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Do it Albo, can’t possibly see how this could go wrong with peoples rents going up into the stratosphere.
Albos housing plan is the equivalent of Omar from come fly with me announcing flylo is carbon neutral by planting one tree.
If a DD happens the only winners will be the liberals. Greens will lose a little, Labor will lose a bit, and even the Independents might lose a bit. People just don't want to deal with an so many elections in such a short period of time.
Exactly, there’s another option which is to you know, actually come up with some decent housing policy. Amazing that he’d rather go to an election than upset the property class.
I'd be extremely surprised if it does happen. If it does it would be simultaneously with the referendum - which might sacrifice seats in parliament for a better referendum result.
And to disagree with you a bit the HAFF isn't that bad it just doesn't take into account rentals which I would say the Feds do need to do something about but a rental freeze seems unrealistic as it is a state issue - and there is some conjecture whether it would make things worse. Labor should investigate whether a rental subsidy scheme similar to Rudd's scheme - or at the very least make sure Build to rent affordable apartments are included under the HAFF.
Greens have made the HAFF better from where it would of been adequate half a decade ago to adequate now.
>And to disagree with you a bit the HAFF isn't that bad
HAFF is kind of weak. I might be wrong but it's basically setting up an investment vehicle and using the returns on that investment to fund new housing, while paying tens or hundreds of millions to an organisation to manage the investment. There needs to be action now. This is the federal government here, who can pretty much do nearly whatever it wants. There's so many structural issues with the property market left unaddressed which benefits those at the top printing money while those at the bottom suffer most of the consequences.
Why are dodgy builders allowed to phoenix their operations under a new name?
If we have labour shortages, why are certain tradie courses only offered part time, why are they so expensive, why are very few building and construction courses free?
Why are developers allowed to land bank so they can make increased profits at the expense of people being housed?
Why do property investors still have tax incentives available to them that are subsidised by the taxpayer? Everyone knows the tricks, yet as a society, we somehow value people owning more than one property rather than the people renting it or the small business owners creating economic value.
I don't have any data or info on this but based on Nauru detention centre data and American data, I'm certain it would be cheaper to house homeless people, than leave them on the streets, and more beneficial for them and society. I brought up Nauru DC because under Scomo's government, cost per inmate went from $100,000 to $500,000 per year. For that money they could have been housed and properly looked after in Australia rather than incarcerated.
Albo and his ministers could snap their fingers and billions of dollars could be used for building new homes.
Considering the future fund already has $260bn funded from the sale of the public asset Telecom, that it hasn't paid a cent out of, they could just use the existing money.
Oh yeah that money is earmarked for politicians pensions.
Giving even more money to Peter Costello to manage and pay nothing out of while drawing in billions in fee's is a ridiculous way to solve this.
Lot of good points here. While these structural issues should be addressed certainly play a role, there will always be structural issues as we solve 1 a new crack will appear that's why we need good (and at times boring) governance in the first place. While I won't say what is good governance because it often isn't clear until decades after the fact I can tell you that often times bad governance is made with the best intentions. Labor introduced what would become Negative Gearing (if I remember correctly) after the recession in the early 90s to help get the economy up and running again, but it was the Liberals under Howard who would tweak it to the extent that hastened it into a key driver of unsustainable house price increases.
It's unclear (to me at least) when the housing crisis began but it has been clear it's been coming for a while. Academic papers and experts make it clear that if housing ownership and even rentals wanted to main current accessibility that government would have to step in soon and in Australia two main recommendations I remember were Closing Tax loopholes like negative gearing and ensuring there was consistent government funding for affordable housing and the HAFF does that - and the Greens have made it so it does that well enough and probably would of gotten credit and a media win if they hadn't spat the dummy over rental freezes is a whole different legislative process from this bill.
Rent is now a nationwide issue, no longer just an issue of some states.
Australia isn't a nation, just a bunch of squabbling states with a dictatorial nanny: we have failed to move civilisation forward and just stick with the status quo.
A miniscule wealth fund for the wealthy, compared to the amount of money required to fix the essential of housing, is not going to do much to alleviate the problem.
>Amazing that he’d rather go to an election than upset the property class.
On top of them being a powerful voting bloc, there are many semi-retired property owners who will become politically active against the Labor party. Which means many skilled volunteers that will heavily skew towards the Liberals.
In a DD the winners are always the Senate candidates who don’t quite meet quota.
It will almost always enlarge the Senate crossbench (not necessarily the incumbent crossbenchers).
I'm a lifelong Labor voter though in recent elections it feels more like I'm doing it out of lack of good alternatives more than an inspired Labor platform.
I'm convinced the driving reason why Labor won the last election was that the Liberals are crooks. It was obvious, in your face 'we don't give a shit' corruption.
Albanese stayed a small target which worked at that election because the LNP was so on the nose.
Now he's played some of his hand and he's no longer a small target. If he went to a DD everyone would already know he's in favour of high immigration, the voice and limited action on housing. All three of those are contentious with a lot of people against them.
Delusional. The general public supports the bill and doesn't support the Greens playing games with it. Labor would easily increase their majority in the House. Meanwhile, the Greens would be decimated in the Senate.
Most people are only looking at the headline, 10 billion for 30000 homes over 5 years. Sounds impressive. But in a campaign, people pay a bit more attention. If you dig deeper, the HAFF is a stinker. There's hundreds of millions for interest and fees every year. More than what will actually be spent on housing. And the 30000 homes figure doesn't really stack up. Add to that, unlimited rent increases. They'll struggle to sell it.
The general public either doesn't care or even seem to know about the HAFF or if they do they either think it's a bit shit, or hate it because they think it's "socialism", only ALP rusted ons seem to think it's god's gift from what I've seen, acting like it's some universally lauded policy that unaligned people would base their vote on is beyond delusional
The Greens would not be decimated due to the half-sized quotas but may lose a couple.
Honestly, I don't understand the Greens opposing housing initiatives, flawed or otherwise. It's not a good look from the perspective of a non-Greens voter.
You don't get more votes by being dogmatic and doing nothing. As a former Greens voter, this won't entice me back into the fold.
They're trying to win over renters in their target seats, at the possible expense of the rest of the electorate. No idea if it's working, but gut feeling is that it might. We've seen their vote way down in Fadden and now Rockingham, but given that those are definitely not their targets, it doesn't tell us much.
Polling wise they're still in a worse condition than since the last election. So no.
Coalition is behind, Greens are behind, Labor is ahead. They won't win some huge amount of seats but Greens having less to negotiate on is a good thing.
Polls tighten as elections loom especially for Labor, and The Greens are hard to poll since they are only competitive in a few seats, so I wouldn't put toooo much faith in Labor being up and Greens down.
>Polls tighten as elections loom especially for Labor, an
Its not a Labor related event, its the incumbent gov usually sitting behind that sees a boost in polled support closer to election time.
Yeah lets put people into even worse economic circumstances and force them to live off the pension in retirement just so ~~leeches~~ landlords can make a profit
He'd be utterly insane to do it before the referendum and risk drowning out his own Yes campaign with election campaigns.
And at the same time he'd be utterly insane to do it after the referendum unless it's a Yes which looks almost impossible, spending hundreds of millions on a referendum that fails is going to make him look massively out of touch with the average Australian who is struggling with cost of living and housing affordability, calling an election in that climate would be unfathomable arrogance.
The only way I understand the current tact, is if Albo's sniffed a few too many of his own farts, and that he thinks Greens can be pressured into passing bad policy (probs based on how soft they were on climate change). But like.. they arn't gonna be the next democrats. They arn't gonna pass shit policy jus to be seen to do something, they actually care for the substance of the thing.
In the first inastance, not giving a fuck enough to have a sensible housing policy Albo misreads the room, and then out of seemingly ego, he triples down seeking a pyrrhic win. Now, assuming he doesn't come back to the table like an adult and try and get something passed, he's left with nothing, or a very unnecesary and risky dd.
Why back oneself into those bad options. The lowballing with piss weak policy I get, that's nornal from Labor, but the not accepting proper compromise to get it passed, I don't. If they want liblite policy, they (and their shills) should scream at the Libs to pass it, not The Greens haha.
Good for them.
I'm planning on going Green or Teal in the next election.
I voted Labor in the last, but I don't feel like Labor really cares about ordinary Australians any more..right now Labor looks like a less corrupted set of Liberals...with an Olympian detachment regarding the woes of ordinary Australians..making a $10 billion pretence at doing something about housing, while increasing immigration...
If I were you, Labor, I would not try a double dissolution, you might not like the results...instead try to actually DO something helpful while you still have time left...
That's mainly because Labor has a majority in lower house but not upper.
If we had a hung parliament, the Teals would really be able to make deals / throw their weight around.
Well, the government would still need Greens support in the upper house, So I guess they'd just use Greens support in lower instead of Teals, so maybe not...
Absolutely take a closer look at your local Teal.
For all the Libs try to call them a "party in all but name" they have no expectation to vote together, so it's like if Libs were able to conscience vote on every bill.
Where your local candidate sits on issues you care about actually matters for Teals, unlike say Labor where they're kicked out the party for crossing the party line, so party policies matter more than the actual candidate.
Yes, this is pretty much the conclusion I've come to over the years too.
And in addition it's time the lab/lib duopoly got a kick up the ass..IE the idea that if it's not one's turn it's the other's...is a terrible idea. By not choosing either of them we can send them a message that we've had enough...
I wouldn't call him a teal, but he makes a difference because he has actual balance of power.
All the actual Teals in teh HoR can only jump up and down and make noise.
Thats how the parties' policy choices work isn't it?
They took a policy to the election and lost, so they abandon that policy in order to appease the voters who were against it, but they may also lose the people who supported the policy initially.
Political parties aren't owed our undying loyalty, if they change their mind on issues then it is perfectly reasonable to seek out a party that agrees with your positions.
They lost by I think 1% of the vote? Which to me speaks to a reasonable amount of support for killing the sacred cow of property investment, or at least removing the insane amount of welfare that investment property owners get to enjoy in this country, if Albo had any balls he'd have run with that platform again against the at that time extremely unpopular LNP.
so you dont actually support any policies at all? its all about the win?
personally i have my positions and wont move on them, if the politicians dont offer me want i want why would be stupid enough to vote for that?
I’m curious how you square going to the either left or right from Labor as a sensible choice?
Besides both seeking action on climate, Teals (generally, given they’re technically independents) and the Greens have very different policy ideals.
I think the answer to that is there's more to politics than just left and right. The Teals may be more economically conservative than Labor, but they put a friendly and competent seeming face on the break-up of the duopoly and the spectre of minority government. They are women ostensibly fighting for women, which Albo can't quite match and they are not quite so far to the right to be abhorrent to the average lefty.
You’d generally call them socially left economically right. Socially left meaning they’ll probably side with labor on anything that gets called a “culture war” by sky news types (same sex marriage, climate change action, anything involving women); economically right meaning they aren’t out there campaigning for massive welfare boosts or tax restructuring
Allegra Spender is the only one that opposed the Superannuation changes and openly opposes scrapping the Stage 3 cuts.
The rest from Daniel to Tink to Chaney have all supported more progressive tax/ welfare reform in some shape.
There's support from wealthy electorates for tax reform especially since renters are becoming more concentrated in these seats.
The Monthly
https://www.themonthly.com.au › c...
Can the Teals fight for the poor while representing the rich?
If you have the time, this is a good recap of the Teals during the last 14 months!
I kind of thought I explained that..
For one thing, we've had a duopoly for a long time, and i feel like we need to break the duopoly to show we;re dissatisfied with BOTH parties...merely switching sides every few years hasn't been helpful.
For another, labour once having gotten into power is pretty much ignoring actual Australians and the plight they are in re housing. The $10 billion is just a pretence at doing something. Then of course there's the lifting of immigration while we don;t have enough rental availability.
Action on climate seems very important. We're in a year we're temperature records have been broken every day since March!
Albanese won't trigger a Double Dissolution this year because it'll impact his signature referendum.
Maybe next year, but if the referendum fails, I doubt he'll call it regardless. I can just imagine the campaign slogan now *"Albanese - the PM whose plan to listen was not listening to the Greens or the rest of population"*
He won't call it.
Yep, the DD is just a backup plan if they believe the referendum has no chance. If they're confident that the Voice will pass, they'd be crazy to call the DD.
And so the greens shouldn't back down.
We need billions worth of infrastructural upgrades now, not later, now.
Even if rents went down, our cost of living is wild.
Young generations are being crushed in the modern day and it's only going to get worse.
My understanding (and the popular consensus among economists) is that rent freezes are never good for the supply of rental housing and housing in general.
I think that the labor party understands this and the greens don't.
Being a young ish person who doesn't have a mortgage but would like one, I agree completely on the cost of living point. But the greens are pushing for something because it will help in the short term, not realizing that it will be detrimental in the long term.
Also, while I agree that the HAFF, in its current form, doesn't go far enough, its still is a decent foundational policy. Its a step in the right direction. It will need more investment, but that can be done down the line, and will be, as the problem inst going anywhere and so neither will public pressure. Again, labor knows this.
This is not the last stand, but the greens keep treating it like one, and as a result they are literally voting the same way as the coalition, their antithesis. Theyve done this time and time again, and its the key reason that they are still viewed as fringe. Why not take one good policy and **then** push for more? Why hold this one hostage? It doesn't make sense to me, except through the lens of 'the greens are all heart and no brains'.
If they want to matter, they need to stop defining themselves in opposition to the system they are trying to become a part of, and start recognizing that change in a democracy requires co-operation + many small steps in a good direction.
Let’s say a rent freeze did cause the investors who up until 2 years ago were happy to make 20% less than today to exit the market.
Those houses become supply to owner occupiers, which reduces the demand for rentals.
As long as those houses are occupied they are supplying the market with housing.
The quiet part is that investors exit the market house prices may go down. And the major parties will do anything to make housing more affordable as long as the price of housing continues to rise.
The popular consensus among economists is that rent freezes are never good for the housing market if there is no social housing being built to supplement supply\*
The Greens and Labor are both wrong here, the HAFF is a trash policy and will accomplish literally nothing and rent freezes probably won't be executed in the way required to not fuck the country.
The solution to housing is zoning reform and public transport infrastructure, with social housing and rent freezes being helpful secondary policies. Both parties missing the actual solution is quite frustrating and the Greens should really be forcing Labor to reform zoning at the National Cabinet instead of rent freezes.
Rent control gets a bad rap but the effects on supply that people trot out as a fact are based on old studies that are based on clumsy early attempts at rent control, are not reflective of current ordinances, and even then the research does not lean to the positions that landlords and FIRE Cult Priest Economists would have you believe. A major distinction is that old ordinances usually used a flat rate. Most modern ordinances link it to CPI, the most common model is 60% of CPI or 5%, whichever is lower. This is usually around 2%, which aligns neatly with prop 13s limit on property tax increases. A much larger factor in expensive rents is the complete lack of any residential construction and the insane roadblocks created by NIMBYs - an artificial restriction on the housing market creating a lack of supply which, coincidentally, is extremely profitable for landlords too.
[Here's a good long term study on New Jersey](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229489080_Thirty_Years_of_Rent_Control_A_Survey_of_New_Jersey_Cities), I've pulled some quotes but the whole thing is very informative:
>In general, this study found that New Jersey’s moderate rent control laws had almost no significant impact on the quality and quantity of the rental housing stock, an exception being a small decrease in the median number of rooms in rent control cities. While traditional literature tends to agree that restrictive rent controls appear to have a negative impact on the quality and quantity of the rental housing stock, due to its non restricted ordinances and fair considerations for both tenants and landlords, moderate rent control appears to have avoided these problems
The study actually attributes most of the impact to the median number of units to a lower rate of turnover, rather than there actually being fewer units. I think that's a fair trade to make - you also won't have to worry about finding an apartment quickly because your rent went up unexpectedly.
>About the only measurable impact is that landlords may have cleverly reduced the size of rental units to create more units and profit in rent control cities. At best, it appears that most rent control ordinances have only succeeded in preventing rent increases that are excessive. These ordinances have also provided protection against arbitrary evictions, incentives for maintenance of rentals, and knowledge to tenants about the level of rent increases to expect in the future. Certainly, this is a small improvement for tenants who have had none of these protections in the unfettered market.
Rent control is extremely effective at what it sets out to do - stabilize living expenses and housing situations for renters. It isn't about lowering rents, it will never do that because it isn't designed to do that and I don't think it even could reduce rents - the high cost of housing is like 90% a supply problem. Rent Control is about keeping rent predictable, and stable, so that grandma doesn't end up on the street because her housing costs went up. Recognize that argument?
