Housing Australia

280 Pages·1993·26.344 MB·English

by  Chris Paris (auth.)

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