Showcasing New Zealand housing research
The inaugural Australasian Housing Researchers Conference, hosted in June by the southern node of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute at Flinders University, Adelaide, brought together housing specialists from around Australia and New Zealand.
Housing New Zealand Corporation Chief Advisor for Housing Sector Policy, Blair Badcock, says the concept for the conference was modelled on the annual Housing Studies Association meetings in the United Kingdom and will be held in alternate years to the National Housing Conference in Australia. More than 100 people attended the meeting, including a strong contingent from New Zealand research organisations. “This provided an opportunity for us to ‘showcase’ our housing research and make connections with policy analysts from the Australian and state governments and researchers working on similar housing issues in Australia, such as the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare.”
Parallel sessions were held on topics such as: housing markets; housing affordability and government programmes; public housing management; neighbourhoods, community and housing; housing design issues related to ageing; design for sustainable housing; health and housing policy; homelessness; and innovation and advances in housing research. Queensland University and RMIT University are investigating the feasibility of hosting the conference next year, in either Brisbane or Melbourne.