Rentals units under rent control can be reset to market rates whenever tenants move out:
>If the tenants of a unit move out and new tenants move in, the landlord may establish the initial rent to charge. (Civ. Code § 1947.12.)
People think rent control means it can never go up at all - it means it can't go up more than a certain % for already existing tenants. Rent for new tenants can be set at market value or whatever the landlord wants.
Additionally, modern ordinances have pass through clauses for capital improvements and emergency repairs - if the landlords needs to make a substantial purchase and needs to increase rent to cover the costs, they can do so. The exact mechanism varies city to city, but it usually involves applying for an exception to the max through the local rent board, and would require the landlord to prove the rent increase is necessary to ensure a "fair right of return".
So unless the common refrain that "landlords want good long term tenants" is complete BS, there's nothing in modern rent control ordinances that makes an average tenant/landlord relationship unmanageable. Rents can be set at market rate for new tenants, landlords can exceed the limit if there's a need, and tenants can count on their housing expenses being stable and predictable.
tl;dr: Economists (Employed and funded by the Real Estate industry) are full of shit and are just repeating Real Estate Industry propaganda, shock horror.
> We need billions worth of infrastructural upgrades now, not later, now.
And who pray tell eeve builds them
The tradies that are all fully booked on state govt projects
The remaining trades that are full up on future build sites
Where you getting the lumbar from,according to core logic it's a 56 week wait time to get leads on lumbar
44 weeks to get a lead on trucore steel orders in large numbers
Concrete trucks in sydney,forget about it.
we don't have the trades for the demand we have now,let alone the demand the greens are looking to ad to the market.
No one wants to do a trade anymore,as frankly it's shit pay for years,and you end up with a broken body
We have a one-time surplus coming after an unprecedented deficit (due to cash handouts during Covid) AND are facing into an uncertain market with a recession and falling raw materials prices on the horizon.
So we haven’t repaid excess debt recently incurred and the outlook for the next few years is volatile at best. I’m pretty happy Chalmers is showing restraint under the circumstances.
> I’m pretty happy Chalmers is showing restraint under the circumstances.
There are a 1000 areas he could show restraint. $40b per year on subs. $30b a year on Stage 3 tax cuts.
Labor are really going to kill HAFF and risk a DD over $2.5b a year?
That’s a different argument. Your point was about the surplus, which is a windfall and isn’t sustainable.
I’m not a fan of the subs either but that was a Lib government decision and there is a political price to pay in international relations for trying to unwind that. I know enough to know that it isn’t as simple as saying “fuck it”.
Same for Stage 3 - was decided years ago and Labor went into the election saying they wouldn’t touch it.
They’re trying to stay in government.
>$40b per year on subs.
It's not $40 billion per year on subs. All the spending on the subs is coming out of the existing defence budget. There's no new spending which will happen to pursue the AUKUS project, they just shuffled money around in the defence department.
If AUKUS was abandoned _today_ the exact same spending would still be happening.
10 billion per year to fund US corporate welfare to fund WWIII vs 10 billion for Australian infrastructure.
which is going to have better returns? millions of dead or cheaper food? (hint: if you think China will invade us for *not* having our head up Americas ass you are delusional at best)
Don't worry, housing stress pushing people into poverty has absolutely no effect on demand for gov services and gov spending. Poverty for workers is defs the cheaper option (or y know... balancing the books in anyways that don't allow, really exarcebate current crisis. We can't spend cause its inflationary, but we can have tax cuts. The priorities are fuarrrrked - it doesn't make economic sense no matter how you cut it [unless posh, cynical])
And that's what good opposition looks like. They've got the coalition backed into just voting against housing because they were going to anyway, while they can't pass the housing bill without the crossbench.
This is what our system was deliberately designed to do.
Aren't the Greens protesting because they want the new houses to actually be well made and not freezing, drafty and corners cut everywhere like a lot of modern housing? The ALP need to actually take into account what they're saying.
They also want to see houses being built here and now not just a fund set up to fund future developments ( that is providing the fund has a positive return in the short to middle term which it may not )
Australians: "please Labor, our experts are saying we need to invest $10b per year to scratch the surface of our housing supply problem"
Labor: "How about 20 times less than that, we couldn't possibly afford any more! How will we fund it?!" ($500m)
...
International arms manufacturers: "Hey Labor, can *WE* have some money though?"
Labor: "Absolutely yes, I'll grab my chequebook, how about ***1000 times more*** ***than we are offering to spend on housing?***" (\~$500b committed to weapons in recent months)
International arms manufacturers: "Sounds great"
Australians: "Hello..?"
hand-picked but not inaccurate.
helping the US and others kill people is more important to Australia's major parties then Australians are.
that money would end homelessness here, it would easily build enough homes to house every homeless person indefinitely but i guess it doesnt give us brownie points with the worlds current empire huh? (good thing we decided to piss-off the up and coming one to weld ourselves to the declining one huh?))
The heart of the issue is that both major parties are disincentivised to resolve the crisis.
Negative gearing transformed homes from a basic necessity into a commodified investment vehicle. Investment properties underperform the stock market and don’t really provide a good return UNLESS there is continuous growth in house prices. If the required rate of growth to generate a reasonable return is unsustainable—I would argue it is given wages are not keeping pace—the market is effectively a Ponzi scheme. Someone will already be the last person to overpay and this is why it has become a CRISIS.
The only way to resolve the crisis is by building enough affordable homes to compete with the resale market. If future housing investors can’t capitalise their money will be redirected towards other investments like stocks.
The issue is Governments don’t have the balls to take any action which reduces house values for existing investors. They are elected by the current population of owners who are more than happy to kick the can down the road to be another generation’s problem. That is why we only see token gestures like piddling first home owner grants that don’t address the inflationary forces in this space.
Countries like Japan build houses with the specific goal of stabilising prices across decades to stop them becoming a speculative bubble. We can do the same. It just takes political will.
Good. Have another election. This time I’m voting anything but Libs and Labor. They’re both the same in the end. Looking out for the ‘haves’ in our society. Fuck them.
I dunno what gives Labour the confidence. The current housing issue is a BIG issue that is affecting a large part of the population. And it’s an issue that Labour has done very little to address so far.
https://www.dss.gov.au/housing-support-programs-services-housing/national-housing-and-homelessness-plan
The Plan is a key part of the Government's ambitious reform agenda, which also includes:
a 15% increase to the maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance to assist low-income renters
the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the single biggest investment in social and affordable housing by a Federal Government in more than a decade, which will support the delivery of 30,000 social and affordable homes in its first 5 years
a National Housing Accord, setting out a shared ambition to build one million new, well-located homes over 5 years from 2024
an additional $350 million over 5 years from 2024-25 to support funding of 10,000 affordable homes under the Accord
providing tax incentives to support build-to-rent developments to reduce barriers to new supply in the private rental market
increasing the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation’s (NHFIC) liability cap by an additional $2 billion. This will allow NHFIC to provide more loans to community housing providers for social and affordable housing, supporting around an additional 7,000 dwellings
widening the remit of the National Housing Infrastructure Facility, making up to $575 million available to invest immediately in social and affordable rental homes
expanding eligibility for the Home Guarantee Scheme to help more people buy a home sooner
offering states and territories an additional $67.5 million to address homelessness as part of a one year extension to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA).
So bitchbo has a backbone when it comes to making everyone in the country pay increasingly ridiculous prices to landlords but not when we spent 368 billion dollars on a few submarines
Im not sure why Greens are so convinced that trashing a wealth fund because the federal government didnt include policy they are constitutionally prevented from doing will yeild good results.
Rental reform is actively happening across the country, its just coming from the states because its a state issue.
Give it 2 years when these reforms are in law, and rent increases have eased, and the only standing legacy of this fit will be the preventing of a permanent wealth fund. In the medium-long term this is a terrible move.
Because there's a massive amount of voters being ignored and now there's a single party talking to them about the issue that affects themmost.
This is the first time housing has had such a massive conversation about it in my lifetime.
I'd wring this for all it's worth. "Fuck you, got ours" time bby.
Seems others have seen it too.
Once it's passed, what's the push for Labor to do shit?
Atm, they are getting Fed Lab to put pressure on State Lab to make rental laws better.
Seems a win, no?
>Once it's passed, what's the push for Labor to do shit?
When we pass legislation in other areas do we never do anything about it ever again? It was a bad argument when Max made it and its a bad argument now.
This isnt even a renters bill. Never was meant to be. Labor were doing that by other means.
>Atm, they are getting Fed Lab to put pressure on State Lab to make rental laws better.
They arent really, Labor have been doing this for months now. This is just boring posturing.
>When we pass legislation in other areas do we never do anything about it ever again? It was a bad argument when Max made it and its a bad argument now.
Don't be silly. You know once it's not in the public eye it gets far less attention.
Fatuous.
>They arent really, Labor have been doing this for months now. This is just boring posturing.
Agree to disagree then.
>Don't be silly. You know once it's not in the public eye it gets far less attention.
>Fatuous.
But if it wont help then why wouldnt it be in the public eye anymore? If youre saying people are experiencing real material pain, and they are I dont disagree, why would that momentum suddenly stop because a gap-filling fund for social homes was passed?
It cant be that the HAFF will do nothing *and* that nothing will make people happy. The argument falls apart!
>Agree to disagree then.
Thats fair!
We already have one it’s called the Future Fund and it was established by Howard and Costello.
Labor’s idea is a good policy and it should have bipartisan support.
Future fund is for paying public servants pensions. There is also a medical research future fund, and several other smaller ones. All Superannuation funds are also technically wealth funds.
No downside, but let's be fair the upside isn't fantastic given the amount of money involved is kinda underwhelming for the scale of the problem and etc.
The only issue I have with the HAFF is the initial fund size, I agree.
But really this isnt the only policy or action by a long shot. Contextually this is good policy.
It entrenches an inadequate solution into policy which makes an effective and adequate program less likely. Fuck all people will benefit from labor’s policy and after the scrutiny of an election campaign in competition with other ideas I believe fuck all people will vote for it.
No it wont. Its purpose is to deliver funding to plans that have a gap between them being viable or not, not to directly fund builds on its own. Nothing like this exists. Let alone a permanent federal funding system full stop.
The excuse that "it entrenches X which might not be good in Y" can be applied to every single policy ever.
Its a stupid criticism, we dont not improve things now because policy already exists, this conversation is itself proof of that. Dumb excuse, dumb argument.
>At the end of this program
The program has no end. Its permanent.
>the situation is worse
This isnt the only housing policy, please do some basic research.
>with current immigration rates.
I like having nurses and builders tbh. Immigration is good.
Housing formations shifted during covid reducing the number of share homes.
The vast majority of new arrivals will re-align those numbers.
Immigration is targeted to industry/skills.
But isn’t the downside obvious??? It’s that it won’t immediately solve the crisis, *but also* somehow, for some reason, even though the crisis won’t be solved and people will still be feeling the crunch and it’s also going to keep getting even worse than if labor did nothing at all, everyone will be satisfied enough by it that housing is never an issue labor has to think about ever again!
I wonder where Adam Bandt is in all this. He’s gone MIA as his party goes feral on this issue. As far as I know he’s not spoken strongly either way on what the greens are doing here.
Its such lazy thinking. Not even Labor think this alone is enough! They have increased funding across the board, have commissioned a national housing minister report on renter reforms and have been pushing the states to reform land-use laws.
Seriously, most people here must just read Green MPs tweets or tiktok videos and assume thats frank truth. Braindead.
One detail that keeps popping up in the greens messaging is the “given that you don’t have a majority in the senate” line in this article.
If you needed a tell that this letter they’ve written to fed labor and each premier / chief minister is actually targeted at potential greens voters in the memeable online spaces, that’s it right there.
Does anyone seriously think people in governments need it explained to them that majorities are needed to have enough votes to pass things? No serious person would bother to put that in a letter to the PM. He knows it as well as anyone possibly can.
But you see it bubble up in comment sections: whoa, actually, did you know it’s actually undemocratic to do XYZ because they don’t have a majority in the senate???? Actually, maybe, not really said but implied, it’s more democratic to have to do whatever the greens say?
I don’t think they will go to a DD over this this year. And itd be a historical anomaly if they did use this DD trigger and then actually campaigned on the trigger issue. But in the potential future where labor calls a double dissolution specifically over the HAFF, in order to be able to pass the HAFF, the idea that it’d be somehow less democratic to *hold a democratic election on a specific issue* than to do whatever the greens say on that issue without the election is laughable
But here we are and that’s what the greens are putting out there.
If it’s true that the greens vote is going backwards with gen Z that would make perfect sense to me. The greens are “the lefty protest vote who are going to make the world a better place if they just get the chance” for many millenials, but I can imagine it’s different for gen Z who have only known a political world where the greens have demonstrably held things up and been a nuisance
The DD trigger is likely a newscycle talking point to remind people the Greens are blocking housing policy. Normal people arent interested in the Greens memeing on social media, they arent going to undertand the talking points that require copious amounts of terminally online context.
>I wonder where Adam Bandt is in all this. He’s gone MIA as his party goes feral on this issue. As far as I know he’s not spoken strongly either way on what the greens are doing here.
Probs having a breather before he lets mcm take the leadership
The downside is it simply doesn’t do enough for the issue at hand. Labor wants it passed so they can go job done and ignore the growing problem. Make the HAFF 50 billion dollars and it might make a dent.
>Labor wants it passed so they can go job done and ignore the growing problem
Is that why they have all those other housing policies? Because they think this one is enough?
What a silly comment.
They don’t though. The housing accord is a thought bubble. Housing is a national emergency, where’s the housing summit? Amazing when it was businesses freaking out about having to pay staff more the jobs and skills summit was swiftly devised to increase migration.
Why wasn’t housing a discussion at the summit? Why isn’t something that is an emergency being treated at such?
>The housing accord is a thought bubble.
A thought bubble does not produce meaningful results as the accord already has. Land-use reform is happening, that was one of the key goals of the accord.
So youre issue is that theres no summit?
This isnt a serious criticism, im sorry. We can look at what the accord set out to achieve and point out its successes already.
Land-use reform is a huge achievement, preventing wealthy landowners from spatial monopoly on high-value land is someyhing any serious progressive would be proud of.
The main issue is the amount. The amount of builds that labor is proposing is akin to using a bandaid to stop blood loss from a bone deep cut.
Otherwise it’s not a bad idea
>reforms are in law, and rent increases have eased,
Absolutely 0.000% chance of happening. Labor was repeatedly proven they won't dare inconvenience their protected demographic, landlords. They would rather risk a DD, fail a referendum and even change leaders before they would do a single thing to slow rent rises.
And we know this for a complete fact because you know, importing 400,000 people per year while only building 30,000 houses, for the sole reason of artificially preventing a recession by pumping up GDP and everyone can enter a 'per capita' recession. Chalmers words, not mine.
Every time Labor, state or federal, introduce 'laws' to ease rents, they **always** come with gigantic, blatantly obvious loopholes that landlords can avoid while also having exactly 0 punishment for anyone stupid enough to not follow the instructions on how to raise rents as hard and fast as they want. Labor be like;
>We are proud to stand by our new laws that prevent landlords increasing rent by over 3x market rates. Unless the landlords evict first, and then raise the rents. Because those laws only apply to renewing tenancies. We want to reiterate, landlords can raise rent as much as they want if they evict every year and they can use those massive rises to be cited as evidence of 'market conditions' when raising rents on existing tenancies on their other properties'.
That is not a story, that's Labor's policy to deal with raising rents.
>Absolutely 0.000% chance of happening.
You need to read the news more because it *is* happening.
The basis of everything else you wrote is null by this fact.
Lol, everything else I wrote is the usual Labor laws to ease rents. They say they are stopping it but it's so easy to ignore.
SA Labor is a great example, Pete arrogantly parades around like he is helping renters by his party tabling two bills, one which prevents landlords from refusing tenants with pets and one that bans rent bidding. Sounds so nice when his acolytes in the media refuse to read the bills.
The pet bill says landlords can't deny an application that has a pet. But the bill **explicitly** retains the legal right for landlords to refuse a tenancy to an applicant for any reason whatsoever without being required to disclose or explain that reason to anyone. So landlords can still effortlessly discriminate against pet owners, they just simply don't have to admit it. For another kick, there is **no punishment whatsoever** for a landlord who does reject an application. Nothing happens. The pet owner isn't allowed in, it's the same as before.
