Labor played the Medicare card in its victory. Now it wants to own housing
NSW Labor heavyweights have established a new campaigning arm of the party to elevate housing to an ALP 'cause not just policy' akin to its long-held support for workers' rights and Medicare.
On the back of the party's federal success in using Medicare as the centrepiece of its election campaign, Labor for Housing has been established to campaign for YIMBYism and ensure the party becomes defined by its commitment to solving the housing crisis, according to one of its founders.
Senior member of Labor left and Inner West Mayor Darcy Byrne said housing had to be a 'moral and political cause' for the party if it is to have any chance of solving the crisis gripping the nation.
'We have the union movement to campaign on Labor's agenda for workers' rights. We also need a grassroots movement to build popular support for Labor's solutions to the housing crisis,' he said.
'Just as Medicare is both a government policy and a Labor cause, our policies to fix the housing crisis must be supported by a concerted, grassroots, political campaign. If we want Labor's housing policies to succeed, then we need to go out into the community and advocate for them.'
Senior Labor sources, not authorised to comment on the federal campaign, were concerned the Greens managed to define themselves as the party of housing, even if the party's policies were going to do little to increase the lack of supply.
The federal government has an ambitious goal to build 1.2 million homes over the next five years to meet the chronic shortfall in supply, however, it is lagging well behind that target. NSW must build 75,000 a year over the same period to meet its target under the National Housing Accord but Premier Chris Minns has conceded his government will not achieve that.
David Borger, chair of Housing Now, an alliance of 'unlikely bedfellows' advocating for more housing, said political parties have for too long courted the anti-development vote.
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