Matt Johnston: Why Libs have a million reasons to doubt policy
MATTHEW Guy’s housing promise is selling the idea of more people being added to neighbourhoods before there is evidence of more roads, schools and health and community centres for those neighbourhoods, which is kind of tough, writes Matt Johnston.
Opinion
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WHEN Matthew Guy announced the Coalition would release land on Melbourne’s fringes for at least 290,000 homes if it wins the November state election, he added this little fact bomb.
That amount of land should be able to house about a million people.
The purpose of the policy, he explained, was to help struggling homebuyers get a leg up.
If there is more land in the supply bank, which developers are currently drip feeding to the market, then there should be more competition and lower prices.
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But the danger for Guy is that some people at which this policy is aimed will stop listening after hearing that a million people could be joining them in the outer suburbs.
As Guy quickly moved on to say, this plan is just part of his overall housing package soon to be released, which includes decentralisation and so on.
But leading with this aspect of the overall policy seems a risk.
Labor promised to release 100,000 residential lots last year, in order to ramp up the number of houses in outer growth areas, but it went relatively quiet on that front after the announcement.
Apparently, selling the idea of more people being added to neighbourhoods before there is evidence of more roads, schools and health and community centres for those neighbourhoods is kind of tough.
Most things Guy and his Coalition team are publicly championing at the moment are designed to fit “three Cs” — congestion, crime, and cost of living. The release of land is supposed to fit with the third.
The Urban Development Institute of Australia tried to back it in on Wednesday, but the quote most media grabbed was that it was “music to the development industry’s ears”.
Critics have got stuck into the urban sprawl argument, pointing to middle-suburb density as a solution to affordability woes — a prospect the Liberals ruled out a few weeks ago when it said it would limit density in many established areas.
The Property Council had a bob each way, saying extra supply was great but more was needed.
“We remain extremely concerned with the Opposition’s recent announcement to effectively shut down housing supply in the middle ring of Melbourne,” it said.
When Guy was the planning minister last term, he was known for trying to fast-track processes and get things built. He was one of the few in the coalition team that showed energy. Some criticised him, others applauded the fact things were happening.
The Coalition now needs to show it’s not just “more of the same” from Guy when it comes to the challenges of population.
The Liberals believe decentralisation is a popular idea — that people like the concept of encouraging some people to leave Melbourne and take up a home in the regions.
But for the people who know what decentralisation means, they are yet to understand how it would work other than maybe send a couple of government departments or agencies to the regions.
Most press releases issued by the coalition promise to “focus on decentralising population to our regions” without much in the way of specifics.
There are many aspects to the housing affordability crisis, and whether our political parties want to acknowledge this or not, a lot of it is sheeted home to the fact we are growing so fast.
More people equates to more competition for houses.
More competition means higher prices.
Then there’s competition for jobs, space on the roads and so on.
While simply jamming the brakes on growth would be folly, it is clear many have this issue front and centre in their minds.
Labor’s core argument is that it is building the infrastructure needed to ease the pressure.
That’s something the Coalition will find it difficult to match, although it is trying.
A few Liberals noticed the letters pages of the Herald Sun on Thursday, after its plan for 290,000 residential housing lots was released.
There’s wasn’t a lot of love from readers. That’s putting it mildly.
But there was also a cavalcade of ideas on how to instead deal with population and cost of living.
There were calls for fast rail to country areas, which would allow people to live in the regions and work where most jobs are.
There were several calls for an immigration slowdown, for changing tax incentives, for sending good jobs to the bush, and fixing infrastructure woes in groaning outer suburbs.
In that one page there’s almost enough to help a political party build an entire election platform.
It also shows the Coalition flipped to the wrong page of its policy book when it talked about housing an extra million people in Melbourne this week.
Matt Johnston is state politics editor
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