Solving the housing crisis

Dear ,

Australia has a housing problem. Our lecturer this year is Maha Sinnathamby, who has done more to fix this problem than almost any other Australian.

The title of the lecture is "Maha Sinnathamby – against the odds – how he built Australia’s first city since Canberra”.

Maha is the genius behind Springfield Central, Australia's first privately built city, and its largest master planned community. When he and Bob Sharples originally bought the site for $7.9 m in 1991 most people thought they would fail, but the vision, and their drive, was too strong. Today it is a city of 47,000 on its way to 105,000 with a city centre, institutions and industry.

The  lecture is October 16, 7:00 for 7:30 pm at the Victoria Park Golf Club, Herston Road, Herston. To book click here. AIP members are $165 a head for a two course meal with drinks.

In 1992 Springfield was a site no one (with one exception) wanted. From a development perspective it was daunting. The purchase price was just the beginning. Many large developers have gone broke trying to develop similar blocks because the cost of installing infrastructure is prohibitive, and many times the cost of the land.

This was the time of Paul Keating's "recession we had to have", with commercial interest rates regularly bouncing between 10 and 15 per cent. The cost of servicing borrowings was punishing, and when the first lots were ready to sell they had to be sold at record rates just to make repayments.

Maha was not daunted, and his vision extended well-beyond a subdivision. It was to be a master planned community with its own town plan, generous open space, and focussed on interconnected pillars of health, education and IT.

It is a magnificent achievement for a man who started life in a farming village on a British Rubber Estate in Malaysia in 1939.

The McIlwraith Lecture is an opportunity to tell the stories of those who represent the values we champion - individual effort and innovation within a framework of basic human rights and responsibilities - and also to support the Australian Institute for Progress.

To book click here.

Regards,
GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR