Any citizen of a modern democracy who has weathered a change in government will be familiar with the sudden evaporation of campaign promises made by the victors.
The incoming government is “shocked, horrified” at the wilful duplicity, incompetence swept under the rug, as well as mismanagement at every level by the outgoing government. The cupboard has been found bare. The wind-filled, ballooning sails of change soon to come must be reefed down to pocket handkerchiefs of expediency.
This kind of behaviour has recently produced an outburst from a respected front-line housing worker in New Zealand. Bernie Smith, in the 2018 Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture, calls to task not just the current incoming government, but a succession of them that have avoided taking meaningful action on the growing affordable housing crisis.
Read an edited version of the Lecture in The Spinoff: Enough Reaching For Rabbits Out Of Hats. Time For A 25-Year Housing Strategy
Why is this lecture of interest in other countries? The answer should be pretty obvious in most countries where government policy designed to tackle housing affordability problems has been developed piecemeal, by bureaucracies scrambling to catch up, and freighted with partisan political perspectives with little regard to the growing severity of the problem.
In the full text of the lecture, Bernie shared remarkable stories of building community through affordable housing programs in Australia, here at The Bruce Jesson Foundation: ‘Housing Crisis – A Smoking Gun With No Silver Bullet’ – Bernie Smith’s 2018 Bruce Jesson Memorial Lecture
