I’m a 33 yr old woman, who lives on her own. I’m on a decent salary and I can barely afford to rent in Sydney let alone save for a house.
And whilst the Greens new Federal Member Max Chandler-Mather has recently become the champion for renters, and would seemingly be my natural ally, I know that very few, if any, of the Greens demands can be met because of our political system.
Not because any of these solutions are necessarily ‘wrong’ – they’re risky. Far too risky for a government to enact for fear it will alienate not just a large pool of voters but also the donors that fund election campaigns. It’s this political dilemma: take ambitious action but risk losing the next election, which prevents politicians solving our hard problems time and again.
Which is why the crossbencher’s call for a Citizens’ Assembly on the issue is a ground-breaking way to cut through the warring of politics and instead focus on solving the problem.
If you haven’t yet heard of Citizens’ Assemblies (or have a slightly vague idea of what they are), you’re not alone. But we should be learning about them, participating in them and advocating for them. They’re the perfect process for complex decision making where there’s multiple stakeholders involved where compromise and long-term thinking are required; exactly what isn’t available with policy, which has to be almost purely based on how well they’ll poll.
Citizens’ Assemblies take a representative mix of the population, selected by lot, and give them time and access to a range of experts to come up with common-ground solutions, you don’t see the standard oppositional behaviour that we’re so used to in politics.
It’s all well and good for anyone in opposition to say that the government isn’t doing enough but the problem is that politics is – and has to be – about winning and maintaining power. This is a key motivation in all political decisions, and it puts the government’s ability to make tough, complex decisions for our long-term benefit at odds with safely navigating an upcoming election.
The latest proffered solution to the housing crisis coming from the CFMEU for a “super profits tax” of 40% on companies with a turnover of over $100 million, will also likely sit in a pile next to other attempts for change including the ask from the Greens for a national rent freeze.
Bill Shorten’s 2019 election loss (on the back of campaigning for ending negative gearing and reducing the capital gains tax discount) is a perfect example of what can happen when proposing ambitious policies ; you lose. Labor’s ‘Housing Australia Future Fund’, which goes so far below addressing the enormous shortfall of housing in Australia, reflects these learnings with its muted ambition.
The housing crisis isn’t of course the only issue that has people like me and other voters concerned. Other seemingly intractable issues like climate change, health care and task reform too often continue to languish in the “too hard” basket, highlighting that the political system isn’t capable of addressing long-term challenges facing Australians.
The key difference with politics and citizens’ assemblies, is that every day people in a citizens’ assembly aren’t there to win a campaign or votes. They’re there to solve a problem and come up with solutions that everyone can get behind.
Many countries have used citizens’ assemblies to tackle big problems, especially ones that politicians can’t agree on or political systems are too inert to try. The most notable have been in Ireland, on abortion law reform, same-sex marriage and drug law reform.
It’s about time we see these adopted more in Australia and the housing crisis is the perfect topic for us to tackle on a national level. We need people from all sides of this issue to be part of creating the solutions otherwise none of us will support it – risky or not.