The citizens' assembly on housing

And why people are missing the point

The announcement by Federal independents that they are convening a citizens’ assembly to discuss the housing crisis has been met with—predictable—derision, especially from my side of politics.

My Twitter feed filled up with scoffing and anger when the plan was announced, insisting that the answer to the problem was already well known—build more houses, take away tax benefits from the sort of people who pursue housing as an investment—and that therefore a citizens’ assembly would be nothing more than a “talkfest”.

What particularly exercised people was that the idea was coming from the community independents who represent the very people who are causing the problems—wealthy people who use housing as an investment vehicle and who benefit from the various incentives, such as negative gearing, which are causing the problems in the first place. The logic goes, how do we expect independents who represent the people creating the problem to fix it?

Look, I get it. And there is some validity in a…