PUSHBACK Talks

Australia's Housing Disaster with Justice Kevin Bell

• WG Film • Season 8 • Episode 10

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In our first episode of the new year, Leilani and Kirsten sit down with former Victoria Supreme Court Justice Kevin Bell to examine Australia's housing challenges and their global implications. Drawing on his 15 years on Victoria's highest court and his book "Housing: The Great Australian Right," Bell explores the realities of intergenerational housing access and its broader impacts on society. From young families navigating the market to older women facing housing insecurity, he illustrates how housing systems reflect our collective values—and how they can be reshaped. As both a former judge and lifelong advocate, Bell presents a practical case for change through human rights legislation. His conversation with Leilani and Kirsten weaves together climate considerations, gender equity, and housing affordability, offering a look back at the history of housing in Australia, and a clear vision for building housing systems that work for everyone.

You can find Kevin's book, The Great Australian Right, here.

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Kirsten McRae:

The story of housing in many Western countries reads like a tale of two eras. In the aftermath of World War Two, nations like Australia, Britain, Canada and the United States embraced an ambitious vision of affordable housing. Governments launched building programs, offered favorable mortgages and created public housing, ensuring returning veterans and their growing families could access affordable homes. Young people in their early 20s could reasonably expect to buy a house and start a family. But starting in the 1970s a profound shift occurred. Little by little, these nations began dismantling the very policies that had created widespread housing security, public housing was sold off. Financial regulations were loosened, and housing increasingly became a vehicle for wealth creation. Today, we're living with the consequences a global housing crisis that today's guest says represents one of the greatest generational betrayals in modern history. Former Supreme Court of Victoria judge Kevin Bell explores this transformation in his new book housing, the great Australian right through historical analysis, Bell traces how Australia went from a nation that prioritized housing access to one where young people face unprecedented barriers to home ownership. He examines the deep intergenerational inequity at play connecting housing security to broader challenges like climate change and declining birth rates. Bell is a fierce advocate for the power of human rights. Join us as we explore Bell's compelling case for a human rights based approach to housing, one that demands new legislation to hold governments accountable and create the transformational change we desperately need. This is pushback talks.

Fredrik Gertten:

I'm Fredrik Gertten, and I'm the filmmaker,

Leilani Farha:

and I'm Leilani Farha and I'm the advocate,

Fredrik Gertten:

and this is pushback talks. And you see, I've got, it's not because of whiskey this voice, it's like, actually, it's some kind of winter cold. Too bad. Here we are. Here we are connecting Canada with Sweden and, of course, the rest of the world, because we have listeners what we know in 162 countries around the world, which is pretty cool. And Leilani, there's been a kind of we met a lot of amazing people last year. You remember what we did this podcast last year? Also,

Leilani Farha:

I do it was a great year. We had with amazing guests. Do you have a favorite? Do you have a favorite? A favorite episode? I

Fredrik Gertten:

think the talk with the Paris deputy mayor kissed naidosky was really, really cool, because what is happening in Paris is, like a little bit it's told, but now we got the engineer behind it in some way, and politics is very much engineering, so it's cool. I also like the Singapore episode with it.

Leilani Farha:

Me too. Me too. And I think I've seen a little traffic on social media around that episode. I think people are really interested, because everyone talks about Vienna and Finland as the kind of, you know, bright lights on the housing landscape. But Singapore super interesting, and I think people are interested to learn about it.

Fredrik Gertten:

And then we started off the year with with a chat with a writer, Vincent Bevins, who is like, really talking about pushing back because he wrote a book about the popular uprisings in the in the last 10 years, and his lessons from That, I think that's really is also worth listening to. Yes.

Leilani Farha:

And you know, I was thinking we should consider inviting Vincent back to get his take on the status of protests around the world right now. I mean, people have been protesting for more than 14 months now against what's happening in Gaza, for example, I would love to know what he where does he think this has had an impact? What kind of impact? Where is it going? Maybe a future episode. Yeah,

Fredrik Gertten:

one line I remember from that chat with Vincent was that the Arab Spring wasn't the last case. He said, Yeah, yeah. And now we can see the results of Syria going down, because it is also an effect of the Arab Spring, even if it took 13 years. Yeah, and, and, and we don't know what's yet to come. You know, what will happen in Egypt now, or what will happen in Iran or in Iraq? You know? So it's like, or in, let's say also Lebanon, after all this, and maybe also within the very complicated state of Israel. What will happen when Netanyahu lost all his enemies and he starts, you know, because he lives from his enemies, you know, and suddenly he will have to face the Israeli court system? Yeah, hopefully, hopefully the Hague, The Hague, yes, exactly. So it's, it's, I think it's interesting. And we had a lot of other interesting episodes too. We

Leilani Farha:

did the digital nomad episode was really interesting as well. And I'm, I'm, I'm also wondering, you know, how's that going? Are people still digital nomads? Are they still going elsewhere to do their work, and it is ruining other people's lives?

