Uneasy Bedfellows: Social Justice and Neo-Liberal Practice in the Housing Market

The Australian state has ratified the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (CRPD), which emphasizes a social justice-based, personalized service delivery model. The upcoming National Disability Insurance Scheme (NDIS) reflects this model and aims to facilitate people living with a disability being able to access services while housed within the private residential market, a move away from a state-based combined residential/service care model. However, in Australia’s neo-liberal housing market government intervention tends to shy away from policies that overtly impose restrictions on private firms. Therefore, in the absence of a subsidy from the state, the CRPD is of limited use in encouraging private developers to improve the appropriateness of its new built stock for people with a disability. A more persuasive approach is to highlight the size, diversity, and economic power of the disability-friendly housing consumer market when housing provision is separated from disability care delivery. This paper examines the feasibility of sustaining innovation in the volume builder housing market by aligning accessibility promoting changes to the existing innovation channels within Australian firms, suggesting that the NDIS concentrate on assisting the housing industry transition to a make-to-order model from the current make-to-forecast one.