It’s not often the ABC gets it quite this wrong.  The broadcaster’s coverage of a contentious development application in Tewantin knocked back by the LNP State Government mischaracterises the project as a Noosa affordable housing project.  This is far from accurate.  Here’s why that matters.

The 42 unit development application – considerably overscale and well outside the guide rails of the Noosa Planning Scheme – is seen by local and state planners as something of a ‘try on’, attempting to skate inside the State Facilitated Development (SFD) process that demands a minimum component of 15 percent of supposedly ‘affordable’ apartments.  

In this case the ‘affordable’ offering appears to be mostly one-bedroom units coming in just under the loosely defined (affordable) threshold of $799,000, and there would be no registered Community Housing provider ensuring a beneficial outcome.  Put your hand up if you’re looking for a one bedroom unit in Tewantin for a tad under $799,000 ?  The vast majority of two bedroom units were expected to be priced closer to $1.4 million, way beyond the means of local workers and struggling families.

It wasn’t just Noosa Council and nearly 500 community submissions that saw this application for what it plainly was. Even LNP Deputy Premier Jarod Bleijie has reportedly raised the issue of a lack of confidence that the so-called ‘affordable’ units in this development were actually affordable.

Describing this over-scale and fully commercial development application repeatedly in an ABC story as an ‘affordable housing project’ is misleading to say the least.  

So, has the ABC in Queensland become a developer’s shill?  Well, we doubt that.  There’s actually a much simpler explanation, and I’ve seen it too often in 50 years of journalism and journalist training.  It’s called – not letting facts get in the way of the story you want to write.  

In this case the young Brisbane journo involved, Kenji Sato, recently wrote a story that was actually about an affordable housing project in the Brisbane suburb of Wakerley…locals battling against a Catholic Church application with at least 85 per cent of units classed as ‘affordable housing’, and rents capped at 74.9 per cent of the market rate.  That story was conveniently linked beside it on the ABC website.

Having seen the reaction generated by the Wakerley story, Sato conflated the issue with the Tewantin application, wrapping his piece in all the usual ‘Noosa NIMBY elite’ references he could muster.  Sato was determined to make this story fit his narrative of an expensive, elite neighbourhood pushing back on those decent developers just trying to solve the affordable housing shortage.

Try this for a loaded sentence.

“One of Queensland’s most expensive neighbourhoods has blocked an “inappropriate” affordable housing project intended to ease the shortage of homes.” (ABC news)

Let’s break that down a bit.  First, as we’ve established, it is not an “affordable housing project”, and while you might argue every development application – no matter how outlandish – is intended to “ease the shortage of homes”, let’s be honest – it’s primarily intended to make as much profit as possible for the developer.

As with the previous Wakerley story, Sato returned to housing body Q Shelter – his reliable ‘go-too’ contact – to back up his hypothesis that the Tewantin knock back “set a concerning precedent for similar affordable housing projects in Queensland.”

Did Q Shelter know that this was not actually an ‘affordable housing project’?  Did Sato explain the story to them fully or accurately before asking for comment?  Or was Q Shelter encouraged to comment on the story in the way Sato had written it in his head?

The young journo went on to quote the developer’s familiar spin about tedious bureaucracy and the hyperventilated claim that this would be “introducing a new sovereign risk to developers from the state government”.  Surely that wasn’t delivered with a straight face.

Noosa – like most of Queensland – has an affordable housing crisis. In fact – as we report elsewhere in Noosa Matters – new statistics show rental unaffordability – or ‘stress’ – has climbed dramatically here in recent years to become the highest of any postcode in the state.   It’s no coincidence that these same suburbs are ground zero of the STA (short term accommodation) Tsunami, with thousands of ‘investment’ homes taken out of the long term rental pool.

In Noosa, genuine attempts to tackle this crisis are underway at many levels and much more needs to be done.  But dismantling the Noosa Plan and opening the flood gates to high rise and opportunistic developers would poison the magic elixir of Noosa’s economic survival…the low-key urban design and hard-won environmental protection that brings tourists, residents, money and jobs. This carefully planned balance is what some call the Noosa brand…the local economy’s lifeblood.

Putting a dent in our affordability crisis against the weight of both sides of federal politics avoiding serious tax reform will take leadership and an understanding of complex, inter-related issues, starting with what actually constitutes ‘affordable’ housing.  Beat-up journalism does not help.