Fredrik Gertten:

Well, you know, we didn't share the total same attitude. People have the right to move around, but they don't have the right to push out tenants from their homes, and that's the that's up to the states and the cities to protect their cities. Yes,

Leilani Farha:

I know, and I think we have a an agreement there. Okay, so we we agree, and we agree. And then we did do in the past year, a set of podcasts on the shift directives, a piece of work that I poured myself into for quite some time, which was really the idea, was to get governments and private actors, landlords, private equity firms, to behave differently and to think about housing in a different way. And so we did, I think, four episodes on the shift directive so that we're hoping will be useful, particularly to professors at universities and to students,

Fredrik Gertten:

yeah, and I guess also for activists and politicians, you know? So I mean, because, I mean my city here, Malmo, Sweden, they, you met the mayor, and I mean, they, they want to have the the UN goals as a part of the city politics, you know?

Leilani Farha:

So, so what does it mean? Directives help Exactly, yeah,

Fredrik Gertten:

so I think that's, that's something we should look into during this year. Also, how can cities use your directives? Are they useful? Yeah, for cities, let's connect some mayors and and some also, also companies. Do you know a company that that would need to understand better their their obligations?

Leilani Farha:

Oh, I know a few. You know a few, okay, I know a few. Let's let, let's leave them nameless. On this introduction, we

Fredrik Gertten:

will not invite Elon Musk because we don't like him, and we only want to have people who we like here in the in the podcast. This is a friendly It's a friendly space. That's a friendly podcast. We don't do assholes. It's, it's asshole free, or isn't it? Do we have any assholes here?

Leilani Farha:

Of course, not. No guests are amazing. Yeah,

Fredrik Gertten:

that's what I'm that's what I'm trying to say. Yeah. So, my dear, you are in Canada. I'm in Sweden, and that's like, we have this six hour time difference, which most of the time, works quite well. But then when we have guests who are like, further away, for example, in Australia or New Zealand, it gets really complicated to find a recording time that is not 4am for some of

Leilani Farha:

us, impossible. It is the only time zone that's totally impossible.

Fredrik Gertten:

How can people live out there? That's the question. I lived out there. You did, yeah, but then you went back quickly. Yeah, you're up in the in the ice belt. Yeah, ice storms. So to solve that problem, you and Kirsten interviewed Kevin Bell, who is a supreme court member in the state of Victoria in Australia,

Leilani Farha:

former, former Supreme Court. Oh, for me,

Fredrik Gertten:

Supreme Court judges forever.

Leilani Farha:

Yeah, it's true. Once a judge, always a judge. Yeah, I would say

Fredrik Gertten:

so. But okay, it might be different in Australia, but you know, I'm I'm Swedish and far away from everything. But anyway, so what did you talk about? It was

Leilani Farha:

a great interview with Kevin Bell, who's written a very succinct, tidy book called housing, the great Australian, right? And what he does is he talks about the housing crisis in Australia, which is going strong, the crisis that is. He talks about a lot of problems in the housing sector, from young people not having places they can buy because they can't afford anything. They can barely afford the rent. He talks about people being. Evicted, gentrification, financialization, these sorts of things. And where he lands, which is music to my ears, of course, is to say that we have to pivot away from housing as a commodity and toward housing as a human right. And he really, for me, it was amazing because he gave me a little more confidence and faith in human rights at a time when I am not so confident about human rights because of the state of the world. And so he's inspirational.

Fredrik Gertten:

He gave you hope. He gave me hope. That's what we do in push back talks inspiration and hope. And one more thing, I read a story about the demographic crisis in the world. I don't know if it's a crisis, but obviously the birth rates are going down drastically. South Korea is the worst they have, like 0.7 birth per woman, which is like, meaning that the population is shrinking. But that goes for most Western countries, also very low birth rate, and one of the biggest explanations are, what we're going to talk about in this podcast is young people cannot afford a home anymore. So this is what is going to happen now, and what we're going to talk about with Kevin bell in Australia.

Kirsten McRae:

So, yeah, we'll hop right in. So you call housing in Australia a disaster. And so I was curious about what is the experience of a young person looking to purchase a home in Australia these days?

Kevin Bell:

Oh, not good. Young people are in that group where access to home ownership is falling fastest. So by contrast with the immediate post war period in which my parents were able to access housing in their late 20s, they married young and started a family Young. Sorry, not late 20s, late teens, about age 20, my parents were able to access housing, public housing, of course, now it's almost unheard of for young people of that age to to do that. My wife and I have young adult children. Well, not that young in their 30s. They have just been able, in our with our help, to buy smallish accommodation for those who are on ordinary wages, even earning two wages in a family, let's say a trades person earning about, I don't know,$80,000 Australian by two equals 180,000 by two less tax, very little chance of buying a Home. Some chance may be of buying an apartment, certainly not a big one, but a free standing home. Very, very unlikely. So we are looking at a problem that has profound intergenerational equity aspects. And the connection with climate change here is really quite close. Something has happened from which our generation has benefited profoundly, that something is affecting in a negative, profound way, the next generation, if not the next two, absolutely.

Kirsten McRae:

And that's something that I definitely have seen reflected in my own experience in Canada, is that even if you are, you know, making what was formerly a well above living wage. The options available are absolutely minuscule, and that's something. Please go ahead.

