Housing for homes, not profit

November 1, 2025

Three thousand cheers for Stewart Sweeney. He says far more elegantly and knowledgeably what I’ve been saying for years: housing planning is non-existent. What we have is so-called “developers” spotting what they deem to be profitable sites — it doesn’t matter what’s there already — and they go for it.

In Victoria, councils used to object but were overridden by VCAT and now even the right to protest has been abolished. Public housing is demolished and sites privatised (i.e. sold for a song) with the stipulation that a meagre 5% or 10 % of new apartments be “affordable”. With so many of these projects being built in already expensive suburbs, the price reduction applying to “affordable” housing is laughable.

We must bring back government housing, remove the lust for profit and cap rents. We should take former treasurer Frydenberg at his word when he said, “Everything is affordable if it’s a priority.” (Radioactive: Inside the top-secret AUKUS subs deal, SMH 14/05/2022)

Housing is a priority, uber wealth isn’t. Construction workers won’t lose jobs. Add removal of negative gearing and scrap Howard’s CGT and we could securely house all Australians resulting in happier, healthier and more productive citizens. Wins all round!