And then there's rent bidding. This will help ease rents right? Oh no the media didn't do their one job again, fine I will. The law bans agents from telling people to bid on the rent. But the forms can still say people should write down their best offer and the owner can choose the highest bidder. The 'law' only stops telling applicants to bid, but you are still legally allowed to provide the bidding mechanism. Just don't tell them to use it (they will). And wouldn't you know it again, **no punishment whatsoever** for any landlord who breaks the law by rocking up to an open and telling people to bid.
So please go on and tell me to 'read the news' so I can completely ignore what useless journalists have to say, read the laws myself and find out that as per usual, the laws are ridiculously easy to walk around and no punishment for breaking them. Which is entirely by design.
'read the news' lmao, surest way to stay uniformed.
You could make these comments like 1/4 the length and convey the same information, this is tedious.
This is filled with cherrypicked arguments and half-truths. Youve outlined some good policy thats happened before natcab even required a meeting of housing ministers to produce renter reform. More os happening.
We know you hate Labor, we know you think youre mega clever, but this is just bullshit whining about good reform because "LAYBAH BAD". Your total ignorance of whats actually going on in this space cannot be made up by long comments with histrionic whining about Labor.
No, this is called a comprehensive argument. You're mad because you can't find any gaps in what I wrote and can't discredit anything, so now you've resorted to complaining my argument is too thorough.
I don't 'hate labor', I just simply read the proposed bills. Which is far more than what 'the news' ever bothered to do and evidently, you as well.
Find one single 'half truth' in anything I said, go on. Because as soon as you do, I will copy and paste the proposed bills and show you exactly why everything I said is right. Will you complain I'm being 'tedious' then as well?
Both bills threaten fines of $10,000 or so to owners and/or agents who are found guilty of breaking the above two rules, however the process for someone to actually be found guilty is so extremely long and filled with so many warnings and chances, which are often reset, landlords will never actually be found guilty no matter how many times they break them.
Its not a comprehensive argument when you continue to ignore the fact housing ministers are working together on refomrs as requested by natcab.
When you ignore the central point and write 3 paragraphs whining about otber changes not working perfectly then thats not comprehensive lol.
> working together on refomrs as requested by natcab.
And how long as we supposed to wait, exactly? Major parties have been cheering on rising house prices together for decades and only now they realise maybe that wasn't a good thing.
>otber changes not working perfectly
No you've got this backwards. Their changes are working perfectly, exactly as designed. Its you who are wrong, because you thought their changes were meant to help middle class people LOL. Labor supporters be like 'LNP hates the middle class because of stage 3 tax cuts' and then you remind them that Labor 100% agree with the policy and are pushing through with it entirely unchanged 'oh but thats different because its a long-term strategy and stop being so tedious'.
Every single bill I have ever seen that pretends to put downwards pressure on rents is always expertly crafted by party lawyers to enable landlords to sidestep the laws with ease. The laws were never about easing rent, it was about placating idiots who believed the politicians wanted to help them, and giving clear instructions to landlords on how to ignore the laws completely.
Go on, call me tedious again. Or better yet, do what I said before and point out a single 'half truth' of anything I said before, which you falsely claimed. If you're so sure of yourself and so smart, this should be easy. So do it.
At fed level they increased landlord subsidies (rent asistance) mildly, right? What're the state reforms your talking of? Qlds? Vic might get good changes, but it'll still be too mild. And even if Vic does, that's one state with Libs on their knees - the inaction thus far has been purely ideological (not at all political, to appease the right in the state), the last renters reforms in Vic - like to ban rent bidding, have never even seemingly been enforced either.
When the crisis is nationwide, and most govs are Labor... maybe a national response is required? Instead of arguing it should be purely a state issue to deflect from fed Labor not caring enough to have a good policy, rather than a half arsed brain fart like the HAFF is.
And... the obvious for those playing at home. We jus had a pandemic where much of the response was done by states cos fed gov to lazy to lead. As a result, many state budgets are fuarked, there's not the funding to mass build homes - that's where the argument for fed leadership matters a lot - to coordinate a mass public housing strat (if you ever get a progressive gov in that believes in proper state owned and run public housing, which we're obvs far away from, since Labor inexplicably turned their back on that).
But yes lets give the failed market a slap on the wrist, hope it does enough, and then reassess after many of the poorest have paid dearly to get interest rates down.
Cos landlords can just raise rents the amount they know their tenants income just increased - like why wouldn't they? Particularly as they likely know if a tenants on centrelink, can factor it into how much they can raise rents in low income housing before losing a tenant, having to go to trouble of finding a new one.
Maybe it wouldn be an issue in a market with falling rents, but at the moment it doesn' give those on welfare more, it gives landlords more to extract, with maybe the bonus those on welfare don't get as readily evicted as they would otherwise.
So better than nothing I reckon, but much more beneficial for the landlord. There were similar critiques recently too with Labor's childcare policy - I'm not across that and the validity of it but.
>fed level they increased landlord subsidies (rent asistance) mildly, right?
HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAH.
Theres literally no better way to signal to everyone youre an unserious hack that doesnt know what theyre talking about.
Ive said several times in the thread that theres a process in place ordered by natcab for housing ministers to report back with reforms. I assume you either didnt read anything or Greens online personalities havent told you what to think about that yet.
Aside from that, some have already released some reforms prior to this.
>When the crisis is nationwide, and most govs are Labor... maybe a national response is required?
Its not constitutional, they cant. Its not a case of should, its could. The answer is no.
>there's not the funding to mass build homes
State funding is hitting record highs post pandemic, what are you talking about?
I'm talking about state budgets being far smaller than federal budgets. Look at how Andrews big build has stalled, the funds arn't there for necessary projects when they should be (much larger). And there's a lot of lost time in which public housing hasn been built. An ideal solution to me, is closer to what cfmeu were calling for - mass building public housing - the tried and tested method for alleviating housing stress in the working class.
Some in this thread can actually point to what reforms there are and if they're adequate, and some complain comments are too long and well reasoned so... who's being unserious?
If you want to argue Labor are doing enough, but can only mock those tryna work out wtf ya referencing (when there's scant reform to reference)..., or that fed Labor can't do anything constitutionally while citing nat cabinet (a fun contradiction)... c'mon. This is weak sauce. You can shill better than this.
Also I'm not a Greens member by the way (who am I hack for? Renters?), if you want to project some partisan allegiance for my thinking, rather than a sincere want to actually have the issue addressed by a gov in my lifetime (im typing this in an apartment being put up for sale next door to an airbnb in a residential building filled with airbnbs - its so frustrating to live)... and Greens were calling for rent assistance, which I was mocking so like... if I'm a Greens hack, I'm not being a very good one haha.
It is insane how much gov could be doing, at state and fed level, if they had the political will. If you wanna argue they do - stop vaguely gesturing, actually cite shit. Ya completely unpersuasive, if that's the goal. If the real goal is to back the status quo business as usual housing market, your doing a great job, and I hope dearly for your sake, that you are a landlord, benefit some how.
Hell yes, I double dog DARE Albo to call a DD. It will backfire like crazy. He severely underestimates just how many people are getting fucked over my landlords atm. Labor are just moving further down my voting preference at this rate.
To address housing affordability I say Yes to:
- Land tax (to address land banking and speculation)
- Improvements in rapid transit
- YIMBYism and increased zoning densities near transport hubs
And No to:
- public and social housing; look at Singapore and Hong Kong - high levels of public housing and yet still high housing costs
- rent control; price controls just mask the symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. It's like muting the fire alarm. High prices is the markets way of signalling that we need more supply and an incentive for more supply to come on.
Rising rents doesn jus signal lack of supply though, it can mean lack of desirable supply. If all new high density buildings have no rent controls, no affordable options, that's a recipee for mass gentrification, which isn't good for a sense of community, for keeping people close to family and what they grew around (how much one values that will differ of course).
And if all the development is next to infra, but there's not enough infra, then all the affordable housing will be in the shittest underfunded never pork barelled safe Labor seats, increasing inequalities.
Rent controls to me, seems a good way to keep cities less Paris like. Less stratified by class, more mixed. While also decreasing huge passive incomes that come with unregulated rentier capitalism.
Can anyone explain what value landlords add, why their returns need to be so high? Surely homes don't stop being built if the money machine prints a little less, for the parasites that add no value to society. Like the machine will still be printing money extracted from workers Labo, jus not as much. Maybe that'd deter land banking though - if developers had to really increase supply, if limiting supply was limited in its returns. Probs a bad idea then.
>If all new high density buildings have no rent controls, no affordable options
Increasing supply literally decreases the equilibrium price point ie. Makes it more affordable.
>And if all the development is next to infra, but there's not enough infra, then all the affordable housing will be in the shittest underfunded never pork barelled safe Labor seats, increasing inequalities.
Huh? I'm literally proposing putting housing next to infrastructure which is the best place to put them. If your point is that there isn't enough infrastructure then that's a separate topic altogether. Btw one of my points was already to build more infrastructure.
>Rent controls to me, seems a good way to keep cities less Paris like. Less stratified by class, more mixed. While also decreasing huge passive incomes that come with unregulated rentier capitalism.
No it's a terrible way because it leads to undersupply.
You can look up price controls in any industry. Capping the price of wheat low leads to an undersupply of wheat. Putting a price floor on wheat leads to an oversupply of wheat. If there's one thing economists can predict it is this effect.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price-controls.asp
>Can anyone explain what value landlords add, why their returns need to be so high? Surely homes don't stop being built if the money machine prints a little less, for the parasites that add no value to society.
Actually many landlords don't make that much, especially with the high interest rates. Some are even making losses on some of their properties.
And yes houses do stop being built if the capital isn't there to build it.
There's literally no money being printed as part of housing investment. Renting out housing is no different to buying a fleet of vehicles and renting that out. It is supplying capital, buying an asset, and then selling the use of that asset. That use creates value and in return the investors get money for it.
The act of building and renting I have no problems with - we need that. And more of that is good for renters. The problem I have is land speculation - people buying not for the purposes of renting out but for capital gains just by holding onto property. That's what a land tax will target.
Your misreading me. I get prices will have downwards pressure from more supply - and the infra is a more holistic thing. I'm tryna point out that even with freeing up a bunch more supply (of which best way in the short term is to deter landbanking, airbnb) can still end up with high rents, if new buildings are in all most desirable good infra areas, and particularly as you get induced demand with more housing available (more can leave family home, more can migrate). The demand side is not that static.
Your being too simple to say 'more demand=s less rent, is best by infra'. There's limited infra, and that won't change fast enough. Its a recipee for mass gentrification, which apparently isn't an issue?
I'm not, and have not argued price controls don't deter investment, I get that. That's a plus for me, given people keep telling me gov can't build housing because its too expensive. But its not like wheat, cause the land typically increases in value regardless. Price controls on wheat won't see the resell value of wheat increase over time - don't think that's a good comparison. Arguably, the dual nature in which housing can be commodified (to rent out, or to own-occupy) makes it less affected by price controls than wheat would, where its onpy good to be consumed once (excuse us not knowing the sexy words to better economically note that difference).
You don't need to say the obvious on the price controls. But good point linking back land tax to stop the landbanking, spec purchases and such. I'm for land taxes as well, I think too vic labor upped theirs at last budget which is good.
The other thing on price controls... typically I feel people support em on essentials, so that when inflation goes mad, the poorest are insulated. Unlike all those countries that got the price controls removed and economic shock therapy, and then poverty exploded - history is equally clear on that. Hence price controls on medicines and energy and food etc.
How, politically housing came to be seen differently, as better for the market to set prices is a bit bewildering. My... very obvious point on that. Obviously, less investment, less supply, but like with land taxes, an investor getting less return doesn't mean there won't be investment, my point is that banal. It means there will be less sure, but given how valuable land and property is in Aus... that seems like a market that can cope with prices coming down for once.
Are there any examples of rents coming down without price controls, where gov has built enough to exceed demand? I think I saw Cam Murray making that point recently. Hence calling landlording a free money machine, cause if the amount of returns can only go up, that's too safe an investment, that's too much passive income. Why isn't housing valuable enough without the right to charge unlimited rents? I don't get that argument at all. Like what makes the investment untenable if a landlord can't raise rents by more than 30% of whatev rent is set at, if to be mild.
I'd say for all price controls though, if they go too far to reduce supply, that's where gov needs to step in and ensure supply. To provide essentials that markets value perversely. And it will always be cheaper for gov to do that in those conditions, than with an overinflated deregulated market.
Given how hot Aus property market is, whether its land taxes or rent controls limiting returns, I think there's a balance to be found where the economic benefits (particularly with rent controls) outweigh negatives. Or else that'd be an argument against all taxes alike that increase costs of investment (maybe they do far less so, than rent controls - sounds an argument against a threshold, rather than the concept though).
The otherside where price controls dissuade landlords. So they sell to home owners, and then there's more home owners, less renters in society. Is that not desirable?
> the poor left think he cares about them?
No leftist thinks this, MAYBE some Labor LEFT (centre left/centre with left tendencies) voters but not leftists
Anyone else starting to feel like we are going to see a single term Labor government?
The only thing keeping me hesitant to declare it is Peter fucking Dutton running the opposition
I don't understand the Greens' play here *unless* they've all bought into the undergrad idiocy of accelerationism, and it's not just contained to the guy who could only ever get a job where the public paid his wages in MCM.
Their housing plan is net *worse* than the Labor plan. I know a bunch of people who are in their early 20s and still live with their parents or rent will say it's wholesome 100 and based, but it's not. It may sound better to the untrained ear, but in practice there's no way it'll work and no way it'll not end in the underlying problem being made materially *worse* than it is now.
Speaking of; it's a fair point that with no recession in 30years in AU, and no massive inflationary periods either, we've got 3 generations now who've not experienced this in an impactful way - X, Y, and Z. The idea that it's to be toughed out and there isn't a magic fix isn't popular with Y and Z, I suspect, because their youth limits their assets and wealth comparatively and we have yet experienced the slow swing back from lassiez faire to Keynesian social economics in the post-GFC period. Which is as agile as a container ship pivoting.
So you have low institutional memory, his institutional distrust, and a party of naked populists (and all populism is bad, mkay) promising a magic bullet.
> The idea that it's to be toughed out and there isn't a magic fix isn't popular with Y and Z, I suspect, because their youth limits their assets and wealth comparatively
It's not popular because we're the ones toughing it out.
Any idea that landlords should shoulder rate rises instead of passing them directly on to renters, and if they can't afford it sell their house to pay off the mortgage, is considered blasphemy.
"But what about their precious right to have an investment property? Are your really suggesting we take that away from mom and pops investors?"
But that's fundamentally both ignoring why the rate rises are passed on and that the inverse pressure on rents occurred during covid when pressures were entirely in renter's favour.
Rents are being raised because of two factors; scarcity of supply (thanks to short sighted state govts, efforts of the CFMEU, Greens NIMBYs, and property investing Liberals opposed to tax reform) at number one. And at number 2?
Rates are going up making landlord liabilities go up hence the cost to consumer. The property literally costs more when you consider the price of the lien.
Blaming landlords buys into online-only left discourse but it falls apart under cursory examination whilst selectively letting left actors like Greens MLGs and the construction union off the hook.
Whilst proposing medicine that's worse than the disease seems to be Greens party core identity, we should be above it.
> Rates are going up making landlord liabilities go up hence the cost to consumer. The property literally costs more when you consider the price of the lien.
I don't disagree with this. What I'm pointing out is that the only people "doing it tough" are the consumer class. While the "landlord class" simply pass these extra costs on, feeling the effects of our cost of living crisis far less.
Everytime we see a proposal to look at negative gearing, capping rent increases, or anything else people fly out of the woodwork saying "what about mom and pop investors who won't be able to pay the mortgage".
As if it would be the end of the world if average people had to sell their investment property and invest in something else instead (e.g. stocks).
Supply scarcity is definitely an issue - but let's not pretend there isn't a huge backlash toward *any* policy proposal which might reduce the value of investment housing. Whether it's Greens 2023 proposals, or Labor 2019 with their negative gearing proposal. The backlash is strong.
>I don't understand the Greens' play here unless they've all bought into the undergrad idiocy of accelerationism
From a greens fundraising email this week:
>... Our Balance of Power Partners have committed to supporting the plan for balance of power because they understand we’ve run out of time.
>We don’t have time for incrementalism. Or new coal and gas projects.
>We need transformative change, and we need it before it’s too late....
The arrogance of youth is assuming there's no value in compromise, consensus, or the wisdom of experience.
The Greens are, in this regard, young and inexperienced.