Kevin Bell:

No, I'm really just expressing sympathy with the predicament, because I feel a sense of, you know, not responsibility for what's occurred, but a sense of responsibility to try and do something about this predicament. You know, it's easy to talk about there is, there are real barriers to ordinary, natural human aspirations which are erected by this problem. And whenever I talk about it in the way that I that I am now, I always pull myself up and think, Well, you know, there are people there who can't do what my parents did or what I did, they have a different outlook on life now, and sometimes this leads to a, you know, a real sense of desperation, a real sense of disengagement from society, from processes of government on which they really ought to be able to rely. But feel a sense, well, that's not for me. If I can't access housing of the kind that I need, you know, to which I can reasonably Aspire. What's my stake in government? What's my stake in society? Why should I care about climate change if the government doesn't not only care about that, but doesn't care about housing, why should I play by the rules at all? Why shouldn't I just become, you know, opportunistic. Well, that's it, exactly. And so, you know, that was the reason for my pulling myself from up Kirsten. There

Leilani Farha:

used to be an idea that if you did the right things, you'd be okay in the world, right? So go to school, try to get good grades. Maybe go to university, if you. Could afford it, or if it was available, find a job, buy a house, or even rent a house. Yeah, and that those rules don't apply anymore. I mean, when I look at young people and they have multiple degrees, right? They're going to university and getting degree after degree just to find a job, and they're getting a job, and it's a decent job sometimes or lots of times, and they still don't have that basic security of knowing that they're going to be okay with a home to go back to. And I see that disengagement that you're talking about. Kevin, I have two young adult children, a 19 year old and a 21 year old, and both of them, of course, I mean, they grew up in my household, so they know social issues, right? They understand social issues. We talk about them political issues, but they do not have that feeling of engagement in political decision making in politics, because they feel they've been cut out. They no one cared about them in terms of the climate, no one cared about them in terms of housing. And so their engagement is quite surprising to me, right, as someone deeply engaged, but I get it. I think young people have really been, yeah,

Kevin Bell:

it's a, it's a, it's a massive entity, intergenerational breach of trust, that's right, breach of social trust on a massive and if they feel they can't trust society to be as beneficial for them as it has been for previous generations, why should they have a stake? Personal stake involves trust in the process. If you have an intergenerational breach of trust on this massive social scale, it's going to undermine social solidarity, and that's one of the big issues, and I see that happening now, and it really concerns me. Was

Kirsten McRae:

it the disillusionment that you mentioned with younger people? Was that what compelled you to write the book? Were there other things, what was in your mind when you made the decision to write the book,

Kevin Bell:

yes, in part, I could see the reprehensible impacts of unequal access to housing on a system scale, affecting particular groups in ways which I found to be unconscionable. Human Rights provides me a way of understanding why it's happening, what the implications are the way forward and so on. But from a personal and moral point of view, for me to observe the impact on a systemic scale, I just found intolerable, morally intolerable. So I decided, having left the court and freed up some time, and being Freer also because, of course, not on I couldn't have written this book on the court. It's too it's too political, but not being freed up intellectually and as a spokesperson. I thought, all right, I'm going to go, I'm going to go into it. And then I had the choice to decide whether to write something more scholarly, or whether to, you know, jump in and and try and have an impact here and now and into the future. So I made the latter choice. Yeah,

Leilani Farha:

when you say this, the idea of things being morally intolerable, I mean, we're at a period in human history, I think, a very distinct period where there are a lot of things going on that are so morally intolerable, and I think in affluent countries like Australia and I live in Canada, homelessness is one of those things. And I used to say when I was the UN Special Rapporteur, and especially when I was writing that report on homelessness, but homelessness has always been that issue for me, the one that kind of keeps me up at night, et cetera. I used to say I cannot believe people are not standing on street corners, tearing out their hair and yelling about the moral failure of our governments, allowing, not just allowing homelessness to happen, but creating it. Yeah, and I still am like that. I cannot believe that governments are not doing everything within their power to prevent more homelessness and to address existing homelessness in light of and you have that a beautiful piece, you know, and I've written about this as well, in light of the relationship between homelessness and life itself.

Kevin Bell:

Yeah, a report came out today reinforcing that, finding that the right to life is affected by homelessness, per se. So as recently as today, mind you, we had the data before, but it's been renewed. So it's not as if we need to find something out. We know it and it's a puzzle. I agree with you I've reflected on this. Why, you know, Can we walk along a street and see the person there and not feel a sense of moral outrage or be overcome by human sympathy? And I think there are several reasons for it, and one of the big ones is that we stigmatize the homeless. We see them as somebody who is somehow to blame for their predicament. Now you don't need to do much research to realize that homelessness is a structural outcome, not a human state that's brought about by the individual themselves, when a housing system, which is made up component parts, fails, particularly systemically. Then what happens at the worst end is that people become homeless. And it's easy to think, well, I don't need to worry about the way the system has produced that, because there I see an individual. And then, of course, if you go into homelessness, then you're more liable to become addicted, to have lack of access to things that make your appearance seem acceptable in society, and you can become unpleasant, either in manner or appearance. And so that reinforces the ability of people to be able to say, Well, look, I don't need to worry about that person, that person's at fault. I think that's a big part of it. What may change public attitudes to homelessness is that it's becoming a phenomena of the middle class and not just the working class and the poor. And so it really is true that many people are just one family emergency, one loss of a job, one ill health away from being homeless. I think

Kirsten McRae:

that's something that the pandemic really brought forward in so many countries around the world, is that suddenly people were aware of how close they were to the bottom being falling out from underneath them. Yes,

