Don Dunstan believed public housing could play a much wider role than providing accommodation, as important as that is. He was among the first Australian political leaders to recognise how government investments in housing could contribute to urban renewal, replacing sub-standard buildings with modern designs. He also wanted to see diversity in choice: townhouses, terraces, flats and apartments with shared gardens.
Don managed to get some of the way towards his vision, establishing South Australia as the Australian leader in urban development policy, at least for a time.
Today, the need for political leaders to push for creative thinking on housing is urgent and essential. The challenges we face today include a well-documented affordability crisis, but also growing health risks from poorly built housing stock and outdated urban development ideas. The recently released National Climate Risk Assessment documents what we can expect from climate change, including a huge increase in heatwaves and heat-related deaths. To avoid this impact, we need better housing standards and suburbs designed with cooling measures built in.
A related issue is the growing incapacity of many people to afford to turn on their heating and cooling. The broken energy market must be fixed, or the cost for many people will be huge. The assessment judges that with a 3°C increase in average temperature, the number of deaths from extreme heat will increase five-fold.
I was reminded of this challenge at a recent SACOSS event looking at how to inject fairness into our electricity market. There are too many challenges to mention – including the “loyalty tax”, whereby customers who don’t change energy retailer end up paying more than those with the time and energy to continually shop around.
Most concerning, though, was a presentation by the First Nations Clean Energy Network, demonstrating how remote Aboriginal communities are among the world’s most energy insecure people. Prepayment of power bills is either the default or the mandated electricity supply arrangement in many remote parts of Australia, including South Australia’s APY lands. As Cat Beaton and Glen Wingfield from the Network pointed out, prepayment essentially privatises the risk of disconnection for these vulnerable communities. They undertook a research project showing that in the last 12 months of data received, there were more than 400,000 disconnection events impacting just over 9000 households. These disconnections were commonly connected to temperatures over 40°C. The First Nations Clean Energy Network has come up with a number of practical solutions, including implementing measures to assist vulnerable people during extreme temperatures.
There are many layers of complexity in how electricity is delivered and marketed in Australia, but the simple fact is that any sort of energy insecurity is becoming increasingly dangerous, particularly for someone living in a home ill-suited to sustained heatwaves.
South Australians know more than others that the impacts of climate change are with us now – witness the devastating algal bloom. There’s never been a more important time for creative, forward-thinking, evidence-based policy thinking.
