Actually your story mirrors minus the rats my wife’s childhood...

Actually your story mirrors minus the rats my wife’s childhood housing experiences.

What was left out of Wikipedia was the experience of those like my wife and her parents post WW2.

Before WW2 was the Great Depression so no housing stock surplus going into the War. During the War basically no housing built because the workforce was deployed to the War effort.

When my wife’s father returned from the War there was no housing stock and they like many had to make do with the goodwill of family for some time eventually getting a tiny flat above a shop. They eventually bought land and he built their first house on weekends. What most younger Australians would have no idea about was that there was rationing of building materials for a number of years after the War and if I remember correctly he was allowed a maximum of 6,000 bricks. Window glass was rationed as well and that is why most houses of the period are considered dark by todays standards.

I think when you look to causation that the trajectory was already running in the direction pursued by neoliberals. Remember PM Abott is a staunch Catholic and the Labour movement had strong Catholic roots. Personal responsibility, work ethic and suffering in this life to receive your reward in the next creates some cross over.

We had the Union movement under Jack Mundy running Green Bans and injecting workers into areas arguably beyond their actual reason for existence.

There is so much complexity in the failure where public housing is concerned that I personally find it impossible to nail home responsibility.

If you go back to the introduction of rent control that created a whole pool of potential property investors who swore off ever owning investment/rental property.

For many years we have had overseas buyers buying units and leaving them vacant though we have now belatedly tried to make this less attractive.

Labour Governments have happily presided over reducing Workers Compensation benefits cheered on by Liberals.

At one stage in NSW it made more sense for a billionaire to run someone down in their registered vehicle than shoot them because the Labour introduced reforms that restricted the deceased’s relatives to Motor Accident Insurance rights meant they could not be personally pursued for damage or loss.

The lines are so blurred between the once deeply principled parties on this issue they both carry blame over 100 years in the making.

FF.