Kevin Bell:

that's exactly true. I do want to talk about the gendered aspect of this. I think it's really important. We have a growing phenomena in Australia of older women experiencing homelessness. Now this, of course, is a product of the gendered circumstance in which they live their lives, unequal access to work, unequal to access to money, unequal access to power within a marriage or within their their social setting, unequal access to long term funds through pensions, yes, through pensions or through, you know, other forms really the saddest things that happen when you engage in public life on calls like this In Australia and this happens, you know, not infrequently, is that you'll get a caller ringing in, and it's an older woman, and she'll talk about the fact that she living in her car, that she had to flee her home because her husband was violent, or her husband lost all their money, or her husband died and there's nothing left. And I say, Well, where are you? And they say, Well, I'm in the car. You know, that's my life. I mean, this is morally intolerable. The state of vulnerability of such people is extraordinary, and it is definitely a product of the multi faceted gender implications, or gender effects the way in which women have lived their lives. Only last week, I was on a call on a on a radio program, and a woman rang in and said, I've just been told my agent she was a renter, not an owner. You can't complain about this rent increase, and you better make sure that your car registration is up to date, because this will be the last roof over your head. So you know, it's terrible. It really is terrible. It wouldn't say that that's in any way an exceptional situation to happen. So the gender aspect of homelessness is a huge question and deserves specific attention. Yeah,

Leilani Farha:

and one of the things that you say in your book, which I thought is an important thing to say, and it's not said often enough, is that homelessness is caused by a whole bunch of things, mostly systemic things, but sometimes personal characteristics and personal circumstances as well. Whether it's violence for women, it's a huge issue violence, also for LGBTQ, particularly young people. But you say and so what? Even if it is caused by some personal circumstance, it doesn't have to result in homelessness, right? If you have to leave your home, if you are in a hospital and or a prison? And are released. It doesn't have to lead to homelessness, though it so often does, right that the state has a role to play, and they're not playing it. And I just thought that was so important to say, because there's this sense like, oh, well, if you have a low wage job and you get laid off and you're in a violent relationship. Well, tough luck for you, and you may end up homeless. Like, of course you're going to end up homeless. It's like, well, no, not, of course. No,

Kevin Bell:

not. Of course, not. Of course. Well, this is where human rights, and particularly human rights, is explained by you Leilani and your predecessors and your successes, really helps here, because it focuses on the responsibility of the state, and the responsibility of the state is to create a system within which people can access housing in all circumstances. A person who has personal attributes which might make them more vulnerable to homelessness has no lesser right to housing than a person who does not have those attributes. The right to housing doesn't distinguish between persons. You know, one person is being more worthy and another being less worthy. It sees the human person as such, and asks what's necessary for them in their circumstances. Now, in a society, there are going to be people who don't need much help, and the obligation to respect, that's to say, not to get in the way and to create a system which facilitates access to housing is perhaps the most important aspect of government responsibility for the others people will need protection, and government should and must, If it's human rights complaint create a situation in which those people can't be discriminated against on grounds of gender or race or poverty or any other ground. But for the people of the kind that we're talking about now, the state responsibility to fulfill is absolutely fundamental, and that's that's certainly a dimension of failure of responsibility, which we're seeing internationally on a scale that I would think unprecedented, certainly in Australia, we're seeing a lack of understanding of the obligation to fulfill to ensure that all people, particularly those most vulnerable, have access to housing so as not to be homeless. Look, frankly, a bit pessimistic, as I talk with you here, because the debate in Australia is framed in very much not in human rights terms. It's framed in welforce terms, it's framed in property terms, it's framed in market terms, it's framed in residual terms. It's a battle, but I am pleased with the impact of the book because I've been run off my feet carrying the central message about which we're talking and I've got a couple of big events coming up. I'm going to up the ante a bit. I'm sort of naturally respectful of people, and I don't like to get into fights with people. It's just not my nature. I don't like to criticize people. I prefer to focus on systems and to talk about ideas, but I think the ante needs to be upped, because the degree of human suffering is not decreasing, it's increasing. Here we've got roughly three main parties, the Liberal National Party, who were the Conservative Party, the Labor Party, who were the Progressive Party. Call it your liberal party in Canada say, we've got the greens, and then we've got a group of very interesting independents who are somewhat various, you know, in their political outlook, but they're very open minded, that's for sure. Now virtually the the first three groups which represent, you know, 90% of Australia's political class are not working within a framework that acknowledges human rights, let alone implements human rights. And of course, we don't have a National Human Rights Act, though we might be on the way to achieving that. But what's happening is that among the independents, there's serious interest in it. Indeed, a bill to along the lines of Canada's national human rights and homelessness Act was presented in Parliament, and it's still there, and I've been part of formulating that and progressing it. It's not likely to be accepted, but I'm just using this as an example of the fact that things are happening but human rights are not mainstreamed here. In no way I'd

Kirsten McRae:

really like to understand a little bit the journey that you went on to your understanding of human rights, if only to better understand how we can bring more people along to a better level of understanding. When you talk about how it's not being implemented in policy, it's not being enacted by different parties, how can we get people to that level of understanding? And so I would really love to know what your journey of understanding was, where did you start, and how did you get to this point of understanding with human rights? Yeah, sure.