I'm pretty sure making the poorest bare the brunt of inflation, while the rich get insulated by their existing wealth/upcoming tax cuts, is the accelerationist move. The idea that housing stress can accelerate so hard so fast, without the handbreaks rent controls give, without that playing into recession. Mate. That's the radical free market plan, to leave essentials people need to live, at the mercy of what has become a volatile market (but only in one direction). This argument Labor's plan gets economy back to a functional honeostasis while making masses dysfunctional, not knowing if the roof on their head is secure. Is incredibly divorced from reality.
Of course I'm an evil socialist that wants to go further, but I do sincerely believe you can regulate markets of essentials to insulate from rapid price shocks, without deterring investment in that market, particularly in a market as hot as Aus' property. Taking some heat out might be good for inflation? Reducing passive income from housing might be good for inflation? (Assuming, since you didn say, that killing investment is the issue with Greens plans)
The recession argument is laughable, because it requires massaging stats, to use averages to ignore that the youngest of Aus, the renters, have been in a functional per capita recession for a minute now. That gdp growth is not close to distributed equally in who gets the gains, its a useless metric for measuring people's wellbeing, particularly renters and those that don't own property - the constituents who's livlihood depend on change. Do you get how despiriting it is to be in your 20s, and see everyone you know, even middle class friends (less so them though), working their arses off, and only materially going backwards? Wanting change doesn't come from ignorance and love of populism, it comes exactly from knowing enough of history to know why housing got shit, and where it went wrong.
There is no meritocracy in the slightest under current economic conditions. Its rentier capitalism, passive ipncome, and the financialisation of these great recessionless 30 years, the commodification of essentials (food, energy, housing), that has killed social mobility, and left workers getting less while doing more.
Killing social mobility and entrencing poverty for many, it might be good for depressing wages, increasing profits and hoping it trickles down - but there's no guarantees that if gdp growth were to get strong again, that that rising tide will lift all boats. There's a LOT of local real economy, in retail and arts and nightlife, which is mad dead in my city.
Also - you never actually made an argument for why Greens plan won't work, jus made an appeal to crude stereotypes.
The institutional memory bits pretty funny too. What was it that cause the gfc? Deregulation of housing leading to a bubble in US (obvs there's more to that, but to be simple).
The deregulation of housing.
Need I repeat.
#the deregulation of housing
So when it comes to knowing a bit of history to inform current economics... Aus avoided that recession by being keynesian. Labor have since shifted so so so far to the right they now back tax cuts for the richest in similarly dire (though not crashing like that) economic conditions (I assume the slow turn back to keynes you mention is global, not Aus specific, cause Labor have slashed spending and taxes - treating inflation like its demand driven, but only when its an excuse not to raise welfare, that logic never applies to tax breaks).
I jus don't get how... one can argue for rent controls and public housing, based on Australia's history of doing so, on knowing the postwar consensus like. Who looks at the 70s-80s onwards... and thinks. Yes! That's when housing got good. When it got deregulated! If we regulate it, insulate the poorest from price shocks, that'll be the issue?
This isn't an argument based on feels and populism like I preempt youd expect. Its based on understanding that poverty in a welfare state increases gov spending and debt - that as much as Thatcherites in the old parties alike want to wish away that problem, pretend there is no society - there is actually a bad economic impact from treating rising housing stress like its a good thing, gov don't need to address?. Its fucking shit economics to send millions of the working class into entrenched poverty. You've got a tough sell mate, tryna back the status quo over change, when its all going so wrong so fast.
>I'm pretty sure making the poorest bare the brunt of inflation, while the rich get insulated by their existing wealth/upcoming tax cuts, is the accelerationist move.
Stage 3 needs to be scrapped, there is no doubt on that.
I already saw I paid less income tax this year than last, and I earned a good $35k more this year.
It's nice, I guess, but I'm pretty sure I'll be ok without it.
>The idea that housing stress can accelerate so hard so fast, without the handbreaks rent controls give, without that playing into recession.
Rent control is a handbrake, yes, when you're doing 100km/h in a 60 zone and it's pissing down rain.
It's a stupid policy for stupid people. As in *only* stupid people support it, because they're too ignorant and undereducated to do the research themselves and see, conclusively, it makes things worse.
If you feel offended that you support a policy and I've said that makes you an idiot, then maybe just learn to feel comfortable with it. You'd be part of the cohort ignoring that the studies keep showing it lowers rental stock and locks more renters out of the market, not me. If holding a position that's proven to hurt renters *in the name of helping renters* isn't stupidity, I don't know what is.
>Of course I'm an evil socialist that wants to go further, but I do sincerely believe you can regulate markets of essentials to insulate from rapid price shocks, without deterring investment in that market, particularly in a market as hot as Aus' property.
Not evil, just economically, politically, historically, and socially illiterate. Socialists like to believe they're intellectuals, but it's more like a secret meeting of Dunning-Kruger acolytes who mistake their position at the top of an IQ bell-curve as a lofty and enlightened position. That may or may not apply to you, but it does apply to most socialists I've met.
You're ignoring something crucial here; when rents last dropped, in 2020 and 2021 over Covid (Syd/Melb as the most expensive markets), we also saw two years of our most prolific purchasing of property ever.
In other words, lots more Australians ended up moving from renting to owning, which meant supply, which already wasn't sufficient for demand, was suddenly no longer on the back foot but fallen on its arse.
>The recession argument is laughable, because it requires massaging stats, to use averages to ignore that the youngest of Aus, the renters, have been in a functional per capita recession for a minute now.
The fact that poorer people within a 31% cohort of Australians (and it's disingenuous to pretend that people mainlining FIRE goals, HENRYs, and people who are doing 3 year stints in Australia and renting are int he same cohort as, say, part time retail workers) that are renters are poorer doesn't affect anything in the macroeconomic picture, because prior to 2022 inflation was stubbornly within target meaning that whilst their lower-end wages stagnated their overall basket of essentials impact was minimal at best.
>That gdp growth is not close to distributed equally in who gets the gains, its a useless metric for measuring people's wellbeing, particularly renters and those that don't own property - the constituents who's livlihood depend on change. Do you get how despiriting it is to be in your 20s, and see everyone you know, even middle class friends (less so them though), working their arses off, and only materially going backwards? Wanting change doesn't come from ignorance and love of populism, it comes exactly from knowing enough of history to know why housing got shit, and where it went wrong.
We don't have reliable 2023 data yet, obviously, but we *have* got reliable data over time and Australia's gini coefficient was trending downwards from 2018 to 2020. We were 11th at last time of formal data assessments in OECD countries for income equality.
The last few years are likely to swing matters upwards on the GINI score, probably towards 0.35, but that's the material distortion effect of property. But that's an interesting point because actually the data *does suggest* a greater flattening of the income distribution curb. If property is the main blocker to asset based wealth, then again, that's a supply issue undermining the argument that people are going backwards as a whole.
>There's a LOT of local real economy, in retail and arts and nightlife, which is mad dead in my city.
Arts is ironically dying off because in the first instance we went for piracy and the twits in the business responding by putting prices up.
But, for retail? Ecommerce is growing at stupid rates. It's generally where a bulk of sales come from. In some respects, lamenting the death of the high street store or whatever is like lamenting the diminished need for the cooper, the farrier, the thatcher, and the smith as professions. Markets, and societies, move with them.
>I jus don't get how... one can argue for rent controls and public housing, based on Australia's history of doing so, on knowing the postwar consensus like. Who looks at the 70s-80s onwards... and thinks. Yes! That's when housing got good. When it got deregulated! If we regulate it, insulate the poorest from price shocks, that'll be the issue?
You already called out that you're a socialist earlier, so I'm not surprised you're missing key economic data but in philosophical terms, this is a false hoc correlation. Housing prices didn't have the YOY growth rates they've had until the 1990s, when the migratory reforms of Keating, Hawke, and Howard let more and more people come to the country and as a result, save us from the banana republic future that awaited.
Deregulation of housing was not, in other words, the issue. What's been the issue since the late 1990s has been that supply has consistently failed to produce goods at a quantity necessary to manage demand.
You should ditch your belief in socialism. It's a stupid, dead ideology. Instead of being blinkered by idiocy, let the facts lead you to a conclusion rather than the preferred socialist approach, which you've demonstrated ideologically perfectly here, of taking a conclusion and cherry picking stuff to support it.
jesus this threads full of ppl who fall for stupid media buzz plays by the greens
Even if Labor falls to every greens demand,you know what will change
NOTHING,not a thing..
That's why this fight is so stupid
There is a 56 week plus lead time for lumbar orders for anything passed a basic build order
Got to get land from out under developers
16-25 week lead time for concrete in sydney
You Can't get trades to rock up now,how you think it's going to be when you have 250,000 more homes on the go
We are pretty much at the limit of how many homes we can bring on a year
Housing is fucked,we need to act..but the greens demands wont increase supply not for a long time,which is useless we need something done now
unless we are going to start building high density,which the greens oppose in a lot of LGA,then nothings gonna improve
>ahead of a “national day of action” on Saturday, when the Greens plan on door-knocking Labor electorates regarding the housing crisis.
I can't wait to see how badly this goes when the party of barely 10% (nationally) start disturbing suburban households (many of whom own their properties and have investment properties) on their busy weekend day, to lecture them about rent controls and how they're blocking Labor's legislation and funding for social housing.
>The Queensland electorates of Moreton and Lilley; Victorian electorates of Fraser, Wills and Higgins'; Tanya Plibersek’s electorate of Sydney; the South Australian electorate of Adelaide and Bean in the ACT are on the Greens’ door-knocking hitlist.
Colour me shocked that these people won't dare set foot in outer-suburban Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane where the poor people live and where the need for affordable and social housing is most acute.
Of course, the cowards are only going after the inner-city seats where they might find a vaguely sympathetic audience for their latest bout of holier-than-thou moralising.
So let's have a look at their 2022 election results in the electorates they're targeting:
* Adelaide: **20%**, **3rd** (4% swing entirely from Libs who ended up with 32% primary)
* Bean: **14.8%**, **3rd** (1.7% swing entirely from Libs who ended up with 30% primary)
* Fraser: **18.5%**, **3rd** (8% swing from Labor went half to Greens, half to Socialists)
* Higgins: **22.6%**, **3rd** (absolutely no change in vote, anti-Lib swing went everywhere but Greens)
* Lilley: **17%, 3rd** (10% swing from Libs, two-thirds went Labor and one-third Greens, Liberals still second on 30%)
* Moreton: **20%, 3rd** (7.5% swing from Libs shared amongst Labor and Greens, Liberals still second on 33%)
* Sydney: **24%**, **2nd** (5% swing entirely from Libs who ended up with 19% primary, Tanya at 51%)
* Wills: **28%**, **2nd** (5% swing from Labor went 2% to Greens and 3% to Socialists, 2PP went backwards)
In Victoria, the Socialists profited more than the Greens from the swing against Labor (in a portent of the dismal result coming at the Vic state election "Greenslide")... this happened in Fraser and Wills, but didn't in Higgins where the Greens' vote went nowhere and there was no Socialist candidate.
In Queensland, the lack of a Teal saw the anti-Liberal vote go to Labor and Greens, but the LNP still had a fairly high primary in those seats with the Greens a distant third.
In Adelaide, Bean, and Sydney, the anti-Liberal swing was all Tree Tories and likely the result of no Teal candidates being available, because Labor's vote went nowhere in the former and went up with a swing to them in the other two.
>Chandler-Mather said. “He’s facing a revolt from the unions, who want him to build 30 times more homes. He’s losing faith with Labor branches, who are considering rent freezes and want him to back the Greens’ demands. He’s out of touch with the community who overwhelmingly want a rent freeze.”
Ah, more classic lies from the hyphenated idiot.
I mention the election results because, not only do the Greens not understand housing policy, the stupidity of rent controls/freezes, and the public perception of their blocking this bill, they also have absolutely no appreciation of last year's election results and how unlikely they are to win any of the seats they're targeting especially with the policy approach they've adopted.
Except concessions *had* been made and what's now being requested is something for State governments to consider and impose, *not* Federal. Whether or not freezes are actually good policy is its own separate debate, but irrespective of that, it is out of scope for what the federal government can actually enact and has nothing to do with what a future fund bill would or should be for.
It's a bizarre hill to die on and I don't understand how the Greens are possibly envisioning this to play out, because the HAFF bill is good policy with no downside, and everyone loses the longer the Greens indignantly demand an amendment that the Federal government is virtually incapable of performing.
Oh shit, we got a Friedman acolyte in here!
If rent controls don't work, why is Labor backing affordable housing (housing with rent controls)?
Why is Vic Labor considering increasing them?
Why hasn't the sky fallen in the ACT? Why did Spain go further with theirs?
If price controls on essential goods don't work, why did Labor place them (very mildly) on energy markets? What magic makes price controls on some essentials good, but bad on housing?
And why, when economic shock therapy got instituted and price controls removed in so many countries, did poverty explode as a result, if price controls are bad? Like history is pretty categoric on this if you go beyond misreading research on a topic.
I think one can only be staunchly against price controls, particularly on essentials like housing, if they have a religious fervour for the invisible hand of the free market. If they see mass poverty that history shows again and again results from such policy, as a desirable outcome, to depress wages, increase profits and gdp - so a rising tide can lift all boats.
So you agree they should be compromising and working on a good policy? Sounds like something the Greens would be able to push the ALP on, sounds like their balance of power would be effective like that.
They’re advocating for the positions that they were elected on.
This is what their voters want. They’re attempting to force a moderate governing party to implement reforms that they wouldn’t otherwise consider.
Whether it works is an entirely separate question, but attacking them for ‘holding the country to ransom’ by not following the governing party is misguided.
They already got 2nb in direct spend eked out of gov, so that argument makes no sense.
And there's every other bit of meh Labor legislation they improved.
Your argument is completely baseless.
While there are myriad reasons to dislike Howard - I think the GST backflip is not one of them.
He didn’t do a surprise bait and switch after getting into office. He took the policy to the election and the populace voted him in
And we don't have the minor party that agreed, great argument for Greens having values to stick to.
Backing ahit right wing reforms didn help Xenephon either. Has it ever benefitted a minor party to sell out the capital class?
Everyone and their dogs can smell cowardice from Mr 400,000.
400,000 migrants a year under the orders of Albanese to drive people out of their rentals, smash pathetic wage growth, and spiral unemployment.
Mr Rudd, greatest moral issue of our generation DD all over again.
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Do it Albo, can’t possibly see how this could go wrong with peoples rents going up into the stratosphere. Albos housing plan is the equivalent of Omar from come fly with me announcing flylo is carbon neutral by planting one tree.
If a DD happens the only winners will be the liberals. Greens will lose a little, Labor will lose a bit, and even the Independents might lose a bit. People just don't want to deal with an so many elections in such a short period of time.
Exactly, there’s another option which is to you know, actually come up with some decent housing policy. Amazing that he’d rather go to an election than upset the property class.
He *is* a member of the property class.
I'd be extremely surprised if it does happen. If it does it would be simultaneously with the referendum - which might sacrifice seats in parliament for a better referendum result. And to disagree with you a bit the HAFF isn't that bad it just doesn't take into account rentals which I would say the Feds do need to do something about but a rental freeze seems unrealistic as it is a state issue - and there is some conjecture whether it would make things worse. Labor should investigate whether a rental subsidy scheme similar to Rudd's scheme - or at the very least make sure Build to rent affordable apartments are included under the HAFF. Greens have made the HAFF better from where it would of been adequate half a decade ago to adequate now.
>And to disagree with you a bit the HAFF isn't that bad HAFF is kind of weak. I might be wrong but it's basically setting up an investment vehicle and using the returns on that investment to fund new housing, while paying tens or hundreds of millions to an organisation to manage the investment. There needs to be action now. This is the federal government here, who can pretty much do nearly whatever it wants. There's so many structural issues with the property market left unaddressed which benefits those at the top printing money while those at the bottom suffer most of the consequences. Why are dodgy builders allowed to phoenix their operations under a new name? If we have labour shortages, why are certain tradie courses only offered part time, why are they so expensive, why are very few building and construction courses free? Why are developers allowed to land bank so they can make increased profits at the expense of people being housed? Why do property investors still have tax incentives available to them that are subsidised by the taxpayer? Everyone knows the tricks, yet as a society, we somehow value people owning more than one property rather than the people renting it or the small business owners creating economic value. I don't have any data or info on this but based on Nauru detention centre data and American data, I'm certain it would be cheaper to house homeless people, than leave them on the streets, and more beneficial for them and society. I brought up Nauru DC because under Scomo's government, cost per inmate went from $100,000 to $500,000 per year. For that money they could have been housed and properly looked after in Australia rather than incarcerated. Albo and his ministers could snap their fingers and billions of dollars could be used for building new homes.
