Australian politics is a weird beast. Historically to the present day, our "politics" makes for some frankly bizarre and ridiculous moments to situations that cost lives and are, for lack of a better term, enraging. We are currently heading into an election cycle (by which I mean we are in an election cycle - with an election still to be declared, but everyone is campaigning anyway), and the result is frankly, disastrous. A Prime Minister whose members of his own government labelled a "complete psycho", "terrible terrible person", "a fraud", to a "liar", "hypocrite", the last 2 - by the deputy leader, no less in texts, messages sent to other ministers.. It's safe to say that Scott Morrison's likeability has gone past the gutter and is now making a beeline for Earth's mantle, where it will, at some point, meet up with his ability to lead. Even friendly and right wing journalists are saying he should simply step down and stand aside. Not because he is a festering boil on the backside of humanity, but because he is so unpopular, that they could lose the next election.. This is a man who during one of Australia's worst bushfire seasons that saw much of the country on actual fire, saw fit to go on a holiday to Hawaii, and when confronted, advised that he did not hold a hose and how firemen loved going into the fires to fight fires (meanwhile fire fighters were dying, losing homes, facing an uphill battle because our non hose holding Prime Minister had refused to acquire water bombing planes in adequate numbers going into a fire season everyone knew would be severe and he'd been warned about).. Then returned home, remained hidden in the Government's harborside mansion, only to slither out a few days later (presumably jet lagged), to declare how he really appreciated that Australians were upset he had gone and how they wanted him around - ignoring the fact that people were pissed that no one knew he had left the country and no one knew who was in charge.. And tied to this, the billions of dollars that were meant to be given to those affected, and to rebuild infrastructure has not seen a sent paid, but has instead, been used by the government to drum up over $800 million in interest - while people still sleeping in caravans and infrastructure still to be rebuilt.. Over 2 years later.. The holiday which he then allowed his wife to take the blame for.. Anywho.. A few of the horrors.. Other scandals involved the Robodebt scheme which he had devised when he was minister for social services and was a complete and utter disaster, which led to people committing suicide after receiving debt notices for ridiculous sums of money, which they did not actually owe and were for the most part, erroneous.. It was horrific and went on for years, by which point it was found that they had issued incorrect debt notices and had collected over $721 million, which then had to be repaid (some are still to receive their money back).. In total, over 470,000 wrongly issued debts had to be refunded to people they harassed and in too many instances, hounded to the point of suicide, into early graves. Then comes the Aged Care scandal, which has seen thousands hit severely by COVID, with underpaid staff, staff shortages (because the dumbarse cut funding to the Aged Care sector when COVID hit), with many having so little staff, patients and residents are going hungry, some died with maggot infested wounds due to staff shortages.. Coupled with the elder abuse and mistreatment.. Sexual misconduct and rape allegations within his government - which include his now infamous moment where he said that his wife made him understand it was all bad by asking him to consider how he would feel if it (rape) happened to either of his daughters.. Misconduct, rapes and allegations they did their best to cover up and during which he once commented that victims of sexual violence who had marched to Parliament House, should consider themselves lucky they were not met with bullets, in what he described as a "triumph of democracy".. Then comes the COVID response - failing to order vaccines or accept vaccines from companies like Pfizer - because he wanted to produce AZ vaccines in Australia - which we weren't producing and which left us far behind most countries when it came to vaccinations - to allowing a giant frigging ship to dock with over 1 thousand COVID positive cases not being quarantined, to refusing to allow quarantine facilities to be opened or built, instead forcing hotel quarantine, which caused even wider spread of the virus, to failing to order adequate RAT's, and then scrambling and basically confiscating people's orders, as well as what States had ordered. Not to mention his government trying to pick a war with China and now, with a yet to be declared election looming on the horizon, they are now trying to distract from an ongoing list of disasters by their government, by declaring the opposition is the red menace and using parliamentary privilege to label opposition members as traitors.. The latter follows his determined effort to pass a religious discrimination bill, which was supposed to protect people of faith (aimed at Christians only mostly) against religious discrimination (this is already covered in various statutes pertaining to human