There's so much carnage in this week's Commonwealth Budget that small things are apt to slip by. So I'm going to tell you about something from my professional life that has just become a casualty of Abbott and Hockey's slash and burn exercise. It's a scheme called the National Rental Affordability Scheme. Back in 2004 National Shelter, the Community Housing Federation of Australia, the Australian Council of Social Services, the Australian Council of Trade Unions and the Housing Industry Association, supported by a wide range of other organisations with an interest in housing, convened a National Affordable Housing Summit. It came up with a simple but ambitious plan of action aimed at improving Australia's housing system, and set up a working party under the leadership of Julian Disney to promote this plan around the country. They were very successful, and large parts of their agenda were adopted by the Labor government on its election in 2007. One of
'Contemplating the teeming life of the shore, we have an uneasy sense of the communication of some universal truth that lies just beyond our grasp.' - Rachel Carson