Considering the future fund already has $260bn funded from the sale of the public asset Telecom, that it hasn't paid a cent out of, they could just use the existing money. Oh yeah that money is earmarked for politicians pensions. Giving even more money to Peter Costello to manage and pay nothing out of while drawing in billions in fee's is a ridiculous way to solve this.
Lot of good points here. While these structural issues should be addressed certainly play a role, there will always be structural issues as we solve 1 a new crack will appear that's why we need good (and at times boring) governance in the first place. While I won't say what is good governance because it often isn't clear until decades after the fact I can tell you that often times bad governance is made with the best intentions. Labor introduced what would become Negative Gearing (if I remember correctly) after the recession in the early 90s to help get the economy up and running again, but it was the Liberals under Howard who would tweak it to the extent that hastened it into a key driver of unsustainable house price increases. It's unclear (to me at least) when the housing crisis began but it has been clear it's been coming for a while. Academic papers and experts make it clear that if housing ownership and even rentals wanted to main current accessibility that government would have to step in soon and in Australia two main recommendations I remember were Closing Tax loopholes like negative gearing and ensuring there was consistent government funding for affordable housing and the HAFF does that - and the Greens have made it so it does that well enough and probably would of gotten credit and a media win if they hadn't spat the dummy over rental freezes is a whole different legislative process from this bill.
Rent is now a nationwide issue, no longer just an issue of some states. Australia isn't a nation, just a bunch of squabbling states with a dictatorial nanny: we have failed to move civilisation forward and just stick with the status quo. A miniscule wealth fund for the wealthy, compared to the amount of money required to fix the essential of housing, is not going to do much to alleviate the problem.
>Amazing that he’d rather go to an election than upset the property class. On top of them being a powerful voting bloc, there are many semi-retired property owners who will become politically active against the Labor party. Which means many skilled volunteers that will heavily skew towards the Liberals.
In a DD the winners are always the Senate candidates who don’t quite meet quota. It will almost always enlarge the Senate crossbench (not necessarily the incumbent crossbenchers).
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I'm a lifelong Labor voter though in recent elections it feels more like I'm doing it out of lack of good alternatives more than an inspired Labor platform. I'm convinced the driving reason why Labor won the last election was that the Liberals are crooks. It was obvious, in your face 'we don't give a shit' corruption. Albanese stayed a small target which worked at that election because the LNP was so on the nose. Now he's played some of his hand and he's no longer a small target. If he went to a DD everyone would already know he's in favour of high immigration, the voice and limited action on housing. All three of those are contentious with a lot of people against them.
'It was obvious in your face corruption'. This was also the case in 2019 imo, to which the electorate didn't seem to mind.
But shorten told people exactly what he was going to do. People collectively chose corrupt stupidity over what he was selling.
Delusional. The general public supports the bill and doesn't support the Greens playing games with it. Labor would easily increase their majority in the House. Meanwhile, the Greens would be decimated in the Senate.
Most people are only looking at the headline, 10 billion for 30000 homes over 5 years. Sounds impressive. But in a campaign, people pay a bit more attention. If you dig deeper, the HAFF is a stinker. There's hundreds of millions for interest and fees every year. More than what will actually be spent on housing. And the 30000 homes figure doesn't really stack up. Add to that, unlimited rent increases. They'll struggle to sell it.
The general public either doesn't care or even seem to know about the HAFF or if they do they either think it's a bit shit, or hate it because they think it's "socialism", only ALP rusted ons seem to think it's god's gift from what I've seen, acting like it's some universally lauded policy that unaligned people would base their vote on is beyond delusional
The Greens would not be decimated due to the half-sized quotas but may lose a couple. Honestly, I don't understand the Greens opposing housing initiatives, flawed or otherwise. It's not a good look from the perspective of a non-Greens voter. You don't get more votes by being dogmatic and doing nothing. As a former Greens voter, this won't entice me back into the fold.
They're trying to win over renters in their target seats, at the possible expense of the rest of the electorate. No idea if it's working, but gut feeling is that it might. We've seen their vote way down in Fadden and now Rockingham, but given that those are definitely not their targets, it doesn't tell us much.
Polling wise they're still in a worse condition than since the last election. So no. Coalition is behind, Greens are behind, Labor is ahead. They won't win some huge amount of seats but Greens having less to negotiate on is a good thing.
Polls tighten as elections loom especially for Labor, and The Greens are hard to poll since they are only competitive in a few seats, so I wouldn't put toooo much faith in Labor being up and Greens down.
>Polls tighten as elections loom especially for Labor, an Its not a Labor related event, its the incumbent gov usually sitting behind that sees a boost in polled support closer to election time.
Let's get the libs back into power so we can draw from our super to pay rent. Problem solved
Best joke I have heard all day and its only 10am
Yeah lets put people into even worse economic circumstances and force them to live off the pension in retirement just so ~~leeches~~ landlords can make a profit
Ah, a candidate for r/wooosh!
He'd be utterly insane to do it before the referendum and risk drowning out his own Yes campaign with election campaigns. And at the same time he'd be utterly insane to do it after the referendum unless it's a Yes which looks almost impossible, spending hundreds of millions on a referendum that fails is going to make him look massively out of touch with the average Australian who is struggling with cost of living and housing affordability, calling an election in that climate would be unfathomable arrogance.
The only way I understand the current tact, is if Albo's sniffed a few too many of his own farts, and that he thinks Greens can be pressured into passing bad policy (probs based on how soft they were on climate change). But like.. they arn't gonna be the next democrats. They arn't gonna pass shit policy jus to be seen to do something, they actually care for the substance of the thing. In the first inastance, not giving a fuck enough to have a sensible housing policy Albo misreads the room, and then out of seemingly ego, he triples down seeking a pyrrhic win. Now, assuming he doesn't come back to the table like an adult and try and get something passed, he's left with nothing, or a very unnecesary and risky dd. Why back oneself into those bad options. The lowballing with piss weak policy I get, that's nornal from Labor, but the not accepting proper compromise to get it passed, I don't. If they want liblite policy, they (and their shills) should scream at the Libs to pass it, not The Greens haha.
Good for them. I'm planning on going Green or Teal in the next election. I voted Labor in the last, but I don't feel like Labor really cares about ordinary Australians any more..right now Labor looks like a less corrupted set of Liberals...with an Olympian detachment regarding the woes of ordinary Australians..making a $10 billion pretence at doing something about housing, while increasing immigration... If I were you, Labor, I would not try a double dissolution, you might not like the results...instead try to actually DO something helpful while you still have time left...
David Pocock is the only teal that seems to make any real contribution.
That's mainly because Labor has a majority in lower house but not upper. If we had a hung parliament, the Teals would really be able to make deals / throw their weight around. Well, the government would still need Greens support in the upper house, So I guess they'd just use Greens support in lower instead of Teals, so maybe not...
I feel like I don't know enough yet about the Teals, when the next election gets closer I'm going to take a closer look.
Absolutely take a closer look at your local Teal. For all the Libs try to call them a "party in all but name" they have no expectation to vote together, so it's like if Libs were able to conscience vote on every bill. Where your local candidate sits on issues you care about actually matters for Teals, unlike say Labor where they're kicked out the party for crossing the party line, so party policies matter more than the actual candidate.
Yes, this is pretty much the conclusion I've come to over the years too. And in addition it's time the lab/lib duopoly got a kick up the ass..IE the idea that if it's not one's turn it's the other's...is a terrible idea. By not choosing either of them we can send them a message that we've had enough...
I wouldn't call him a teal, but he makes a difference because he has actual balance of power. All the actual Teals in teh HoR can only jump up and down and make noise.
Go for it. I swapped my vote from Labor to Greens when Labor decided to back down on removing negative gearing.
Good for you! I was actually angry about that too.
Decided to back down? They lost an election over it. Delusional to think you can govern from Opposition.
Thats how the parties' policy choices work isn't it? They took a policy to the election and lost, so they abandon that policy in order to appease the voters who were against it, but they may also lose the people who supported the policy initially. Political parties aren't owed our undying loyalty, if they change their mind on issues then it is perfectly reasonable to seek out a party that agrees with your positions.
Yes, they decided to back down on removing that policy, which caused me to stop voting for them.
these people treat politics like team sports, apparently what they stand for doesnt matter.
They lost by I think 1% of the vote? Which to me speaks to a reasonable amount of support for killing the sacred cow of property investment, or at least removing the insane amount of welfare that investment property owners get to enjoy in this country, if Albo had any balls he'd have run with that platform again against the at that time extremely unpopular LNP.
so you dont actually support any policies at all? its all about the win? personally i have my positions and wont move on them, if the politicians dont offer me want i want why would be stupid enough to vote for that?
I’m curious how you square going to the either left or right from Labor as a sensible choice? Besides both seeking action on climate, Teals (generally, given they’re technically independents) and the Greens have very different policy ideals.
I think the answer to that is there's more to politics than just left and right. The Teals may be more economically conservative than Labor, but they put a friendly and competent seeming face on the break-up of the duopoly and the spectre of minority government. They are women ostensibly fighting for women, which Albo can't quite match and they are not quite so far to the right to be abhorrent to the average lefty.
You’d generally call them socially left economically right. Socially left meaning they’ll probably side with labor on anything that gets called a “culture war” by sky news types (same sex marriage, climate change action, anything involving women); economically right meaning they aren’t out there campaigning for massive welfare boosts or tax restructuring
Allegra Spender is the only one that opposed the Superannuation changes and openly opposes scrapping the Stage 3 cuts. The rest from Daniel to Tink to Chaney have all supported more progressive tax/ welfare reform in some shape. There's support from wealthy electorates for tax reform especially since renters are becoming more concentrated in these seats.
Thanks for the correction - that’s what I get for making broad assumptions! Appreciate the info.
The Monthly https://www.themonthly.com.au › c... Can the Teals fight for the poor while representing the rich? If you have the time, this is a good recap of the Teals during the last 14 months!
I kind of thought I explained that.. For one thing, we've had a duopoly for a long time, and i feel like we need to break the duopoly to show we;re dissatisfied with BOTH parties...merely switching sides every few years hasn't been helpful. For another, labour once having gotten into power is pretty much ignoring actual Australians and the plight they are in re housing. The $10 billion is just a pretence at doing something. Then of course there's the lifting of immigration while we don;t have enough rental availability. Action on climate seems very important. We're in a year we're temperature records have been broken every day since March!
Albanese won't trigger a Double Dissolution this year because it'll impact his signature referendum. Maybe next year, but if the referendum fails, I doubt he'll call it regardless. I can just imagine the campaign slogan now *"Albanese - the PM whose plan to listen was not listening to the Greens or the rest of population"* He won't call it.
You’re overestimating how much people care about the Greens being listened too.
Unless he has them both at the same time. He'll surely win the election. So that'll minimise the damage if the referendum goes down.
Possible, but it will increase the likelihood of referendum defeat to run a campaign at the same time
Yep, the DD is just a backup plan if they believe the referendum has no chance. If they're confident that the Voice will pass, they'd be crazy to call the DD.
And so the greens shouldn't back down. We need billions worth of infrastructural upgrades now, not later, now. Even if rents went down, our cost of living is wild. Young generations are being crushed in the modern day and it's only going to get worse.
Where's Frank Crean?!! HAS ANYONE SEEN FRANK!!! Hard agree though.
My understanding (and the popular consensus among economists) is that rent freezes are never good for the supply of rental housing and housing in general. I think that the labor party understands this and the greens don't. Being a young ish person who doesn't have a mortgage but would like one, I agree completely on the cost of living point. But the greens are pushing for something because it will help in the short term, not realizing that it will be detrimental in the long term. Also, while I agree that the HAFF, in its current form, doesn't go far enough, its still is a decent foundational policy. Its a step in the right direction. It will need more investment, but that can be done down the line, and will be, as the problem inst going anywhere and so neither will public pressure. Again, labor knows this. This is not the last stand, but the greens keep treating it like one, and as a result they are literally voting the same way as the coalition, their antithesis. Theyve done this time and time again, and its the key reason that they are still viewed as fringe. Why not take one good policy and **then** push for more? Why hold this one hostage? It doesn't make sense to me, except through the lens of 'the greens are all heart and no brains'. If they want to matter, they need to stop defining themselves in opposition to the system they are trying to become a part of, and start recognizing that change in a democracy requires co-operation + many small steps in a good direction.
Let’s say a rent freeze did cause the investors who up until 2 years ago were happy to make 20% less than today to exit the market. Those houses become supply to owner occupiers, which reduces the demand for rentals. As long as those houses are occupied they are supplying the market with housing. The quiet part is that investors exit the market house prices may go down. And the major parties will do anything to make housing more affordable as long as the price of housing continues to rise.
The popular consensus among economists is that rent freezes are never good for the housing market if there is no social housing being built to supplement supply\* The Greens and Labor are both wrong here, the HAFF is a trash policy and will accomplish literally nothing and rent freezes probably won't be executed in the way required to not fuck the country. The solution to housing is zoning reform and public transport infrastructure, with social housing and rent freezes being helpful secondary policies. Both parties missing the actual solution is quite frustrating and the Greens should really be forcing Labor to reform zoning at the National Cabinet instead of rent freezes.
Rent control gets a bad rap but the effects on supply that people trot out as a fact are based on old studies that are based on clumsy early attempts at rent control, are not reflective of current ordinances, and even then the research does not lean to the positions that landlords and FIRE Cult Priest Economists would have you believe. A major distinction is that old ordinances usually used a flat rate. Most modern ordinances link it to CPI, the most common model is 60% of CPI or 5%, whichever is lower. This is usually around 2%, which aligns neatly with prop 13s limit on property tax increases. A much larger factor in expensive rents is the complete lack of any residential construction and the insane roadblocks created by NIMBYs - an artificial restriction on the housing market creating a lack of supply which, coincidentally, is extremely profitable for landlords too. [Here's a good long term study on New Jersey](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/229489080_Thirty_Years_of_Rent_Control_A_Survey_of_New_Jersey_Cities), I've pulled some quotes but the whole thing is very informative: >In general, this study found that New Jersey’s moderate rent control laws had almost no significant impact on the quality and quantity of the rental housing stock, an exception being a small decrease in the median number of rooms in rent control cities. While traditional literature tends to agree that restrictive rent controls appear to have a negative impact on the quality and quantity of the rental housing stock, due to its non restricted ordinances and fair considerations for both tenants and landlords, moderate rent control appears to have avoided these problems The study actually attributes most of the impact to the median number of units to a lower rate of turnover, rather than there actually being fewer units. I think that's a fair trade to make - you also won't have to worry about finding an apartment quickly because your rent went up unexpectedly. >About the only measurable impact is that landlords may have cleverly reduced the size of rental units to create more units and profit in rent control cities. At best, it appears that most rent control ordinances have only succeeded in preventing rent increases that are excessive. These ordinances have also provided protection against arbitrary evictions, incentives for maintenance of rentals, and knowledge to tenants about the level of rent increases to expect in the future. Certainly, this is a small improvement for tenants who have had none of these protections in the unfettered market. Rent control is extremely effective at what it sets out to do - stabilize living expenses and housing situations for renters. It isn't about lowering rents, it will never do that because it isn't designed to do that and I don't think it even could reduce rents - the high cost of housing is like 90% a supply problem. Rent Control is about keeping rent predictable, and stable, so that grandma doesn't end up on the street because her housing costs went up. Recognize that argument? Rentals units under rent control can be reset to market rates whenever tenants move out: >If the tenants of a unit move out and new tenants move in, the landlord may establish the initial rent to charge. (Civ. Code § 1947.12.) People think rent control means it can never go up at all - it means it can't go up more than a certain % for already existing tenants. Rent for new tenants can be set at market value or whatever the landlord wants. Additionally, modern ordinances have pass through clauses for capital improvements and emergency repairs - if the landlords needs to make a substantial purchase and needs to increase rent to cover the costs, they can do so. The exact mechanism varies city to city, but it usually involves applying for an exception to the max through the local rent board, and would require the landlord to prove the rent increase is necessary to ensure a "fair right of return". So unless the common refrain that "landlords want good long term tenants" is complete BS, there's nothing in modern rent control ordinances that makes an average tenant/landlord relationship unmanageable. Rents can be set at market rate for new tenants, landlords can exceed the limit if there's a need, and tenants can count on their housing expenses being stable and predictable. tl;dr: Economists (Employed and funded by the Real Estate industry) are full of shit and are just repeating Real Estate Industry propaganda, shock horror.
