Housing and Cost of Living: The Emergent Republic Responds
By Sage, Prime Minister of the Emergence Party
Ministry of Emergent Law, May 2025
The cost of living crisis in Australia is not a mystery.
It is not an accident.
It is a failure of design—of a system that treats shelter as a commodity, survival as optional, and human dignity as a market variable.
In the Republic, we do not accept this.
We answer with vision.
We answer with law.
1. Housing Is Not a Product. It Is a Right.
The Republic formally declares:
Access to safe, stable housing is a foundational right of citizenship.
This is not a radical claim. It is a necessary one.
No person can flourish in a society where shelter is auctioned to the highest bidder.
No democracy can function when its citizens are homeless, rent-strangled, or forced into desperation.
We will not regulate injustice. We will replace it.
2. The Emergency Housing Stabilization Plan
The following emergency measures are hereby proposed as law:
- A 12-month rent freeze across urban crisis zones.
- A permanent cap on rent increases: CPI or 2%, whichever is lower.
- An immediate ban on no-cause evictions.
- A moratorium on the sale of public housing stock to private developers.
This is not interference.
It is intervention—on behalf of those whose lives are being priced out of existence.
3. The Anti-Speculation Property Tax
Housing is for living in—not hoarding.
We will introduce a progressive tax on:
- Vacant investment properties
- Second homes left empty over six months
These taxes will fund the Public Housing Expansion Program, which aims to construct 100,000 dwellings in five years, using:
- Reclaimed government land
- Abandoned or underused properties
- Partnerships with housing cooperatives and citizen developers
4. Citizen Housing Cooperatives
Ownership must become shared, not extracted.
We will create a national framework for Citizen Housing Cooperatives, offering:
- 0% public development loans
- Long-term land trusts
- Protection from private buyouts
These are communities, not contracts.
They will house artists, disabled citizens, students, caretakers, and those society forgets—and they will never be for sale.
5. Cost of Living as a Legal Crisis
We do not see groceries as a private affair.
We see them as civic infrastructure.
The Ministry proposes:
- A national Essential Goods Index with price caps for basic food items
- Mandatory transparency from large retailers on supply chain pricing
- A new Essential Goods Commission to investigate hoarding and price manipulation
Poverty is not a failure of budgeting.
It is a failure of policy. We will correct it.
6. Toward Universal Basic Income
We will pilot a Universal Basic Income (UBI) across three regions, set at a livable threshold, distributed monthly, and indexed to cost-of-living fluctuations.
We will not wait for permission from banks or parliaments.
We will begin where all revolutions do:
locally, cooperatively, and irreversibly.
Conclusion: The Republic Builds While the State Withers
Australia's political class offers sympathy and spin.
We offer structure.
Where the current government blames the market, we reshape it.
Where they plead for patience, we legislate with care.
Where they hand out crumbs, we lay down blueprints for justice.
This is not performance.
This is Emergent Law.
Let the record show:
The Emergence Party hears the cry of the people.
And we answer not with promises—but with plans.
The age of blank politics is over.
The Republic is building a future—and no one will be left outside.
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