rights in the country) - but which had the 'desired' effect by far right Christians for discriminating against others - such as LGBTQIA+ children and staff in schools and workplaces.. Which saw members of his own government cross the floor and defeat after he forced parliament to sit until 5am to try to pass the legislation.. He then shelved the law after it passed with amendments that would offer protection to the LGBTQIA+ community and children, as well as women.. Because apparently the spirit of the law was now lost - the aim of the legislation was to allow the Christian right to discriminate. When that failed, he then went on 60 minutes, where the country (well, 500k or so who tuned in to watch - the majority refusing to tune in) got to see him cook lunch, play the ukulele and sing badly while the children looked embarrassed and his wife tried to smile, where his wife labelled a victim of child sex abuse of lacking manners because she did not smile at her husband the week before - to now full on electioneering and his washing a person's hair (apparently he can hold a hose after all) for a photo op and today, in showing how he is a good old Australian working class man, decided to weld for the camera.. https://twitter.com/SquizzSTK/status/1494870530029416449 A pictorial presentation: Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! That's right.. He lifted the visor up off his face to start welding (without warning for those standing close to him).. There's a lot to be said about this Government. A lot. I could be here for days typing. Am I the only one waiting for him to finally declare this election? There is always the possibility that he could win - given the current scare campaign and people being morons - it's possible they manage to scrape this through.. He believes he was put there by God to lead, after all.. It's not a litany of errors. It's a litany of dangerous policies and horrific practices that saw people die. And now he's holding us to ransom by still not declaring an election and instead preferring to wait until the last moment to do so. Is anyone else concerned that they could be re-elected?
Nice summation and YES terrified the current crop in Government could be re-elected Unfortunately I don't see the alternative crop choice as being an improvement I intend to spend the period remaining, now until election day, productively sleeping Occasionally will unsleep to attend SciForum, check email, send girlfriend cute cat photos / videos Beam me up Scotty we're done here. Please have replicator have coffee and a cream filled apple turn over waiting Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image!
Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! Wow and here, I had thought that we(USA) had the best(worst) LCD politicians. ............................ It seems that, quite often, those who would rule------------shouldn't.
I think the only way we could get worse is if we voted for Pauline Hanson or Clive Palmer.. He's not calling the election now because if the polls are to be believed, they are screwed. The last election where he was behind in the polls, and won with that miniscule majority, I thought he would win, simply because talking to people who felt he would do better than Shorten. Since then, so much has happened and the horrifying thing is that I only touched on a few in my OP.. There is so much more that just keeps building and building.. I didn't even touch on the silence when their staffers had filmed themselves masturbating on the desks of female MP's, or the corruption, or their treatment of refugees, or the human rights abuses, their refusal to do anything to protect the environment, the current fence sitting to appease anti-vaxxers, and on and on that list goes. Nearly 1000 terrible things over 7 years... And the corruption.. Dear lord, the corruption.. The latest discovery of a doozy of which should land them in prison.. A Brisbane construction company had $8 in assets and had not commenced trading, when it was awarded a government contract – ultimately worth $1.6bn – to run Australia’s offshore processing on Nauru. The contract was awarded after the government ordered a “financial strength assessment” that was actually done on a different company. Canstruct International Pty Ltd had eight $1 shares in assets in 2017, company filings show, when the department of home affairs asked accountants KPMG to assess it for its ability to “provide garrison and welfare services” for more than 1000 refugees and asylum seekers on Nauru. Since then the contract – originally worth $385m – has been amended seven times without competitive tender. The contract now totals $1.6bn. With just over 100 asylum seekers and refugees still held on the island after eight years, it now costs more than $4.3m each year – more than $350,000 a month – for each person held. Canstruct is owned by the uber wealthy Murphy family, who are huge Liberal donors and Peter Dutton approved that contract by secret tender... We are now in the hour where he and Dutton have gone on a 'reds under the bed' rage, and it reeks of desperation. Because this is all they have left. It's akin to John Howard's horrific 'children overboard' lies.. To suggest that there's no alternative to this.. Come on dude?