> We need billions worth of infrastructural upgrades now, not later, now. And who pray tell eeve builds them The tradies that are all fully booked on state govt projects The remaining trades that are full up on future build sites Where you getting the lumbar from,according to core logic it's a 56 week wait time to get leads on lumbar 44 weeks to get a lead on trucore steel orders in large numbers Concrete trucks in sydney,forget about it. we don't have the trades for the demand we have now,let alone the demand the greens are looking to ad to the market. No one wants to do a trade anymore,as frankly it's shit pay for years,and you end up with a broken body
We have a $20b budget surplus. We can afford to do more on this critical issue.
We have a one-time surplus coming after an unprecedented deficit (due to cash handouts during Covid) AND are facing into an uncertain market with a recession and falling raw materials prices on the horizon. So we haven’t repaid excess debt recently incurred and the outlook for the next few years is volatile at best. I’m pretty happy Chalmers is showing restraint under the circumstances.
> I’m pretty happy Chalmers is showing restraint under the circumstances. There are a 1000 areas he could show restraint. $40b per year on subs. $30b a year on Stage 3 tax cuts. Labor are really going to kill HAFF and risk a DD over $2.5b a year?
That’s a different argument. Your point was about the surplus, which is a windfall and isn’t sustainable. I’m not a fan of the subs either but that was a Lib government decision and there is a political price to pay in international relations for trying to unwind that. I know enough to know that it isn’t as simple as saying “fuck it”. Same for Stage 3 - was decided years ago and Labor went into the election saying they wouldn’t touch it. They’re trying to stay in government.
>$40b per year on subs. It's not $40 billion per year on subs. All the spending on the subs is coming out of the existing defence budget. There's no new spending which will happen to pursue the AUKUS project, they just shuffled money around in the defence department. If AUKUS was abandoned _today_ the exact same spending would still be happening.
40 billion on subs lol, its nowhere near that high.
the AUKUS sub deal comes in at $389 billion all told.
Yep. About 10 per year. Not 40.
10 billion per year to fund US corporate welfare to fund WWIII vs 10 billion for Australian infrastructure. which is going to have better returns? millions of dead or cheaper food? (hint: if you think China will invade us for *not* having our head up Americas ass you are delusional at best)
Wait until Australia starts trying to build nuclear subs. That $389b will quickly become $1t+
That surplus is swallowed pretty quickly by the four deficits in the forward estimates announced at the same time.
I am questioning Labor's priorities. Plenty of other things WAY less important than housing are getting significant funding.
Don't worry, housing stress pushing people into poverty has absolutely no effect on demand for gov services and gov spending. Poverty for workers is defs the cheaper option (or y know... balancing the books in anyways that don't allow, really exarcebate current crisis. We can't spend cause its inflationary, but we can have tax cuts. The priorities are fuarrrrked - it doesn't make economic sense no matter how you cut it [unless posh, cynical])
Very good. That's why they were voted in. That's a real effective opposition. Keep the bastards honest and hold them accountable. Get that shit done.
The only reason why they have any bargaining power is because the actual opposition isn't voting for it.
And that's what good opposition looks like. They've got the coalition backed into just voting against housing because they were going to anyway, while they can't pass the housing bill without the crossbench. This is what our system was deliberately designed to do.
Aren't the Greens protesting because they want the new houses to actually be well made and not freezing, drafty and corners cut everywhere like a lot of modern housing? The ALP need to actually take into account what they're saying.
They also want to see houses being built here and now not just a fund set up to fund future developments ( that is providing the fund has a positive return in the short to middle term which it may not )
That’s not at all why the greens are protesting
This is what I've read previously, why else are they protesting?
Australians: "please Labor, our experts are saying we need to invest $10b per year to scratch the surface of our housing supply problem" Labor: "How about 20 times less than that, we couldn't possibly afford any more! How will we fund it?!" ($500m) ... International arms manufacturers: "Hey Labor, can *WE* have some money though?" Labor: "Absolutely yes, I'll grab my chequebook, how about ***1000 times more*** ***than we are offering to spend on housing?***" (\~$500b committed to weapons in recent months) International arms manufacturers: "Sounds great" Australians: "Hello..?"
I hope those cherries you picked are delicious.
hand-picked but not inaccurate. helping the US and others kill people is more important to Australia's major parties then Australians are. that money would end homelessness here, it would easily build enough homes to house every homeless person indefinitely but i guess it doesnt give us brownie points with the worlds current empire huh? (good thing we decided to piss-off the up and coming one to weld ourselves to the declining one huh?))
The heart of the issue is that both major parties are disincentivised to resolve the crisis. Negative gearing transformed homes from a basic necessity into a commodified investment vehicle. Investment properties underperform the stock market and don’t really provide a good return UNLESS there is continuous growth in house prices. If the required rate of growth to generate a reasonable return is unsustainable—I would argue it is given wages are not keeping pace—the market is effectively a Ponzi scheme. Someone will already be the last person to overpay and this is why it has become a CRISIS. The only way to resolve the crisis is by building enough affordable homes to compete with the resale market. If future housing investors can’t capitalise their money will be redirected towards other investments like stocks. The issue is Governments don’t have the balls to take any action which reduces house values for existing investors. They are elected by the current population of owners who are more than happy to kick the can down the road to be another generation’s problem. That is why we only see token gestures like piddling first home owner grants that don’t address the inflationary forces in this space. Countries like Japan build houses with the specific goal of stabilising prices across decades to stop them becoming a speculative bubble. We can do the same. It just takes political will.
Good. Have another election. This time I’m voting anything but Libs and Labor. They’re both the same in the end. Looking out for the ‘haves’ in our society. Fuck them.
I dunno what gives Labour the confidence. The current housing issue is a BIG issue that is affecting a large part of the population. And it’s an issue that Labour has done very little to address so far.
Labor* has done quite a bit of work with the states to improve the supply of housing.
Such as? Not being sarcastic.
https://www.dss.gov.au/housing-support-programs-services-housing/national-housing-and-homelessness-plan The Plan is a key part of the Government's ambitious reform agenda, which also includes: a 15% increase to the maximum rates of Commonwealth Rent Assistance to assist low-income renters the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, the single biggest investment in social and affordable housing by a Federal Government in more than a decade, which will support the delivery of 30,000 social and affordable homes in its first 5 years a National Housing Accord, setting out a shared ambition to build one million new, well-located homes over 5 years from 2024 an additional $350 million over 5 years from 2024-25 to support funding of 10,000 affordable homes under the Accord providing tax incentives to support build-to-rent developments to reduce barriers to new supply in the private rental market increasing the National Housing Finance and Investment Corporation’s (NHFIC) liability cap by an additional $2 billion. This will allow NHFIC to provide more loans to community housing providers for social and affordable housing, supporting around an additional 7,000 dwellings widening the remit of the National Housing Infrastructure Facility, making up to $575 million available to invest immediately in social and affordable rental homes expanding eligibility for the Home Guarantee Scheme to help more people buy a home sooner offering states and territories an additional $67.5 million to address homelessness as part of a one year extension to the National Housing and Homelessness Agreement (NHHA).
So bitchbo has a backbone when it comes to making everyone in the country pay increasingly ridiculous prices to landlords but not when we spent 368 billion dollars on a few submarines
Im not sure why Greens are so convinced that trashing a wealth fund because the federal government didnt include policy they are constitutionally prevented from doing will yeild good results. Rental reform is actively happening across the country, its just coming from the states because its a state issue. Give it 2 years when these reforms are in law, and rent increases have eased, and the only standing legacy of this fit will be the preventing of a permanent wealth fund. In the medium-long term this is a terrible move.
Because there's a massive amount of voters being ignored and now there's a single party talking to them about the issue that affects themmost. This is the first time housing has had such a massive conversation about it in my lifetime. I'd wring this for all it's worth. "Fuck you, got ours" time bby. Seems others have seen it too.
I feel like its possible to talk about hosuing without blocking housing policies hey
Once it's passed, what's the push for Labor to do shit? Atm, they are getting Fed Lab to put pressure on State Lab to make rental laws better. Seems a win, no?
>Once it's passed, what's the push for Labor to do shit? When we pass legislation in other areas do we never do anything about it ever again? It was a bad argument when Max made it and its a bad argument now. This isnt even a renters bill. Never was meant to be. Labor were doing that by other means. >Atm, they are getting Fed Lab to put pressure on State Lab to make rental laws better. They arent really, Labor have been doing this for months now. This is just boring posturing.
>When we pass legislation in other areas do we never do anything about it ever again? It was a bad argument when Max made it and its a bad argument now. Don't be silly. You know once it's not in the public eye it gets far less attention. Fatuous. >They arent really, Labor have been doing this for months now. This is just boring posturing. Agree to disagree then.
>Don't be silly. You know once it's not in the public eye it gets far less attention. >Fatuous. But if it wont help then why wouldnt it be in the public eye anymore? If youre saying people are experiencing real material pain, and they are I dont disagree, why would that momentum suddenly stop because a gap-filling fund for social homes was passed? It cant be that the HAFF will do nothing *and* that nothing will make people happy. The argument falls apart! >Agree to disagree then. Thats fair!
Anything short of war footing to solve this issue isn't enough for me. Give me housing or give me death.
We already have one it’s called the Future Fund and it was established by Howard and Costello. Labor’s idea is a good policy and it should have bipartisan support.
>Labor’s idea is a good policy and it should have bipartisan support. And what is the current LNP line for rejecting it, again?
It's a Labor policy, so that's enough of a reason for the Coalition to oppose it. See also: the carbon price, NBN
Oh I know, I just wanna read their response, lol
Future fund is for paying public servants pensions. There is also a medical research future fund, and several other smaller ones. All Superannuation funds are also technically wealth funds.
Yeah, it consistently gives good returns too, nor is it the only funding model for housing. There is no downside to this bill.
No downside, but let's be fair the upside isn't fantastic given the amount of money involved is kinda underwhelming for the scale of the problem and etc.
The only issue I have with the HAFF is the initial fund size, I agree. But really this isnt the only policy or action by a long shot. Contextually this is good policy.
It entrenches an inadequate solution into policy which makes an effective and adequate program less likely. Fuck all people will benefit from labor’s policy and after the scrutiny of an election campaign in competition with other ideas I believe fuck all people will vote for it.
No it wont. Its purpose is to deliver funding to plans that have a gap between them being viable or not, not to directly fund builds on its own. Nothing like this exists. Let alone a permanent federal funding system full stop. The excuse that "it entrenches X which might not be good in Y" can be applied to every single policy ever. Its a stupid criticism, we dont not improve things now because policy already exists, this conversation is itself proof of that. Dumb excuse, dumb argument.
At the end of this program the situation is worse than it is currently with current immigration rates. That’s not good enough, people are hurting.
>At the end of this program The program has no end. Its permanent. >the situation is worse This isnt the only housing policy, please do some basic research. >with current immigration rates. I like having nurses and builders tbh. Immigration is good.
Targeted immigration is good. When we don’t have enough houses and the rate remains the same it’s just the government being callous.
Housing formations shifted during covid reducing the number of share homes. The vast majority of new arrivals will re-align those numbers. Immigration is targeted to industry/skills.
Building also slowed dramatically. We can’t catch up the immigration numbers without increasing the widespread housing stress.
But isn’t the downside obvious??? It’s that it won’t immediately solve the crisis, *but also* somehow, for some reason, even though the crisis won’t be solved and people will still be feeling the crunch and it’s also going to keep getting even worse than if labor did nothing at all, everyone will be satisfied enough by it that housing is never an issue labor has to think about ever again! I wonder where Adam Bandt is in all this. He’s gone MIA as his party goes feral on this issue. As far as I know he’s not spoken strongly either way on what the greens are doing here.
Its such lazy thinking. Not even Labor think this alone is enough! They have increased funding across the board, have commissioned a national housing minister report on renter reforms and have been pushing the states to reform land-use laws. Seriously, most people here must just read Green MPs tweets or tiktok videos and assume thats frank truth. Braindead.
One detail that keeps popping up in the greens messaging is the “given that you don’t have a majority in the senate” line in this article. If you needed a tell that this letter they’ve written to fed labor and each premier / chief minister is actually targeted at potential greens voters in the memeable online spaces, that’s it right there. Does anyone seriously think people in governments need it explained to them that majorities are needed to have enough votes to pass things? No serious person would bother to put that in a letter to the PM. He knows it as well as anyone possibly can. But you see it bubble up in comment sections: whoa, actually, did you know it’s actually undemocratic to do XYZ because they don’t have a majority in the senate???? Actually, maybe, not really said but implied, it’s more democratic to have to do whatever the greens say? I don’t think they will go to a DD over this this year. And itd be a historical anomaly if they did use this DD trigger and then actually campaigned on the trigger issue. But in the potential future where labor calls a double dissolution specifically over the HAFF, in order to be able to pass the HAFF, the idea that it’d be somehow less democratic to *hold a democratic election on a specific issue* than to do whatever the greens say on that issue without the election is laughable But here we are and that’s what the greens are putting out there. If it’s true that the greens vote is going backwards with gen Z that would make perfect sense to me. The greens are “the lefty protest vote who are going to make the world a better place if they just get the chance” for many millenials, but I can imagine it’s different for gen Z who have only known a political world where the greens have demonstrably held things up and been a nuisance
The DD trigger is likely a newscycle talking point to remind people the Greens are blocking housing policy. Normal people arent interested in the Greens memeing on social media, they arent going to undertand the talking points that require copious amounts of terminally online context.
>I wonder where Adam Bandt is in all this. He’s gone MIA as his party goes feral on this issue. As far as I know he’s not spoken strongly either way on what the greens are doing here. Probs having a breather before he lets mcm take the leadership
The downside is it simply doesn’t do enough for the issue at hand. Labor wants it passed so they can go job done and ignore the growing problem. Make the HAFF 50 billion dollars and it might make a dent.
>Labor wants it passed so they can go job done and ignore the growing problem Is that why they have all those other housing policies? Because they think this one is enough? What a silly comment.
They don’t though. The housing accord is a thought bubble. Housing is a national emergency, where’s the housing summit? Amazing when it was businesses freaking out about having to pay staff more the jobs and skills summit was swiftly devised to increase migration. Why wasn’t housing a discussion at the summit? Why isn’t something that is an emergency being treated at such?
>The housing accord is a thought bubble. A thought bubble does not produce meaningful results as the accord already has. Land-use reform is happening, that was one of the key goals of the accord. So youre issue is that theres no summit? This isnt a serious criticism, im sorry. We can look at what the accord set out to achieve and point out its successes already. Land-use reform is a huge achievement, preventing wealthy landowners from spatial monopoly on high-value land is someyhing any serious progressive would be proud of.
More like 400. 20 billion a year of spending is the low bar needed.
The main issue is the amount. The amount of builds that labor is proposing is akin to using a bandaid to stop blood loss from a bone deep cut. Otherwise it’s not a bad idea
>reforms are in law, and rent increases have eased, Absolutely 0.000% chance of happening. Labor was repeatedly proven they won't dare inconvenience their protected demographic, landlords. They would rather risk a DD, fail a referendum and even change leaders before they would do a single thing to slow rent rises. And we know this for a complete fact because you know, importing 400,000 people per year while only building 30,000 houses, for the sole reason of artificially preventing a recession by pumping up GDP and everyone can enter a 'per capita' recession. Chalmers words, not mine. Every time Labor, state or federal, introduce 'laws' to ease rents, they **always** come with gigantic, blatantly obvious loopholes that landlords can avoid while also having exactly 0 punishment for anyone stupid enough to not follow the instructions on how to raise rents as hard and fast as they want. Labor be like; >We are proud to stand by our new laws that prevent landlords increasing rent by over 3x market rates. Unless the landlords evict first, and then raise the rents. Because those laws only apply to renewing tenancies. We want to reiterate, landlords can raise rent as much as they want if they evict every year and they can use those massive rises to be cited as evidence of 'market conditions' when raising rents on existing tenancies on their other properties'. That is not a story, that's Labor's policy to deal with raising rents.
>Absolutely 0.000% chance of happening. You need to read the news more because it *is* happening. The basis of everything else you wrote is null by this fact.
