Affordable Housing: Creating respectful unrest "housing is an economic issue affecting all Australians"
May 14, 2021
This week, Claire talks to Robert Pradolin, founder of Housing for All Australians.
Robert has lived and breathed property development for the past 30 years. An engineer by trade, Robert is a loud and independent influencer on housing affordability and accessibility.
His earliest memories take him back to being three or four and constructing cubby houses under his parents’ home. Throughout his career, he has been fortunate to work with people who create communities, from land subdivisions to medium density housing through to high-rise mixed-use apartment complexes.
Robert has held General Management roles with Frasers Property Australia (formerly Australand) and has worked directly with government ministers, policy makers, community housing providers and their support services. His message is clear: housing is not a social issue — it’s an economic issue.
In 2018, he founded Housing All Australians, an
Advisory and Action Group of influential leaders from the private
sector who have a shared belief that it’s in Australia’s long-term
economic interest to house all Australians, including those on low
incomes. Robert was tired of waiting for successive
governments to make a difference. In his view, it’s the private
sector that can collectively and collaboratively change the future
of housing in our nation.
Robert believes the long-term cost to Australia of not providing
stable “housing for all” will result in future generations
inheriting a significant burden with disastrous economic and social
consequences. We are sitting on an intergenerational time bomb he
declares.
Research by the University of NSW indicates that Australia needs 65,000 dwellings a year by 2036 to get the housing balance right. Robert and the team are working tenaciously to increase awareness that “housing for all” is essential economic infrastructure and underpins Australia’s prospects for stable, long-term economic growth.
Hear why Robert thinks capitalism needs repurposing and who is actually most vulnerable to homelessness in Australia.
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Robert
Pradolin
Claire
Braund (host)