Putting our house to rights on the right to housing

Monday, 2 August 2021

Chief Human Rights Commissioner Paul Hunt.

EDITORIAL: Who would argue against adequate housing being a human right?

We almost hesitate to add that it is treated as such by the United Nations, given that there will be some who immediately glaze over at the mention of that organisation.

Yet if shelter is not a human right, what is?

New Zealand’s Human Rights Commissioner, Paul Hunt, intends to hold the Government to what he’s calling “constructive accountability’’ for failures to meet our nation’s responsibilities under the International Bill of Rights. Or, as he puts it, international law.

* Housing in New Zealand 'a human rights crisis', UN report says

* Rights to housing – the positive and negative

To this end, the commission is launching new framework guidelines, setting up a national inquiry into housing independent of the Government.

Granted, different countries might have their own interpretations about what standards might constitute decent housing. But let’s face it, New Zealanders have a pretty good idea about what doesn’t meet that standard.

Such as houses that just aren’t healthy, given our climate. Houses that take so much of the household income that other necessities go unmet. Houses that even by those standards remain outside the financial reach of renters or buyers. Houses that simply aren’t there.

We’re awash with evidence of all that.

To some extent the debate over our housing crisis, and who bears primary responsibility for it, has already been exhausting.

Critics can continue to point to areas of wretched under-delivery like Kiwibuild. The thousands of people living for prolonged periods in motels as emergency accommodation. The notorious hindrances for land use development.

The Government can point to the implementation of healthy homes standards for tenants, and at least try to enthuse people about the very fact that it’s making telescopic plans. Since June we’ve been invited to be making consultations on a policy statement about long-term measures.

Meanwhile, problems continue to mount alarmingly around us. Real estate prices have risen by about 30 per cent in the past 12 months, housing prices have soared, rents risen cruelly, and we are extravagantly stocked with examples of economic damage entwined with a horribly unmet level of human need.

It’s deprivation by any standard. And that’s the sorry situation in the here and now, never mind the future when our population is predicted to grow by more than one fifth by 2050.

It’s being widely acknowledged that, as a recent article in The Guardian puts it, “the ability to pull all the necessary levers in unison is a very difficult task’’ due to complicated and restrictive land and housing regulations, the shortfall in construction workers, and maddening problems of materials supply.

Given all this, the prospect of Hunt’s envisaged capacity for “constructive accountability’’ is less appealing than the actual construction work that almost all our society wants to see happening apace.

And yet, the commission’s initiative should be welcomed. It is more than adding harmonies to the already considerable choruses of lament. It’s a way to provide a necessary lens through which to assess our situation and progress.

Who knows, it might even help us wean ourselves off our longstanding collective willingness to treat housing as a speculative asset?