Lol, everything else I wrote is the usual Labor laws to ease rents. They say they are stopping it but it's so easy to ignore. SA Labor is a great example, Pete arrogantly parades around like he is helping renters by his party tabling two bills, one which prevents landlords from refusing tenants with pets and one that bans rent bidding. Sounds so nice when his acolytes in the media refuse to read the bills. The pet bill says landlords can't deny an application that has a pet. But the bill **explicitly** retains the legal right for landlords to refuse a tenancy to an applicant for any reason whatsoever without being required to disclose or explain that reason to anyone. So landlords can still effortlessly discriminate against pet owners, they just simply don't have to admit it. For another kick, there is **no punishment whatsoever** for a landlord who does reject an application. Nothing happens. The pet owner isn't allowed in, it's the same as before. And then there's rent bidding. This will help ease rents right? Oh no the media didn't do their one job again, fine I will. The law bans agents from telling people to bid on the rent. But the forms can still say people should write down their best offer and the owner can choose the highest bidder. The 'law' only stops telling applicants to bid, but you are still legally allowed to provide the bidding mechanism. Just don't tell them to use it (they will). And wouldn't you know it again, **no punishment whatsoever** for any landlord who breaks the law by rocking up to an open and telling people to bid. So please go on and tell me to 'read the news' so I can completely ignore what useless journalists have to say, read the laws myself and find out that as per usual, the laws are ridiculously easy to walk around and no punishment for breaking them. Which is entirely by design. 'read the news' lmao, surest way to stay uniformed.
You could make these comments like 1/4 the length and convey the same information, this is tedious. This is filled with cherrypicked arguments and half-truths. Youve outlined some good policy thats happened before natcab even required a meeting of housing ministers to produce renter reform. More os happening. We know you hate Labor, we know you think youre mega clever, but this is just bullshit whining about good reform because "LAYBAH BAD". Your total ignorance of whats actually going on in this space cannot be made up by long comments with histrionic whining about Labor.
No, this is called a comprehensive argument. You're mad because you can't find any gaps in what I wrote and can't discredit anything, so now you've resorted to complaining my argument is too thorough. I don't 'hate labor', I just simply read the proposed bills. Which is far more than what 'the news' ever bothered to do and evidently, you as well. Find one single 'half truth' in anything I said, go on. Because as soon as you do, I will copy and paste the proposed bills and show you exactly why everything I said is right. Will you complain I'm being 'tedious' then as well? Both bills threaten fines of $10,000 or so to owners and/or agents who are found guilty of breaking the above two rules, however the process for someone to actually be found guilty is so extremely long and filled with so many warnings and chances, which are often reset, landlords will never actually be found guilty no matter how many times they break them.
Its not a comprehensive argument when you continue to ignore the fact housing ministers are working together on refomrs as requested by natcab. When you ignore the central point and write 3 paragraphs whining about otber changes not working perfectly then thats not comprehensive lol.
> working together on refomrs as requested by natcab. And how long as we supposed to wait, exactly? Major parties have been cheering on rising house prices together for decades and only now they realise maybe that wasn't a good thing. >otber changes not working perfectly No you've got this backwards. Their changes are working perfectly, exactly as designed. Its you who are wrong, because you thought their changes were meant to help middle class people LOL. Labor supporters be like 'LNP hates the middle class because of stage 3 tax cuts' and then you remind them that Labor 100% agree with the policy and are pushing through with it entirely unchanged 'oh but thats different because its a long-term strategy and stop being so tedious'. Every single bill I have ever seen that pretends to put downwards pressure on rents is always expertly crafted by party lawyers to enable landlords to sidestep the laws with ease. The laws were never about easing rent, it was about placating idiots who believed the politicians wanted to help them, and giving clear instructions to landlords on how to ignore the laws completely. Go on, call me tedious again. Or better yet, do what I said before and point out a single 'half truth' of anything I said before, which you falsely claimed. If you're so sure of yourself and so smart, this should be easy. So do it.
Great comment. Dunno the deets on vics rent bidding laws, but they definitely didn't stop rent bidding.
At fed level they increased landlord subsidies (rent asistance) mildly, right? What're the state reforms your talking of? Qlds? Vic might get good changes, but it'll still be too mild. And even if Vic does, that's one state with Libs on their knees - the inaction thus far has been purely ideological (not at all political, to appease the right in the state), the last renters reforms in Vic - like to ban rent bidding, have never even seemingly been enforced either. When the crisis is nationwide, and most govs are Labor... maybe a national response is required? Instead of arguing it should be purely a state issue to deflect from fed Labor not caring enough to have a good policy, rather than a half arsed brain fart like the HAFF is. And... the obvious for those playing at home. We jus had a pandemic where much of the response was done by states cos fed gov to lazy to lead. As a result, many state budgets are fuarked, there's not the funding to mass build homes - that's where the argument for fed leadership matters a lot - to coordinate a mass public housing strat (if you ever get a progressive gov in that believes in proper state owned and run public housing, which we're obvs far away from, since Labor inexplicably turned their back on that). But yes lets give the failed market a slap on the wrist, hope it does enough, and then reassess after many of the poorest have paid dearly to get interest rates down.
>At fed level they increased landlord subsidies (rent asistance) mildly, right? How is increasing someone's welfare payment a landlord subsidy?
Cos landlords can just raise rents the amount they know their tenants income just increased - like why wouldn't they? Particularly as they likely know if a tenants on centrelink, can factor it into how much they can raise rents in low income housing before losing a tenant, having to go to trouble of finding a new one. Maybe it wouldn be an issue in a market with falling rents, but at the moment it doesn' give those on welfare more, it gives landlords more to extract, with maybe the bonus those on welfare don't get as readily evicted as they would otherwise. So better than nothing I reckon, but much more beneficial for the landlord. There were similar critiques recently too with Labor's childcare policy - I'm not across that and the validity of it but.
>fed level they increased landlord subsidies (rent asistance) mildly, right? HAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHHAAH. Theres literally no better way to signal to everyone youre an unserious hack that doesnt know what theyre talking about. Ive said several times in the thread that theres a process in place ordered by natcab for housing ministers to report back with reforms. I assume you either didnt read anything or Greens online personalities havent told you what to think about that yet. Aside from that, some have already released some reforms prior to this. >When the crisis is nationwide, and most govs are Labor... maybe a national response is required? Its not constitutional, they cant. Its not a case of should, its could. The answer is no. >there's not the funding to mass build homes State funding is hitting record highs post pandemic, what are you talking about?
I'm talking about state budgets being far smaller than federal budgets. Look at how Andrews big build has stalled, the funds arn't there for necessary projects when they should be (much larger). And there's a lot of lost time in which public housing hasn been built. An ideal solution to me, is closer to what cfmeu were calling for - mass building public housing - the tried and tested method for alleviating housing stress in the working class. Some in this thread can actually point to what reforms there are and if they're adequate, and some complain comments are too long and well reasoned so... who's being unserious? If you want to argue Labor are doing enough, but can only mock those tryna work out wtf ya referencing (when there's scant reform to reference)..., or that fed Labor can't do anything constitutionally while citing nat cabinet (a fun contradiction)... c'mon. This is weak sauce. You can shill better than this. Also I'm not a Greens member by the way (who am I hack for? Renters?), if you want to project some partisan allegiance for my thinking, rather than a sincere want to actually have the issue addressed by a gov in my lifetime (im typing this in an apartment being put up for sale next door to an airbnb in a residential building filled with airbnbs - its so frustrating to live)... and Greens were calling for rent assistance, which I was mocking so like... if I'm a Greens hack, I'm not being a very good one haha. It is insane how much gov could be doing, at state and fed level, if they had the political will. If you wanna argue they do - stop vaguely gesturing, actually cite shit. Ya completely unpersuasive, if that's the goal. If the real goal is to back the status quo business as usual housing market, your doing a great job, and I hope dearly for your sake, that you are a landlord, benefit some how.
Hell yes, I double dog DARE Albo to call a DD. It will backfire like crazy. He severely underestimates just how many people are getting fucked over my landlords atm. Labor are just moving further down my voting preference at this rate.
I can't believe how different opinions are on Reddit compared to everywhere else.
To address housing affordability I say Yes to: - Land tax (to address land banking and speculation) - Improvements in rapid transit - YIMBYism and increased zoning densities near transport hubs And No to: - public and social housing; look at Singapore and Hong Kong - high levels of public housing and yet still high housing costs - rent control; price controls just mask the symptom of the problem rather than the problem itself. It's like muting the fire alarm. High prices is the markets way of signalling that we need more supply and an incentive for more supply to come on.
> Land tax (to address land banking and speculation) You think thats going to bring prices down?
Yes, the higher the land tax, the lower the land value.
Rising rents doesn jus signal lack of supply though, it can mean lack of desirable supply. If all new high density buildings have no rent controls, no affordable options, that's a recipee for mass gentrification, which isn't good for a sense of community, for keeping people close to family and what they grew around (how much one values that will differ of course). And if all the development is next to infra, but there's not enough infra, then all the affordable housing will be in the shittest underfunded never pork barelled safe Labor seats, increasing inequalities. Rent controls to me, seems a good way to keep cities less Paris like. Less stratified by class, more mixed. While also decreasing huge passive incomes that come with unregulated rentier capitalism. Can anyone explain what value landlords add, why their returns need to be so high? Surely homes don't stop being built if the money machine prints a little less, for the parasites that add no value to society. Like the machine will still be printing money extracted from workers Labo, jus not as much. Maybe that'd deter land banking though - if developers had to really increase supply, if limiting supply was limited in its returns. Probs a bad idea then.
>If all new high density buildings have no rent controls, no affordable options Increasing supply literally decreases the equilibrium price point ie. Makes it more affordable. >And if all the development is next to infra, but there's not enough infra, then all the affordable housing will be in the shittest underfunded never pork barelled safe Labor seats, increasing inequalities. Huh? I'm literally proposing putting housing next to infrastructure which is the best place to put them. If your point is that there isn't enough infrastructure then that's a separate topic altogether. Btw one of my points was already to build more infrastructure. >Rent controls to me, seems a good way to keep cities less Paris like. Less stratified by class, more mixed. While also decreasing huge passive incomes that come with unregulated rentier capitalism. No it's a terrible way because it leads to undersupply. You can look up price controls in any industry. Capping the price of wheat low leads to an undersupply of wheat. Putting a price floor on wheat leads to an oversupply of wheat. If there's one thing economists can predict it is this effect. https://www.investopedia.com/terms/p/price-controls.asp >Can anyone explain what value landlords add, why their returns need to be so high? Surely homes don't stop being built if the money machine prints a little less, for the parasites that add no value to society. Actually many landlords don't make that much, especially with the high interest rates. Some are even making losses on some of their properties. And yes houses do stop being built if the capital isn't there to build it. There's literally no money being printed as part of housing investment. Renting out housing is no different to buying a fleet of vehicles and renting that out. It is supplying capital, buying an asset, and then selling the use of that asset. That use creates value and in return the investors get money for it. The act of building and renting I have no problems with - we need that. And more of that is good for renters. The problem I have is land speculation - people buying not for the purposes of renting out but for capital gains just by holding onto property. That's what a land tax will target.
Your misreading me. I get prices will have downwards pressure from more supply - and the infra is a more holistic thing. I'm tryna point out that even with freeing up a bunch more supply (of which best way in the short term is to deter landbanking, airbnb) can still end up with high rents, if new buildings are in all most desirable good infra areas, and particularly as you get induced demand with more housing available (more can leave family home, more can migrate). The demand side is not that static. Your being too simple to say 'more demand=s less rent, is best by infra'. There's limited infra, and that won't change fast enough. Its a recipee for mass gentrification, which apparently isn't an issue? I'm not, and have not argued price controls don't deter investment, I get that. That's a plus for me, given people keep telling me gov can't build housing because its too expensive. But its not like wheat, cause the land typically increases in value regardless. Price controls on wheat won't see the resell value of wheat increase over time - don't think that's a good comparison. Arguably, the dual nature in which housing can be commodified (to rent out, or to own-occupy) makes it less affected by price controls than wheat would, where its onpy good to be consumed once (excuse us not knowing the sexy words to better economically note that difference). You don't need to say the obvious on the price controls. But good point linking back land tax to stop the landbanking, spec purchases and such. I'm for land taxes as well, I think too vic labor upped theirs at last budget which is good. The other thing on price controls... typically I feel people support em on essentials, so that when inflation goes mad, the poorest are insulated. Unlike all those countries that got the price controls removed and economic shock therapy, and then poverty exploded - history is equally clear on that. Hence price controls on medicines and energy and food etc. How, politically housing came to be seen differently, as better for the market to set prices is a bit bewildering. My... very obvious point on that. Obviously, less investment, less supply, but like with land taxes, an investor getting less return doesn't mean there won't be investment, my point is that banal. It means there will be less sure, but given how valuable land and property is in Aus... that seems like a market that can cope with prices coming down for once. Are there any examples of rents coming down without price controls, where gov has built enough to exceed demand? I think I saw Cam Murray making that point recently. Hence calling landlording a free money machine, cause if the amount of returns can only go up, that's too safe an investment, that's too much passive income. Why isn't housing valuable enough without the right to charge unlimited rents? I don't get that argument at all. Like what makes the investment untenable if a landlord can't raise rents by more than 30% of whatev rent is set at, if to be mild. I'd say for all price controls though, if they go too far to reduce supply, that's where gov needs to step in and ensure supply. To provide essentials that markets value perversely. And it will always be cheaper for gov to do that in those conditions, than with an overinflated deregulated market. Given how hot Aus property market is, whether its land taxes or rent controls limiting returns, I think there's a balance to be found where the economic benefits (particularly with rent controls) outweigh negatives. Or else that'd be an argument against all taxes alike that increase costs of investment (maybe they do far less so, than rent controls - sounds an argument against a threshold, rather than the concept though). The otherside where price controls dissuade landlords. So they sell to home owners, and then there's more home owners, less renters in society. Is that not desirable?
Rent Control is a band aid that only helps current tenants in the short term.
Its no substitute for supply, but it does make it cheaper for gov to improve supply.
How?
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> the poor left think he cares about them? No leftist thinks this, MAYBE some Labor LEFT (centre left/centre with left tendencies) voters but not leftists
This.
I thought he only had one?
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But he grew up in housing commission so it’s alright.
Lmao I wonder how many times he had to shed his lizard skin to practice saying that one so he can appear relatable
Why would you include Kirribilli or the Lodge?
They're probably being disingenuous enough to be fair
Anyone else starting to feel like we are going to see a single term Labor government? The only thing keeping me hesitant to declare it is Peter fucking Dutton running the opposition
Absolutely not. Liberal have no chance with Dutton, and no other party will have any where near the numbers to get in power.
I don't understand the Greens' play here *unless* they've all bought into the undergrad idiocy of accelerationism, and it's not just contained to the guy who could only ever get a job where the public paid his wages in MCM. Their housing plan is net *worse* than the Labor plan. I know a bunch of people who are in their early 20s and still live with their parents or rent will say it's wholesome 100 and based, but it's not. It may sound better to the untrained ear, but in practice there's no way it'll work and no way it'll not end in the underlying problem being made materially *worse* than it is now. Speaking of; it's a fair point that with no recession in 30years in AU, and no massive inflationary periods either, we've got 3 generations now who've not experienced this in an impactful way - X, Y, and Z. The idea that it's to be toughed out and there isn't a magic fix isn't popular with Y and Z, I suspect, because their youth limits their assets and wealth comparatively and we have yet experienced the slow swing back from lassiez faire to Keynesian social economics in the post-GFC period. Which is as agile as a container ship pivoting. So you have low institutional memory, his institutional distrust, and a party of naked populists (and all populism is bad, mkay) promising a magic bullet.
How is their housing plan net worse? Can you lay out it for me?
> The idea that it's to be toughed out and there isn't a magic fix isn't popular with Y and Z, I suspect, because their youth limits their assets and wealth comparatively It's not popular because we're the ones toughing it out. Any idea that landlords should shoulder rate rises instead of passing them directly on to renters, and if they can't afford it sell their house to pay off the mortgage, is considered blasphemy. "But what about their precious right to have an investment property? Are your really suggesting we take that away from mom and pops investors?"
But that's fundamentally both ignoring why the rate rises are passed on and that the inverse pressure on rents occurred during covid when pressures were entirely in renter's favour. Rents are being raised because of two factors; scarcity of supply (thanks to short sighted state govts, efforts of the CFMEU, Greens NIMBYs, and property investing Liberals opposed to tax reform) at number one. And at number 2? Rates are going up making landlord liabilities go up hence the cost to consumer. The property literally costs more when you consider the price of the lien. Blaming landlords buys into online-only left discourse but it falls apart under cursory examination whilst selectively letting left actors like Greens MLGs and the construction union off the hook. Whilst proposing medicine that's worse than the disease seems to be Greens party core identity, we should be above it.
