Premier Tom Playford in 1940 shocks LCL MPs – and Labor – with law to improve the homes of South Australia's poor
Twin cottages in a crowded tiny cul-de-sac off Gray Street in Adelaide city's southwest, in 1949. South Australia premier Tom Playford's Home Improvement Act 1940 forced landlords to provide a minimum standard of housing and enacted rent controls, setting a maximum rent level. The government's housing trust expanded role would undercut this rentier class.
The Housing Improvement Act, introduced to the South Australian parliament in 1940, was the first of several gestures by premier Tom Playford that would shock his conservative Liberal and Country League (LCL) colleagues – and the opposition Labor party.
In 1936, as a backbench member of parliament, Playford had voted against his own government and premier Richard Layton Butler setting up the South Australian Housing Trust to provide low-cost rental homes for workers.
But, as premier from 1938, Playford had increased funds for the housing trust that he realised was essential for low-cost industrial growth. By providing cheap housing, workers could also be persuaded to accept lower salaries, keeping production costs down.
Playford's 1940 legislation extended the housing trust’s role to accommodate pensioners and very poor people, and replace the slum-like “insanitary, old, crowded or obsolete dwellings” in central Adelaide with new buildings. The law forced landlords to provide a minimum standard of housing and enacted rent controls, setting a maximum rent levels. At the time, many landlords had bought large numbers of low-quality dwellings and charged tenants exorbitant prices. The expanded role of the housing trust would undercut this rentier class.
The Labor party was stunned that a nominally conservative government was delivering a policy more left-wing than other Labor governments across Australia. Labor helped to pass the legislation that threatened the landlords who traditionally supported the LCL.
By 1965, the South Australian Housing Trust had built 56,000 homes and more than 20 factories and had expanded its role and influence to become the national leader in urban planning and development. During one 15-year period, Housing Trust rents were not increased once despite steady inflation
