The total value of residential real estate in Australia currently stands just shy of $10 trillion. People’s class position and life chances are now significantly shaped by their share—and often their parents’ share—of this extraordinary wealth.

Laws and governance at all levels of government—local, state, federal—regardless of party, currently support and, indeed, incentivise the maintenance of property as an asset class over any notion of home or dwelling—a guaranteeing of landlord rights that liquidates all other claims.

On 13 August 2021, the Geographical Names Board officially approved Bayside Council’s request to rename Eastlakes Reserve as Jack Mundey Reserve. Mundey was neither a local resident, councillor nor mayor. Yet sixty years ago, he led a movement that saved these four acres of land as a park for the local people.

An interview with Eirene Tsolidis-Noyce and Zachary Doney, foundational members of the Renters and Housing Union.

It was an unedifying spectacle: the Urban Development Institute of Australia, Housing Industry Association and Property Council banding together to scream blue murder over the Victorian government’s proposal this year to introduce a social housing levy.

Private investment funds now have optimal conditions for entry into the new social housing market, with minimal capital expenditure, guaranteed market rent, a not-for-profit managing the tenancies and full control of the assets after 10 years. Governments have created a social housing market that delivers dividends to private capital, dressed up as a solution to the deepening housing crisis.

Indulging in cinematic spaces like these – loft apartments occupied by single artist types – is a salve amidst the current housing crisis in Australia. These viewing habits, the enthusiastic study of filmic trips, have become my guilty pleasure as I grit my teeth through another brutal winter.

Australian households are directly responsible for 20 per cent of Australia’s carbon emissions. Yet the persistent focus on individual responsibility to reduce our carbon footprint ignores the fact that most Australians have little to no control over the biggest contributor to household emissions – the energy efficiency of their homes.

Government subsidies for Airbnb owners impacted by COVID-19 expose how speculative property investment is now expected to return a guaranteed economic reward.

Despite decades of advocacy, renters’ struggles remain socially marginal, with little scope for renters to self-represent, demonstrate collective power, and exert political force. As the pandemic exacerbates the quotidian struggles of renters and people in precarious housing, it is increasingly clear that a militant collective response is required.

I remember the last pandemic to really hit Borroloola. The Hong Kong flu came in the 1960s and changed the way we lived forever. My mum sat us down and said, ‘this flu will come and kill our people.’

We can continue to deny a fundamental right in the name of investment opportunities, or we can imagine a future where everyone has a roof over their head. Now is the time to push for change and include in our demands a national housing guarantee. If the last few weeks have proved anything, it is that change is only ever a pen stroke away.

The more compassionate economic responses to this crisis have shown that the workings of our society could be changed at any time. Keeping up the political pressure to make currently-equitable changes permanent will require a lot of work, but the benefits will be beyond most people’s wildest dreams.

Grenfell Tower shows that to understand class and power, we have to understand housing, because the question of how and where people live is right at the heart of modern capitalism.

Negative gearing and the economics of housing – a cartoon by Fury.

Since 1996, reports from the United Nation’s Special Rapporteur have stated that there is a major hidden housing crisis in Australia and their subsequent annual reports have reiterated this. The 2006 Report stated that the Special Rapporteur was ‘particularly troubled by the inadequate housing and living conditions’ and that, ‘unfortunately, this situation is not acknowledged by the authorities’. The crisis remains unacknowledged by authorities ten years later.