Wendy Lovell has insulted social housing residents and their kids

Wendy Lovell’s postcode snobbery is a demeaning view of class for social housing residents, their children and the people of Brighton.

Imagine thinking that people with money and people without money can’t socialise together.

That’s essentially what Wendy Lovell said when she made her now well-publicised comments about “very low-income” people in social housing living on “the best street in Brighton”.

Beyond the stupidity of suggesting that would even happen in the first place – I’m pretty sure the state government can get better bang for its buck than putting public housing in one of the most expensive suburbs in Melbourne – it portrays an insulting view of class.

Class warfare has, unfortunately, long been the preserve of some in the ALP who seek to whip up undue hatred of the wealthy and generally blame the ills of the world on them for daring to be high earners.

But for a Liberal to suggest that poor and wealthy people living on the same street is not possible is disappointing.

A Liberal, of all people, should understand the idea of self determination and opportunity that our country is built on.

Liberal MP Wendy Lovell, pictured with Michael O’Brien, said social housing children shouldn’t be placed in affluent areas. Picture: Michael DiFabrizio

The idea that anyone, no matter their background or history, can make something of themselves if they wish.

That means allowing people to move beyond class, not enforcing it.

It is a value the Liberal Party has long believed in – think of Howard’s battlers – and it is one that is more important than ever to the party’s survival as its base moves away from the wealthy inner city and out to the suburbs where real people live.

If Ms Lovell’s concern is that the children of Brighton would be too stuck-up to interact with kids who live in a housing commission, it is the children of Brighton with whom her concern should sit.

Any rich parent whose child refuses to interact with a kid who doesn’t have the newest toy or iPhone should give said child a swift boot up the jacksie.

When we put our heads down on our pillows at night and turn out the lights, we are all the same.

Lovell unfairly portrayed Brighton kids as snobs. Picture: Tony Gough

Children ought to understand that from the earliest age possible.

I went to a public school in the northeastern suburbs of Adelaide where I had classmates whose parents drove expensive cars and others who had to wear the same shirt all week.

We all managed to drop those things at the door and get along as classmates.

Expecting children to interact with people different from them is not a big ask.

Interacting with people from all walks of life – and varying levels of wealth – is integral to creating well-adjusted people.

It provides empathy and understanding to those more fortunate but it also serves to provide opportunity and inspiration to those less fortunate.

Consigning the welfare-dependent to “where they belong”, as some might put it, only stands to entrench their poverty – make them feel like it’s simply their lot in life.

Last year I filmed a documentary with SBS on poverty and welfare.

I spent time in the housing commission towers of Surry Hills and Redfern in Sydney.

I can tell you, they weren’t terribly inviting places.

If that is where you live, and now you are told by an MP that your children probably wouldn’t interact well with richer children, what encouragement is there to get yourself out of that situation?

There is no shame in living in social housing. A great many people do, are grateful for it, and take excellent care of their properties.

An unfortunate few do not take that care and ruin it for everyone else around them.

They don’t need to be made to feel any more like lepers.

Most are battlers trying to make their way, wanting to get their foot on the ladder out of there.

Demeaning them and their children will only ensure that never happens.

Originally published as Wendy Lovell has insulted social housing residents and their kids