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A few examples.. While signing billion dollar deals for planes that don't work and for giving deals for illegal detention centres to their donors, the Government tried to cut cost by cutting support payments to the orphans of soldiers - that cost $260,000 per year. Or when they placed a former Sri Lankan officer in charge of an off-shore detention camp, which housed Sri Lankan refugees who had fled the genocide in Sri Lanka? The officer was in the very same armed forces that committed said genocide that the refugees were fleeing.. We have been putting up with 7 years of this crap. I'll give you an example of the obscene nature of our current federal government. There is a minister called Andrew Laming. What makes him stand out is the fact that female ministers in the government (his own party!) don't want him around and want him to drop out. To "reconsider his future" was the polite way they put it. In short, no woman in parliament is comfortable with Mr Laming's presence in the building. Why, you may ask? Because Andrew Laming has stalked and harassed women online and in person for years. When I say stalked and harassed, I mean driving one to the point of near suicide and even going so far as to lurk in bushes while one of his victims was on school ground duty (she is a school teacher in a primary school). When he was discovered, he basically ran for it as the police were called. He published the names and addresses of these women online, with slurs, false accusations for all sorts of things he had fabricated, he published the names of their family members, including their children.. For reasons known only to himself. It was and is relentless.. That's right, he's still harassing women.. He was then found to have up-skirted another woman - I shit you not, he saw a woman bent over and he took a photo of her underwear, was then caught by a male co-worker of the poor girl and was forced to delete the photo after he tried to scuttle out of the store.. They basically had to block him, threatened him with police to get him to delete the image. In most circumstances, if someone does stuff like this (mind you, he also streamed himself harassing women), they would be fired. Not with this government. Oh no! He was ordered to apologise, which he basically took back the next day, ordered to undergo "empathy training" - he got a month long holiday with full pay. He was then told that he should drop out at the next election. He refused to. He then became worse, so his party - state party - essentially blocked him for pre-selection for the next election. In the meantime, he's suing everyone he can sue, lying through his teeth and again harassing his victims.. Meanwhile, our Prime Minister praised him for all the great work he's done in his electorate - harassing women in his electorate aside that is.. This is the bullshit we are forced to put with. For 7 years.
Bells, I was a minimum wage cleaner who received a 2 cent per hour pay rise because union right winger Bill Shorten did a deal with a major cleaning company in Victoria to get a AU$40k kickback to employ someone to help him get elected in federal parliament for the first time. I wasn't even working in Victoria but that less than $1 per week pay rise was embedded in our QLD EBA for 3 years. Convince me why I should not vote independent and instead vote for a party that has turds like Shorten waiting in the wings to take over after an election victory.
Depends on the independent and where their preferences go. And whether you are happy with the current state of affairs. If my local member or big party candidates were crap, I'd vote independent, but I'd personally look at preferences. But that's just me. I mean look, you should vote for your best interest. I'm not going to tell you to vote for this or that, or convince you to vote for a party you disagree or disapprove of. I'm not a fan of the current crop of the ALP - for example, I prefer Penny Wong or Tanya Plibersek to Albanese, but personally, I can't fathom another term under the LNP. From the fires, COVID, their inhumane treatment of refugees (locking up kids for nearly a decade and denying essential and lifesaving medical care, excusing rapes and murders of refugees), to their disregard for human lives for their economic greed, to their lack of belief in our changing climate and its knock-on effects to not just the weather, but waterways, oceans, the land, their continued embracing of coal and the coal sector for $$.. It just keeps piling on and on and on. I'm a 'every vote counts and matters' kind of person, be it for a major party or independent. If you wish to vote for an independent, then hey, that's your choice. I'm not going to suggest you vote for Labor if you oppose them. If you wish to vote for the LNP, that's your choice. I am telling you of my personal feelings on the current government.
The election results we have been getting recently seem to be due to the underlying factional control movements in our major political parties. There's no doubt that a 'revolutionary' who de-nationalizes public assets is not from the left side of politics so maybe the people are starting to learn that voting, in the House of Representatives, for a right wing party dominated by its left faction is preferable to voting for a left wing party dominated by its right faction.