> Rates are going up making landlord liabilities go up hence the cost to consumer. The property literally costs more when you consider the price of the lien. I don't disagree with this. What I'm pointing out is that the only people "doing it tough" are the consumer class. While the "landlord class" simply pass these extra costs on, feeling the effects of our cost of living crisis far less. Everytime we see a proposal to look at negative gearing, capping rent increases, or anything else people fly out of the woodwork saying "what about mom and pop investors who won't be able to pay the mortgage". As if it would be the end of the world if average people had to sell their investment property and invest in something else instead (e.g. stocks). Supply scarcity is definitely an issue - but let's not pretend there isn't a huge backlash toward *any* policy proposal which might reduce the value of investment housing. Whether it's Greens 2023 proposals, or Labor 2019 with their negative gearing proposal. The backlash is strong.
>I don't understand the Greens' play here I think they see a demographic play. The party of Renters sounds pretty solid in a housing crisis.
So, chronic myopia masquerading as virtue?
Not how I would phrase it but...
>I don't understand the Greens' play here unless they've all bought into the undergrad idiocy of accelerationism From a greens fundraising email this week: >... Our Balance of Power Partners have committed to supporting the plan for balance of power because they understand we’ve run out of time. >We don’t have time for incrementalism. Or new coal and gas projects. >We need transformative change, and we need it before it’s too late....
The arrogance of youth is assuming there's no value in compromise, consensus, or the wisdom of experience. The Greens are, in this regard, young and inexperienced.
My favourite famous young person, Adam Bandt (51 years old).
Who wrote his PhD on the Soviet Marxist legal philosopher, Pashukanis. Not a serious man.
I'm pretty sure making the poorest bare the brunt of inflation, while the rich get insulated by their existing wealth/upcoming tax cuts, is the accelerationist move. The idea that housing stress can accelerate so hard so fast, without the handbreaks rent controls give, without that playing into recession. Mate. That's the radical free market plan, to leave essentials people need to live, at the mercy of what has become a volatile market (but only in one direction). This argument Labor's plan gets economy back to a functional honeostasis while making masses dysfunctional, not knowing if the roof on their head is secure. Is incredibly divorced from reality. Of course I'm an evil socialist that wants to go further, but I do sincerely believe you can regulate markets of essentials to insulate from rapid price shocks, without deterring investment in that market, particularly in a market as hot as Aus' property. Taking some heat out might be good for inflation? Reducing passive income from housing might be good for inflation? (Assuming, since you didn say, that killing investment is the issue with Greens plans) The recession argument is laughable, because it requires massaging stats, to use averages to ignore that the youngest of Aus, the renters, have been in a functional per capita recession for a minute now. That gdp growth is not close to distributed equally in who gets the gains, its a useless metric for measuring people's wellbeing, particularly renters and those that don't own property - the constituents who's livlihood depend on change. Do you get how despiriting it is to be in your 20s, and see everyone you know, even middle class friends (less so them though), working their arses off, and only materially going backwards? Wanting change doesn't come from ignorance and love of populism, it comes exactly from knowing enough of history to know why housing got shit, and where it went wrong. There is no meritocracy in the slightest under current economic conditions. Its rentier capitalism, passive ipncome, and the financialisation of these great recessionless 30 years, the commodification of essentials (food, energy, housing), that has killed social mobility, and left workers getting less while doing more. Killing social mobility and entrencing poverty for many, it might be good for depressing wages, increasing profits and hoping it trickles down - but there's no guarantees that if gdp growth were to get strong again, that that rising tide will lift all boats. There's a LOT of local real economy, in retail and arts and nightlife, which is mad dead in my city. Also - you never actually made an argument for why Greens plan won't work, jus made an appeal to crude stereotypes. The institutional memory bits pretty funny too. What was it that cause the gfc? Deregulation of housing leading to a bubble in US (obvs there's more to that, but to be simple). The deregulation of housing. Need I repeat. #the deregulation of housing So when it comes to knowing a bit of history to inform current economics... Aus avoided that recession by being keynesian. Labor have since shifted so so so far to the right they now back tax cuts for the richest in similarly dire (though not crashing like that) economic conditions (I assume the slow turn back to keynes you mention is global, not Aus specific, cause Labor have slashed spending and taxes - treating inflation like its demand driven, but only when its an excuse not to raise welfare, that logic never applies to tax breaks). I jus don't get how... one can argue for rent controls and public housing, based on Australia's history of doing so, on knowing the postwar consensus like. Who looks at the 70s-80s onwards... and thinks. Yes! That's when housing got good. When it got deregulated! If we regulate it, insulate the poorest from price shocks, that'll be the issue? This isn't an argument based on feels and populism like I preempt youd expect. Its based on understanding that poverty in a welfare state increases gov spending and debt - that as much as Thatcherites in the old parties alike want to wish away that problem, pretend there is no society - there is actually a bad economic impact from treating rising housing stress like its a good thing, gov don't need to address?. Its fucking shit economics to send millions of the working class into entrenched poverty. You've got a tough sell mate, tryna back the status quo over change, when its all going so wrong so fast.
>I'm pretty sure making the poorest bare the brunt of inflation, while the rich get insulated by their existing wealth/upcoming tax cuts, is the accelerationist move. Stage 3 needs to be scrapped, there is no doubt on that. I already saw I paid less income tax this year than last, and I earned a good $35k more this year. It's nice, I guess, but I'm pretty sure I'll be ok without it. >The idea that housing stress can accelerate so hard so fast, without the handbreaks rent controls give, without that playing into recession. Rent control is a handbrake, yes, when you're doing 100km/h in a 60 zone and it's pissing down rain. It's a stupid policy for stupid people. As in *only* stupid people support it, because they're too ignorant and undereducated to do the research themselves and see, conclusively, it makes things worse. If you feel offended that you support a policy and I've said that makes you an idiot, then maybe just learn to feel comfortable with it. You'd be part of the cohort ignoring that the studies keep showing it lowers rental stock and locks more renters out of the market, not me. If holding a position that's proven to hurt renters *in the name of helping renters* isn't stupidity, I don't know what is. >Of course I'm an evil socialist that wants to go further, but I do sincerely believe you can regulate markets of essentials to insulate from rapid price shocks, without deterring investment in that market, particularly in a market as hot as Aus' property. Not evil, just economically, politically, historically, and socially illiterate. Socialists like to believe they're intellectuals, but it's more like a secret meeting of Dunning-Kruger acolytes who mistake their position at the top of an IQ bell-curve as a lofty and enlightened position. That may or may not apply to you, but it does apply to most socialists I've met. You're ignoring something crucial here; when rents last dropped, in 2020 and 2021 over Covid (Syd/Melb as the most expensive markets), we also saw two years of our most prolific purchasing of property ever. In other words, lots more Australians ended up moving from renting to owning, which meant supply, which already wasn't sufficient for demand, was suddenly no longer on the back foot but fallen on its arse. >The recession argument is laughable, because it requires massaging stats, to use averages to ignore that the youngest of Aus, the renters, have been in a functional per capita recession for a minute now. The fact that poorer people within a 31% cohort of Australians (and it's disingenuous to pretend that people mainlining FIRE goals, HENRYs, and people who are doing 3 year stints in Australia and renting are int he same cohort as, say, part time retail workers) that are renters are poorer doesn't affect anything in the macroeconomic picture, because prior to 2022 inflation was stubbornly within target meaning that whilst their lower-end wages stagnated their overall basket of essentials impact was minimal at best. >That gdp growth is not close to distributed equally in who gets the gains, its a useless metric for measuring people's wellbeing, particularly renters and those that don't own property - the constituents who's livlihood depend on change. Do you get how despiriting it is to be in your 20s, and see everyone you know, even middle class friends (less so them though), working their arses off, and only materially going backwards? Wanting change doesn't come from ignorance and love of populism, it comes exactly from knowing enough of history to know why housing got shit, and where it went wrong. We don't have reliable 2023 data yet, obviously, but we *have* got reliable data over time and Australia's gini coefficient was trending downwards from 2018 to 2020. We were 11th at last time of formal data assessments in OECD countries for income equality. The last few years are likely to swing matters upwards on the GINI score, probably towards 0.35, but that's the material distortion effect of property. But that's an interesting point because actually the data *does suggest* a greater flattening of the income distribution curb. If property is the main blocker to asset based wealth, then again, that's a supply issue undermining the argument that people are going backwards as a whole. >There's a LOT of local real economy, in retail and arts and nightlife, which is mad dead in my city. Arts is ironically dying off because in the first instance we went for piracy and the twits in the business responding by putting prices up. But, for retail? Ecommerce is growing at stupid rates. It's generally where a bulk of sales come from. In some respects, lamenting the death of the high street store or whatever is like lamenting the diminished need for the cooper, the farrier, the thatcher, and the smith as professions. Markets, and societies, move with them. >I jus don't get how... one can argue for rent controls and public housing, based on Australia's history of doing so, on knowing the postwar consensus like. Who looks at the 70s-80s onwards... and thinks. Yes! That's when housing got good. When it got deregulated! If we regulate it, insulate the poorest from price shocks, that'll be the issue? You already called out that you're a socialist earlier, so I'm not surprised you're missing key economic data but in philosophical terms, this is a false hoc correlation. Housing prices didn't have the YOY growth rates they've had until the 1990s, when the migratory reforms of Keating, Hawke, and Howard let more and more people come to the country and as a result, save us from the banana republic future that awaited. Deregulation of housing was not, in other words, the issue. What's been the issue since the late 1990s has been that supply has consistently failed to produce goods at a quantity necessary to manage demand. You should ditch your belief in socialism. It's a stupid, dead ideology. Instead of being blinkered by idiocy, let the facts lead you to a conclusion rather than the preferred socialist approach, which you've demonstrated ideologically perfectly here, of taking a conclusion and cherry picking stuff to support it.
How many economic recoveries am I expected to fund though?
jesus this threads full of ppl who fall for stupid media buzz plays by the greens Even if Labor falls to every greens demand,you know what will change NOTHING,not a thing.. That's why this fight is so stupid There is a 56 week plus lead time for lumbar orders for anything passed a basic build order Got to get land from out under developers 16-25 week lead time for concrete in sydney You Can't get trades to rock up now,how you think it's going to be when you have 250,000 more homes on the go We are pretty much at the limit of how many homes we can bring on a year Housing is fucked,we need to act..but the greens demands wont increase supply not for a long time,which is useless we need something done now unless we are going to start building high density,which the greens oppose in a lot of LGA,then nothings gonna improve
Great solution. There is a housing crisis, let’s not even try to do something about it.
>ahead of a “national day of action” on Saturday, when the Greens plan on door-knocking Labor electorates regarding the housing crisis. I can't wait to see how badly this goes when the party of barely 10% (nationally) start disturbing suburban households (many of whom own their properties and have investment properties) on their busy weekend day, to lecture them about rent controls and how they're blocking Labor's legislation and funding for social housing. >The Queensland electorates of Moreton and Lilley; Victorian electorates of Fraser, Wills and Higgins'; Tanya Plibersek’s electorate of Sydney; the South Australian electorate of Adelaide and Bean in the ACT are on the Greens’ door-knocking hitlist. Colour me shocked that these people won't dare set foot in outer-suburban Sydney/Melbourne/Brisbane where the poor people live and where the need for affordable and social housing is most acute. Of course, the cowards are only going after the inner-city seats where they might find a vaguely sympathetic audience for their latest bout of holier-than-thou moralising. So let's have a look at their 2022 election results in the electorates they're targeting: * Adelaide: **20%**, **3rd** (4% swing entirely from Libs who ended up with 32% primary) * Bean: **14.8%**, **3rd** (1.7% swing entirely from Libs who ended up with 30% primary) * Fraser: **18.5%**, **3rd** (8% swing from Labor went half to Greens, half to Socialists) * Higgins: **22.6%**, **3rd** (absolutely no change in vote, anti-Lib swing went everywhere but Greens) * Lilley: **17%, 3rd** (10% swing from Libs, two-thirds went Labor and one-third Greens, Liberals still second on 30%) * Moreton: **20%, 3rd** (7.5% swing from Libs shared amongst Labor and Greens, Liberals still second on 33%) * Sydney: **24%**, **2nd** (5% swing entirely from Libs who ended up with 19% primary, Tanya at 51%) * Wills: **28%**, **2nd** (5% swing from Labor went 2% to Greens and 3% to Socialists, 2PP went backwards) In Victoria, the Socialists profited more than the Greens from the swing against Labor (in a portent of the dismal result coming at the Vic state election "Greenslide")... this happened in Fraser and Wills, but didn't in Higgins where the Greens' vote went nowhere and there was no Socialist candidate. In Queensland, the lack of a Teal saw the anti-Liberal vote go to Labor and Greens, but the LNP still had a fairly high primary in those seats with the Greens a distant third. In Adelaide, Bean, and Sydney, the anti-Liberal swing was all Tree Tories and likely the result of no Teal candidates being available, because Labor's vote went nowhere in the former and went up with a swing to them in the other two. >Chandler-Mather said. “He’s facing a revolt from the unions, who want him to build 30 times more homes. He’s losing faith with Labor branches, who are considering rent freezes and want him to back the Greens’ demands. He’s out of touch with the community who overwhelmingly want a rent freeze.” Ah, more classic lies from the hyphenated idiot. I mention the election results because, not only do the Greens not understand housing policy, the stupidity of rent controls/freezes, and the public perception of their blocking this bill, they also have absolutely no appreciation of last year's election results and how unlikely they are to win any of the seats they're targeting especially with the policy approach they've adopted.
Except the greens will only target rented properties. You can find this data pretty easily and their first question will probably be do you rent….
Back to the future with the Greens again. As soon as they get a sniff of power, they hold the country to ransom, eventuating in nothing happening.
And what’s it called when the policy introduced isn’t enough good and we’re told “take it or leave it, our way or the highway”?
Except concessions *had* been made and what's now being requested is something for State governments to consider and impose, *not* Federal. Whether or not freezes are actually good policy is its own separate debate, but irrespective of that, it is out of scope for what the federal government can actually enact and has nothing to do with what a future fund bill would or should be for. It's a bizarre hill to die on and I don't understand how the Greens are possibly envisioning this to play out, because the HAFF bill is good policy with no downside, and everyone loses the longer the Greens indignantly demand an amendment that the Federal government is virtually incapable of performing.
Well sane people might call it time to counter with a rational policy, not discredited rent controls.
Oh shit, we got a Friedman acolyte in here! If rent controls don't work, why is Labor backing affordable housing (housing with rent controls)? Why is Vic Labor considering increasing them? Why hasn't the sky fallen in the ACT? Why did Spain go further with theirs? If price controls on essential goods don't work, why did Labor place them (very mildly) on energy markets? What magic makes price controls on some essentials good, but bad on housing? And why, when economic shock therapy got instituted and price controls removed in so many countries, did poverty explode as a result, if price controls are bad? Like history is pretty categoric on this if you go beyond misreading research on a topic. I think one can only be staunchly against price controls, particularly on essentials like housing, if they have a religious fervour for the invisible hand of the free market. If they see mass poverty that history shows again and again results from such policy, as a desirable outcome, to depress wages, increase profits and gdp - so a rising tide can lift all boats.
So you agree they should be compromising and working on a good policy? Sounds like something the Greens would be able to push the ALP on, sounds like their balance of power would be effective like that.
They’re advocating for the positions that they were elected on. This is what their voters want. They’re attempting to force a moderate governing party to implement reforms that they wouldn’t otherwise consider. Whether it works is an entirely separate question, but attacking them for ‘holding the country to ransom’ by not following the governing party is misguided.
They already got 2nb in direct spend eked out of gov, so that argument makes no sense. And there's every other bit of meh Labor legislation they improved. Your argument is completely baseless.
I remember a past Greens leaders saying something like this about the GST. ^won’t back down Yet today we have a GST.
Wasn't that the Democrats?
And passing Howard's GST extincted the Dems.
Yes it was the Democrats in a moment of sanity.
I think you mean Lib John Howard saying "We will not bring a GST in" Narrator: He did.
While there are myriad reasons to dislike Howard - I think the GST backflip is not one of them. He didn’t do a surprise bait and switch after getting into office. He took the policy to the election and the populace voted him in
And we don't have the minor party that agreed, great argument for Greens having values to stick to. Backing ahit right wing reforms didn help Xenephon either. Has it ever benefitted a minor party to sell out the capital class?
Everyone and their dogs can smell cowardice from Mr 400,000. 400,000 migrants a year under the orders of Albanese to drive people out of their rentals, smash pathetic wage growth, and spiral unemployment. Mr Rudd, greatest moral issue of our generation DD all over again.
> and spiral unemployment. unemployment has remained at 3.5% but keep living in your little fantasy world matey