Housing policy: backing a lost cause!

Jock — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 13:00:14 +0000

So, I made my first federal conference speech this morning. And what a one to choose! Called immediately after former housing spokesperson Andrew Stunell's opening speech I was asking conference to reject his paper with a wide range of what are probably pretty popular measures in it because it lacked one measure - LVT. And boy did the assembled throng let me know how wrong they thought I was - I reckon I counted half a dozen votes at most to reject the motion . Maybe that's some kind of a record or something for a maiden speech?

But it had to be said. There is no getting round the truth - you cannot create affordable housing through the sort of policies that are regularly bandied about, including in this motion, without subsidizing landowners. Your taxes and mine are being committed to buying back the land for the needs of the community. How arse about face is that? As the quote from proto-liberal John Locke said in the quote at the top of my blog:

'It is very clear that God, as King David says, "has given the earth to
the children of men"; given it to mankind in common'. (John Locke, Essay
on Civil Government, 1690)

Why do we not instinctively know this nowadays? And why is it so difficult to explain to fellow liberals who, as Andrew said at the beginning of his speech, should be really angry about the effects of homelessness and overcrowding on the rising generation and prepared to countenance bold, perhaps even unpopular, poicies to address this fundamental inequity.

Interestingly, I was told yesterday that there is a move by the International Georgist Union to lobby to have "access to land" added as a funamental human right. And there can be no greater right in my opinion - we are all born here. There is no other planet we can go to just because someone already 'owns' every part of our existing planet. Of course it is a fundamental human right to have equitable access to what nature has made available to all of us - it is the basis, frankly, even of the "right to life".

Some day, maybe, even the Lib Dems will understand the importance of it. Most everyone I speak to, just as Lembit did at the summation to the debate and Vince did last night in the ALTER fringe, acknowledges that we are onside in principle with land reform, but we must adopt practical policies to implement it if it is to be any more than howling in the wind.

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Housing policy: backing a lost cause!