Kevin Bell:

Well, I was at university in the 70s. I went straight into the field when I left university and began work at the tenants union of Victoria, which was then was not a funded. Organization, but we got some money from a major charity to set up an advice service, and I was the lawyer who was employed to to set that advice service up. So it was a Legal Center, in other words, an NGO legal advice service, and we had to separate out the advice aside from the political side, because the funding agency wouldn't let the two be combined. And this is a familiar problem, and that's why we have a Special Rapporteur for the protection of human rights defenders and so on. But running alongside the advice service, we had a campaign for tenancy law reform, because laws then were based upon protection of the property interest of the landlord, and there was no protection for tenants who could be a victim without cause, etc, etc, etc. So that experience brought home to me as a young person in his you know, mid to late 20s, that housing really mattered to people, and the system, a system based on allocation of goods through a market bound to operate unfairly to those who are unequal in that market, either not possessing information or power or income or whatever I did economics law, so I had some understanding of basic economic precepts I have to pay tribute to the influence of important friends at that time I had, you know, really wonderful colleagues, Michael sovaris being one of them, Dennis nelthorp being another. I was brought to realize just how important human rights were. But remember, we're talking here in the late 70s. The ICCPR and osesca had only come into force in 76 so, you know, it was very early days. But Leilani, I think you'll be delighted to know the first time I realized that there was a human right. And I remember the moment, it was like one of those, you know, special moments in one's life. I don't know how I picked up seska, but I read it, and there was the right for housing. I thought, my God, you've got to be joking. There's a right to housing. What's this? What's this human rights business? And of course, that took me on a very, very long journey through advocacy, judicial work, of course, where I focus on housing, through to my post judicial experience, the book and so on. Now, how do we get people to understand the significance of housing? Well, I think the first thing is the most difficult, and you kissed, and I think are already there, that's accepting personal responsibility for personal understanding, because human rights stuff is difficult. It's mind bending when you've had a conventional education. The idea of putting people first, always within your intellectual approach to anything actually doesn't come naturally, and the system's not organized in that way. The system's organized to produce reward for input, and the rewards normally personal. Most people think that way, with the idea of helping somebody else being a charitable add on to one's worldview.

Kirsten McRae:

Yes, and not only that, it's my understanding of it. I had a moment where I realized that I had almost been taught to respect someone else's right to make a profit, right? It's like, well, I mean, you know, if they want to run a business, then you know that's, that's their right to do so. And then when I realized my mind was blown wide open, and I was just telling everyone around me, I was like, Have you, have you thought about this, really? Have you? Have you really thought about the way that we prioritize things in globally, in our economy, and into the way that we live our lives? And yeah, it was just, it was a really big moment

Kevin Bell:

for me. That's a lovely thing to share. Thank you. I really will treasure that, and that's exactly the point I'm making. But once you know you've already got there. And then, of course, it's advocacy, advocacy, as much as possible, keeping that foot on the accelerator. Mine's off just now. I'm exhausted. To be honest. I'm really I'm just totally exhausted. I was wondering whether I'd how I'd come across in this interview, because I've just been saying going so hard,

Leilani Farha:

you don't sound exhausted. You sound energized by the idea it's probably,

Kevin Bell:

probably being with you.

Leilani Farha:

You've said, you've said many things that I'd like to pick up on. You know, of course, people who regularly listen to this podcast or who follow my work know that I'm maybe obsessed with the idea of the commodification of housing, or the financial what I call the financialization of housing. And you pick up on that very centrally in your book. And maybe Kevin, you could just comment on I really liked your approach with respect to how you view it. It's slightly different from my own, and I learned a lot where you trace commodification back to I think is really interesting. Maybe you could share that,

Kevin Bell:

yes. Well, thank you for the question. And I do indeed, and I think we have to go back to the origins of property and to Western conceptions of property, which goes to the very nature of. Our of our being and our epistemology, the kind of knowledge that we possess impacts heavily, I think, on our attitude to housing and how we treat it. And of course, as soon as we talk about property and understandings of property, we have to understand that the country from which I'm calling and the country into which I am calling being yours are colonial countries where so called enlightened European nations arrived and took, just took. And this idea that property is for the taking, for utilization by the taker, for individual, not for social purposes, is, I think, part of what helps to understand why we do this. What's the fascination with property? Certainly in Australia, it's a fascination. We are a very property focused place. I must say, you know, I travel a bit, and you don't get the same property fascination in some other places as here. And I tell the story in the book, which I'm reminded of talking to you about somebody who arrived on a ship in not far from here in the 1800s and came here to take land from the Bunurong, being the people who are the traditional owners of this country and still are to whose elders I pay my respects, both past and present. And this idea that you can have property, that you are entitled to it actually, that you can do with it what you want. You can have, not just that property, but other property, that the more property you have affects how you think about yourself, and the less property that other people have affects what you how you think about them. You look to the system to create an environment in which these essentially individual aspirations can be realized, and you think less of a system if it doesn't, and because you're so focused on the individual property in its individual or in its aggregate form, and on you, you disengage from the social implications, the systemic implications of a system that's organized this way. I'm not here, of course, advocating the abrogation of the private market, but I'm certainly here to advocate for its heavy regulation. Of course, in most countries, the private market is a means by which property, ie, housing ie homes are distributed. But in Australia, the tax system is geared heavily towards private accumulation by individuals who can have mortgages to buy properties one two or more after the other. And Kirsten this is, this is a big part of the intergenerational inequity that has occurred in this country because you asked about the position of younger people. Well, younger people are a group very few of whom are able to access taxation concessions in very large proportion in order to accumulate portfolio of housing. Because when they arrive at an option to bid for a home or up against somebody who enjoys these concessions, being an older person, and they're outbid, I mean, I've seen it happen. It's a terrible thing, and so I do think that there is something about that our creation story, which is a creation story of colonial acquisition of land, has helped to create a national psychological attitude which is an impediment to the population having equal access to housing, and most especially that proportion of the population who are affected by colonialism, most being, of course, the indigenous peoples of Australia, who are far less likely to own a home, far more likely to be tenants, far more likely to be homeless, and whose position is the worst of all, but they're fighting back and doing a strong job of it. And I can give you many examples.

