National Housing Amplification: 100 everyday Aussies to come up with solution to housing crisis

Scrapping stamp duty and replacing it with land tax is one of a raft of proposed solution to our housing crisis, to be debated at a conference this weekend. Tell us what you think.

Everyday Australians struggling to find affordable housing in a nation crippled by high rents and low housing stock will push for bold reforms, with 13 new ­suggestions on how to fix the housing crisis, including scrapping stamp duty and ­dramatically increasing rental assistance.

A new campaign, “National Housing Amplification” by philanthropic ­company Amplify, will this weekend charge more than 100 everyday Australians across the country with coming up with the best solutions to provide more ­affordable housing.

Scrapping stamp duty for land tax, indexing rental assistance to rents instead of ­inflation, and enshrining a ­national housing and ­homelessness plan in law are top of a list of policies to be ­debated at the Amplify conference in Sydney this weekend.

The group intends to put the top three policies agreed to at the conference to federal and state governments this year.

Other policy suggestions include calling on the federal government to phase out negative gearing tax deductions and capital gains tax discounts over 10 years, as well as implementing reforms for “gentle” densification, thereby allowing the building of secondary dwellings such as granny flats or tiny homes to be used for housing.

Ray Newland, 24, will join 99 other everyday Australians in discussing the best ways to tackle Australia’s affordable housing crisis this weekend. Picture: Rohan Kelly

Other policy ideas to boost housing include increasing the number of modular houses that could be provided by streamlining state and territory construction codes and speeding up approval processes. Modular housing is constructed offsite and then moved on to location via truck.

Amplify chief executive Georgina Harrisson said the housing crisis was affecting every level of society, with ordinary Australians wanting to have their say about how it could be fixed rather than leaving it up to politicians.

“There’s going to be no getting away from housing as we come up to the federal election,” she said.

“Ordinary people want to see something done about this.

“They’ve assessed the problem and looked at the evidence and want to see it fixed.”

Normanhurst resident Ray Newland, 24, will be one of the 100 everyday Australians debating the reforms this weekend. As a university student working three days a week, he said housing security was the biggest issue for his generation.

Mr Newland said he had been renting since he was 19, saying that most students living away from home had to work the majority of the week to keep a roof over their heads.

“A lot of young people think higher density is a really good thing,” he said.

“We just want a home and I don’t think that having a backyard is as important as it was for previous generations.”

Higher density housing has taken over the inner-city suburb of Mascot.

Grattan Institute Housing and Economic Scurity program director Brendan Coates, who helped formulate multiple policies up for debate at the Amplify conference, said replacing stamp duty with a land value tax would lead to a more effective use of housing stock.

“Stamp duty is the single biggest blocker for home ownership,” he said. “More than one in 10 homes in Australia have more than three spare bedrooms … People are being stopped from downsizing and are choosing a bigger home than they need so they don’t have to pay the extra stamp duty costs.

“Replacing stamp duty with a land tax is how governments can make rent cheaper without building a single new home.”

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Originally published as National Housing Amplification: 100 everyday Aussies to come up with solution to housing crisis