing Industries 131 Chapter 8 'A Dream won, a erisis born?' Horne Ownership and the Housing Market Andrew Beer 147 Chapter 9 Australian Nightmares: Tenaney and Homelessness 173 Chapter 10 Aboriginal Housing Will Sanders 212 Chapter 11 Current Issues and Future Direetions for Australian Housing 228 Bibliography 248 Author Index 259 Subjeet Index 262 Preface and Acknowledgements This book has been written in response to the encouragement of my publisher, Macmillan Education Australia, and especially the commissioning editor, Peter Debus. I am grateful to hirn for his patience and understanding of the personal reasons which have delayed my final draft of this book. I was asked to reflect on many years' work on housing in Australia and the United Kingdom, and to make a statement about Australian housing and public policy. I have not been constrained by the requirements of writing a textbook aimed at students of particular courses of study, although this book is mainly designed for students of Australian housing. I have started from the assumption that readers have litde or no specialist knowledge of the subject, although every body has some practical experience of housing. The opportunity to make a considered statement about Australian housing opens up the possibility that experienced pro fessionals working in housing, as well as other academics, may find something of interest here. My work has benefited from many discussions with colleagues both in academia and the world(s) of practice. I have been in fluenced by the work of some writers, especially the theoretical perspective developed by Ball, Harloe and Martens (1988), van Vliet's masterly overview (1990a) of comparative housing analysis, and Kemeny's continuing efforts to relate housing studies to wider debates in social theory. I have appreciated many discussions of housing issues with colleagues in Australia and overseas, and my work has benefited, albeit sometimes grudgingly, from the criti cisms and suggestions of anonymous referees of papers submitted for publication to various journals. I have received valued comments and suggestions from many friends and colleagues, especially Neil Anderton, Michael Ball, Mike Berry, Terry Burke, Maurie Daly, Michael Harloe, Margo Huxley, Jim JuPP, Hai Kendig, Mike Langstaff, Clem Lloyd, Max Neutze, John Palmer, Peter Saunders, Marian Simms, Bob Stirnson, Peter Williams and Christine Whitehead. I owe particular thanks to Andrew Beer and Will Sanders who have contributed chapters as well as making suggestions more widely about the structure and content of this book. Preface and Acknowledgements Vtl This book was started during five years work in the Urban Research Unit of the Research School of Social Sciences at the Australian National University. The ANU provided me with the opportunity to undertake full-time research within a lively and rewarding intellectual environment. The different priorities of a new position at the then-Canberra College of Advanced Edu cation, directing the Australian Centre for Local Government Studies, forced me to put this book on the back burner, although much of my thinking was incorporated into Towards Fair Shares in Australian Housing, written with HaI Kendig, with the assist ance of Neil Anderton. That book was sponsored by the Australian National Committee of Non-government Organisations as a contribution to debates during the International Year of Shelter for the Homeless, and we had great support from the Chair of that Committee, the then-Right Reverend Peter Holling worth, now Archbishop of Brisbane. I have continued to work on Australian housing, especially in a number of applied research projects undertaken at the University of Canberra, which also supported my Professional Experience Program overseas for six months during 1989. I have had much appreciated visiting positions at the Department of Land Economy, University of Cambridge and the ANU's Centre for Immigration and Multicultural Studies. The Ealing Family Housing Association gave me a base from which to explore the rapidly changing British housing scene, especially regarding housing assoeiations. This book has been finished in the study of my new horne in Derry, overlooking the River Foyle. Much of my applied research has been made possible by grants from Australian federal, state and loeal governments. The Australian Housing Research Council has been supportive of my work, and has generally played a vital role in the development of Australian housing studies The priorities of government funding bodies have often resulted in heavily applied studies, and that work has been available for more reflective interpretation here. This book remains a personal and perhaps somewhat idio syncratic statement about Australian housing provision and public policy. I have tried to paint a large picture, to fill in some details and highlight areas needing further research. I have also tried to develop a logically consistent perspective wh ich retains a commit ment both to social justice and scholarly rigour. Any errors or communication failures remain my responsibility. I am especially grateful to Marian Simms, Rover, Daisy and Davenport. Chris Paris, University of Ulster, December 1992 Introduction Australian housing figures prominently on political agendas and in media commentary. We are concerned, for example, about the problems facing first horne buyers, increased homelessness, es pecially among young people, and also about the ways in which housing provision has contributed to widespread problems con nected with urban sprawl. Such concerns reflect different aspects of housing in con temporary Australia. One objective of this book is to separate out the many dimensions of housing for detailed analysis. Some of our housing problems have been with us for a long time, whereas others are the results of new, and sometimes unexpected, changes within our society. A second objective is to provide an historical perspective on contemporary housing issues, and to examine the dynamics of contemporary change. Australian housing issues and debates have many parallels with overseas experiences and the issues they raise. The third objective of this book, therefore, is to relate Australian experiences to the wider world of housing studies. Writing this book has been a good opportunity to put my research and involvement in housing issues into a more or less coherent framework. I approach Australian housing from the 'social relations of housing' perspective. This approach both seeks to put the analysis of housing into a social, economic and political context, and also views housing provision as a dynamic element of such processes of change, not merely as their outcome. My approach inevitably reflects my own interests and priorities, which derive from a broad background in social science, strongly influenced by an interest in social theory, and a preference for interdisciplinary work. My approach to debates about housing provision has been strongly influenced by developments in social and political theory, and I endorse Giddens' conception of the role of social science in contemporary society: The point of social science, like natural science, is to improve upon the presumptions of commonsense beliefs, correcting them when they happen to be false and remodelling them V111 Introduction IX when they are expressed in an imprecise fashion. (Giddens 1987: 58) I have had a long interest in urban sociology and, more recently, in debates about international comparisons of housing provision and housing policies. I also have a background and interest in urban planning. As a town planner, I am interested in the physical characteristics of housing which both reflect social relations and are also constitutive dimensions of social interaction. My back ground in geography has provided an awareness of the spatial variations which are always an integral part of social phenomena. In common with many social scientists, I accept the need to situate social theory within an historical and comparative framework in order to avoid an excessive concentration on the particular cir cumstances of moment and place. My approach to the analysis of housing takes on board these interests, concerns, prejudices and priorities. My work has been informed by wide reading and personal in volvement as a scholar, applied researcher, adviser to govern ments, housing activist and part-time community worker. It is occasionally difficult to give precise references for such personal experience, due both to the need to protect privileged information, and also to steer clear of the li bei laws! I have also incorporated some of my own earlier published work in this book, although much has been rewritten and updated. There is a large and growing literature on Australian housing, including many books and articles in scholarly, professional and other journals. Much of this literature is discussed in this book, although doubtless, many people will consider that their work has not been fuHy represented and others may believe that they have been unfairly overlooked. This book does not attempt to be a comprehensive review of all of the relevant literature; rather it comprises judgements and arguments which put Australian material into a personal framework which has been informed by historical and international comparative analysis. I do not think that we need much more work on distributional aspects of Australian housing. There is already a comprehensive and plausible literature on who does best out of our current housing arrangements, who does less weH, and why such dis parities pers ist. Australians enjoy one of the highest standards of housing in the modern world and so, in general, it is difficult to approach the study of Australian housing fired up by a strong sense of injustice. A central theme of this book, however, is that many inequities remain within Australian housing, some of which