Leilani Farha:

Yeah. I mean, I found that aspect of your books very vital to the conversation, because when I said I have a different sort of way of talking about it, it wasn't about that the fact of colonialism, and the fact of what I call Neo colonialism through this uber financialization of housing right now has to be understood, and there has to be a reckoning of some sort. And I do not think we can solve the housing disaster, if you will, without a reckoning and understanding that we need to value land and property differently than we do now as a culture, and that this idea of wealth extraction as. Primary purpose of land, property, housing and individuals, tenants, homeowners as simply a vehicle for that, right? I mean, that's the purpose of a tenant now, is that they allow for capital accumulation of others, and that's their sole interest of a market based system that's on steroids, and if, unless we undo that somehow and go back and, you know, I'm a lawyer, I was taught in law school, go back to first principles when things get complicated, when you don't understand something, go back to first principles. And for me, those first principles are what you were talking about with respect to human rights. The fact that human rights adhere to us as human beings, it is our the fact that we are human that means we have human rights. It's not a merit based system. And going back to the fundamental idea that housing should produce something human, and that human thing is dignity, security, right? Those are human things. So I find it really powerful to talk about colonialism. We're in a moment right now where that is a very prominent conversation for a whole bunch of reasons. And thankfully, it is, you know, thankfully, the first persons of Australia are making that conversation real. In Australia, indigenous peoples in Canada are doing the same. Recently, I've seen a lot going on in New Zealand. The Maori have been very strong recently in their parliament, et cetera. And so, you know, it comforts me to know that there is another way to think about land and property and housing, right. I start feeling much calmer when I think right. The value, actually, of this stuff is humans and promoting humanity, promoting dignity, promoting life itself.

Kevin Bell:

Well said. Leilani, it's interesting to reflect on the way the first peoples of Australia now think about land, because, of course, they are having to confront modernity, which is based on individualistic principles, which are very different to those that they have. And they're certainly not against home ownership. And they'd love to have homes if they could get them, but that would be and I'm not speaking for them, of course, by no means. I'm just sharing my own understanding things that I've gained from talking with many people about this, because obviously I'm interested in it, but the home owned is a place to live, preferably it should be on their own country. So it actually means they're living in country, which is a profoundly spiritual thing for them. If they can't have that, then to rent, sure, and nobody is seen to be somehow, you know, deficient or less of the person because they rent. And if they can't have a home and they're homeless, well that's a terrible thing, and there's a duty to help, you know, extra extremely powerful ethic of sympathy and responsibility for the whole group. And so there's there's this need to reach out and to try to help them, and I've just given those three examples. So the case of ownership, the case of renting and the case of homelessness, and the thing that's really I want to stress is how connected this whole thing is to a system of life. And so lands connected to a person centered system of life, or understanding of life. And I guess I can add a fourth component to this, which is where, where land or country, which is the word we use here, is protected in and of itself, because it's a beautiful thing. And so there's a sense of connection and responsibility for it. And so you have this other dimension, this, you might say, this environmental or the spiritual dimension of understanding land. Now I think I've just described something wholly different to a western approach to land, and it just goes, I think, to show that that values and epistemology, ways of understanding are just so important to this debate, and I have become increasingly of the view that we need to understand better why we think about land and property in the way that we do. You're extremely concerned about financialization because of its pernicious impacts on markets all over the world, and therefore on people's access to housing all over the world. Behind that is an attitude towards land as a commodity which can be used freely for investment, as of right? That's a western idea that goes back to the very origins of Western civilization. Ma'am.

Kirsten McRae:

You have a lot of really great, like, a lot of really great moments in the book, where you just. Still thoughts in a really wonderful way. One of those things that stood out to me was a little bit later in the book, is it all right, if I read the excerpt that jumped out to me, and it's just values produce actions and outcomes. If you do not have the right values, you will not have the right actions and outcomes. Valuing housing primarily as a commodity for private investment, is deeply entrenched in the system. It is a structural cause of the housing disaster which must be addressed. The values underlying the system will not be changed by purely policy based, non legislative approaches. I just thought that was a really great kind of summary of what's really at the foundation of it. For me is, you know, it's that underneath all of it, there's a value system that needs to be addressed. All of you know the economics, the actions of the private sector, the ways that government engage with housing, with those living in homelessness, all of that is founded on values and how people understand those values.

Kevin Bell:

Thank you.

Leilani Farha:

But the end bit is super interesting from that quote, because what you say is, you know, a policy here, a policy there is not the fix, and this needs to be legislative. And maybe you can speak to that, Kevin, because that is certainly the conclusion I've reached in much of my work. I wish it could be solved through nice, nice policies, but you're a former judge, once a judge, always a judge. I think you know what. What's the power of legislation? The

Kevin Bell:

power of legislation is that it is law, and if the right to housing is recognized in law, then it's elevated in its status. At the moment, it has the right to housing. Has a kind of rhetorical status that's helpful. I used to have to frame human rights talk in social justice terms, and I used to have to frame it human rights talk in consumer protection terms, because that was the lingua franca of the day, and nobody understood anything about human rights. Well, now I don't do that, and I don't think we should, because human rights is a more fundamental and comprehensive way of understanding what people need and that which they are entitled to us from their government than any other form of of discourse. So it's it's got rhetorical power, surely, and it informs policy to a degree. And I'm not going to jump on that and say, you know that that's a bad thing. We need policy to implement ideas. But the question is, what's the status of the idea? And when the status of the idea is just written in words and not in law. It's got a lesser status, and it's much easier not to listen to or to pretend to listen to or to to not fully embrace. When it's in law, it's in a wholly different category, and it's much harder to change. And of course, people depending on the form of the implementation. And Leilani, you've written extensively about the different ways that human rights can be implemented in legal form, and so you will know that one can do it constitutionally. You can do it in legislation. You can have complaints tribunals, you can have plans. You know, there's all and you can have all these things. And the shift website is a very good resource, I might say, of information about human rights can be implemented in all sorts of ways. But it's not just that because I'm a judge and a lawyer that I emphasize that it's because I want to see results, and I want to see results of the kind that involve government accountability, and I want to see results that involve empowerment of people at various stages, design implementation, the after work and law is the way to do that. Now, I'm quite pessimistic about the capacity of the or interest of the current mainstream political environment to embrace these thoughts. The Labor government here, I think, is motivated by the idea that working people have been shut out of power in capitalist society. They've now got that power, and they're going to use it for the ideas in which they believe, and they're not going to be held to account to any other form of accountability than the electoral cycle. And therefore housing, ie, what people need in order to live and to flourish in this country, is very much a product of the electoral cycle. Now this essentially a cycle in which policy reigns supreme, and the fact that we're in this disastrous circumstance where people on a massive scale, don't have access to housing or adequate housing is just proves positive that policy is not enough. We need something much stronger. I'm not saying external to the electoral cycle, in the sense that I want to, you know, take this away from the power of the people to decide, because it must always be a question. And it's determined democratically by the people in society concerned. I'm not saying that, but we do need structural changes to the system which embed ideas based on values, picking up your point, Kirsten, which are different to the ones on which the present system is based. Now it could be done constitutionally. There's 40 plus countries of the world where that's been done, we're a long way, I think, from that as a possibility, a lot of people do ask me about this. I'm surprised just what you know, there is a bit of interest in it, but it's, it's not a mainstream interest. I do not think now we are going into an election in March. Ish, the current forecast is that labor, if they win, will not win a majority, and nor will the Liberal National Party if they win majority, and there will be a significant cross bench. And the independents are becoming a very interesting political class in this country, and there are a few of them who are interested, very interested in different ways of looking at the way Housing Works in this country, and doing so from a human rights point of view. So we're entering an interesting space.

Leilani Farha:

It sounds like it indeed. We'll just have to see. Well, if you would ever like a Canadian take on what happens if you go down the road of a legislated right to housing yes and accountability mechanisms that attach, I'd be more than happy to discuss that with you or any of the independents.

Kevin Bell:

Well, invitationally accepted. Let's follow that up. Shall we? Yeah, we should follow that. I'm sure I'd be happy. Yeah, I know you're really busy, but I'd love to, I'd love to chat with you about that.

Leilani Farha:

Well, this, you know, would be part of my work for sure. In your book, you mention the Canadian experience for our listeners. In 2019 the Government of Canada adopted legislation called the national housing strategy act, and for the first time in this country, it recognized through legislation that housing is a fundamental human right, and that that recognition is the policy of the government of Canada. What I liked in your book, Kevin, is that you said, you know, these are early days and early days, indeed, that was a very wise way to frame it. You know, the commodification of housing. I mean, if we take Kevin's position, dates back to colonial times in both of our nations. You know, the Neo liberal economic framework that a lot of this housing stuff sits in weak tenant protections tax breaks for homeowners and developers. That frame has existed for what 3040, years now. And this human rights stuff is new in Canada, and so we can expect it to take some time to really adhere and gel. Let's put it that way. One of the things I'm going to throw this to you as a little caution, one of the things we didn't do with legislation here in Canada is we didn't have a requirement that the government, annually, perhaps, review all laws and policies related to housing for their consistency with the human right to housing, and as a result, what's happened is there's this language in a national housing strategy act saying housing is a fundamental human right, but it's not trickling or seeping into the policies. So we've seen no policy shift. Actually, they continue to mostly. I mean, we've seen little bits and pieces, you know, maybe a little more social housing, maybe a little more money for homelessness, but not the kind of transformation that human rights really compels. You know, that's what I love about human rights. It is transformational. You know, this focus on the human being. You know, real standards that have to be met, monitoring and accountability. These are, you know, a certain way to spend resources, certain outcomes are required. That hasn't yet happened, but I see, as you say, it's early days, and so at least I can say I have noticed a difference in the types of conversations we're starting to have in this country. And that's the beginning, right? We have to build a new narrative, and that goes to Kirsten point. Yeah,

Kevin Bell:

all knows it. Let's, let's follow that up in a subsequent discussion, because I would like to know more. Yeah, absolutely. Maybe get over to Canada and have a look at some point. That will be

Kirsten McRae:

excellent. Yeah, it's about time for us to wrap up. I did have, I mean, it's, I'd have a little bit more of a question. And you mentioned at the beginning that maybe it was time to up the ante. And I was just curious how you were thinking to do that. Yeah, oh,

Kevin Bell:

well, I think I'm going to do it on Tuesday. I'm addressing a major conference of community housing providers. It's called Faith housing, so it's the entire faith based NGO sector, and by faith, I mean all of them. So we're talking about a really significant group of people, and they've a few of their leaders have read the book, and they've invited me to address their conference. And I think I will really call on them to think more deeply about human rights, not just to treat it as an interesting idea, but as something that they should pick up and run with. I think that the that civil society needs to be a stronger advocate for transformational change based on human rights, I intend to express a much stronger intolerance with the paucity of existing ameliorative approaches, which will leave a million plus people behind, I think I will criticize ideas that that simply compare the big amount being compared being spent now being seen to be big because it's to be Compared with the practically nothing that was spent previously. So what I might call, you know, relativism, policy relativism, I think, needs to be criticized. We need to get back to rights, which is intolerant of the idea that we can be happy with doing better. We should be talking not about doing better but leaving no one behind. So I think these ideas I haven't pushed to the fore of being rather an explainer. I've been a human rights explainer, you might say an educator. I think I need to move from human rights education to human rights promotion. There are different things. I hope this answers your question. Kirsten,

Kirsten McRae:

oh yeah, it absolutely, it absolutely does. I'm trying to up the ante all the time, at least in my in my personal life. I'm happy to hear, I mean, I have to. It's, you know, when we talk about, yeah, that, when we talk about young people, that's, you know, I fall squarely in that bracket, yeah, I'm in everyone's face about it. Happily. You are personally

Kevin Bell:

an inspiration. You are very affected by all of this, and it's really inspiring to see just how you have such a clear idea of where it hits you and and others and what needs to be done. It's fantastic.

Kirsten McRae:

Thank you. And I want for everyone to up the ante wherever they can.

Leilani Farha:

Well, you know, me always upping the ante. I love it. I love that. It's a mode of being these days, sad truth. But I'm going to take what you said, Kevin, and feel fortified by that, because sometimes I start feeling a little bit alone, and so it's very nice to know that there are many of us and we shall walk together.

Kevin Bell:

There were a few really moving moments in the push, very many, really, but that moment when you looked out of the window across the big city and asked yourself, What on earth am I doing?

Leilani Farha:

Am I ridiculous? Just ridiculous

Kevin Bell:

myself, but all the time, I really felt for you. Then the other moment in the middle of one of your campaigns, when you're in the back of the room and your family rang and flooded completely, really and you just couldn't, you couldn't talk. And I feel like that a lot, too,

Leilani Farha:

exactly, exactly. Well. Thank you so much, Kevin, thank you. It's a lovely conversation, and I really applaud your book and your efforts at moving this in Australia. I lived in Australia for a couple of years. My partner is Australian, yeah, and I know exactly what you mean about the culture there the obsession with property, the fact that you have no Charter of Rights and Freedoms, no national human rights legislation. It was one of the things that I actually believe it or not, found quite difficult about living in Australia, having come from Canada with our Charter of Rights and Freedoms. And even though it wasn't always being interpreted how I would have liked it was in me, believe it or not, this, this piece of legislation really was in me. It is something that distinguishes Canada. And when I got to Australia, I really realized this was at the end of the 90s and the beginning of 2000s and really realized what a difference it makes if you don't have that orienting rights legislation. So I really applaud your efforts at trying to move this forward, and if I or the shift can be of assistance, we're here. Thanks. Leilani, i. Really appreciate it. Thank you so much, Kevin.

Fredrik Gertten:

Thank you very much. Leilani, Kirsten, and of course, thanks to Kevin bell for giving his time to our podcast, Leilani. And now what's up? We will run this podcast one more year. Let's continue. Let's continue, lots of people to talk to and lots of money we don't have. So how do we how do we finance this podcast? Well,

Leilani Farha:

first, we need people to listen to the podcast and send it on to friends so that they can listen, and once they get hooked on it, which they will inevitably, they can go to patreon.com and look for pushback talks and give us some love and money. Yeah,

Fredrik Gertten:

but I mean, you're right to to rate the podcast and to talk about it, and to, you know, write some comments. It helps in this world of algorithms. So please be our friend and tell your friends about our podcast. That's all. Leilani, have a good walk in the winter landscape of Ottawa. I will, and then I will try to do my best where, where I am. I'm actually in South Africa. Take care. Abiento Ciao, ciao, Bye. Ciao. Ciao.

Kirsten McRae:

Push back talks is produced by WG film. To support the podcast, become a patron by going to patreon.com/pushback talks, follow us on social media at make underscore the shift and push underscore the film, or check out our websites. maketheshift.org, pushthefilm.com, or breakingsocialfilm.com