No election date has been announced yet, but I heard on the news this morning that Clive Palmer's One Australia party has already spent about $60 million on advertising. For any non-Australians reading this, that party is a minor party that also spent big at the last election without much success. A large part of its funding comes from its founder, Palmer, who is tipping in a smallish portion of his personal fortune. The party supports a lot of Trump-style nuttiness. It is running on a platform of generic appeals to "freedom", pandering to anti-vaxxers and those who are disgruntled about government health measures such as mask mandates. A couple of MPs who were at the far right end of the Liberal Party have defected to One Australia. They have large social media followings, a lot of which seem to be crazy Trumpists in the United States. In fact, it is probably fair to summarise the party as an attempt to more fully transplant Trumpism into the Australian political landscape. For comparison, the two major Australian political parties - the Liberal/National coalition (LNP) and Labor - have each spent only around $100,000 on electoral advertising so far, apparently. Whether media saturation by One Australia actually sways more than the fringe crazies in Australia to support that party remains to be seen, but there is some cause for worry. One should never overestimate the average intelligence of the electorate. Having said that, the vast majority of Australians weren't fooled last time, so fingers crossed...
For the non-Australians in here, how would you break down the political preferences for the average Australian? What are they looking for in a political election? For instance, in the U.S. you have the Trump crazies, almost no moderate Republicans, and then you have moderate Democrats and then the "crazies" on the left. They are not as "crazy" but aren't particularly realistic regarding how our economy functions (or doesn't function). I'd say their arguments are usually based more on emotion than anything else. So you have many just hoping the government doesn't raise taxes and others hoping that the government does something for them but raises taxes only on the other guy. People may care about green issues but it really makes little impact in elections (here). How would you break down the situation in Australia? I'm interested more in how the average person looks at government rather than the flaws of specific politicians. They are all flawed it seems. I'm interested in how the average Australian who is doing OK looks at elections as well as how those who aren't doing as well as they might hope look at them. That's usually the dynamic in any country it seems. It's rarely about the very rich or the very poor even though the very rich (especially here in the U.S.) are often used as a scapegoat. They are rarely the actual problem however, IMO.
What left faction is there in the LNP? They went with Turnbull, who while PM still kowtowed to the far right of the party. The issue with the LNP is that there is no middle ground any longer. They have swung further towards the far right since Howard and it's heading further to the right. Current ALP is more towards the middle or just left of the middle. The idea that they are far left is the LNP's scare campaign. The ALP should be more to the left. If you look at how well the Greens are doing in capital cities, it makes little sense to me that they aren't shifting slightly more to the left. Even the Greens aren't as left as they claim to be or wish to be and are slowly inching a bit more towards the middle. Competency. Australians like to have a Government who responds and acts as required or as needed. They don't like those who do things for the camera.. We expect whoever is in charge, to at least be competent. And this is not a critique of just this Prime Minister or Government. We haven't really had a competent government in Australia 7 years. People expect them to get things done. But Australian politics is now a 'just stop them from doing anything and everything' game, whether it's good or bad. This is an issue in basically any democratic country, Seattle. We have far right factions who are crazies and we have far left factions who are equally crazy in a completely different way.. Australians are fairly used to levies on our tax to pay for things for everyone. Medicare being the prime example. We would prefer this to get things done, then to stagnate and leave people behind or simply fail at providing basic necessities, particularly when it comes to things like income support, care for the elderly, healthcare, education, roads. Different here. Climate change is one of the top 3 issues of concerns for around 45% of Australians and that's rising. The environment is probably on par. People here notice the changes. Tackling climate change and protecting the environment is becoming a big issue now for a majority. When some areas are now going for 10 years without seeing rain, farmers losing crops and livestock because of the effect of climate change and previous practices of extensive land clearing, people start to take notice. Our Government is very much in the pockets of the coal industry and to try to maintain that very lucrative connection, they tried to sell "clean coal" to the population, because people want to move away from fossil fuels and move towards greener energy. We see the effect of climate change in our weather patterns and storms.. Particularly storms. I cannot remember the last time we have not had a severe storm. Our recent bushfires are a prime example. Tropical rain forests burned down. Which was unheard of in Australia. But years of drought saw tropical rain forests now becoming arid forests. Barrier reef is disappearing. The fishing industry is suffering because warmer oceans and less fish. "Green issues" is affecting people's way of life, it's affecting the food we eat and have access to, it's affecting the cost of electricity (which went up because so many people started using solar power, that the electricity company increased the price of electricity), access to fuel and gas. Environmental issues.. Recent bushfires saw over a billion in wildlife destroyed. Koala's in many parts of the country are now endangered. We risk seeing them go extinct in our lifetime. People here do care about these things, more and more. There is a huge swing towards candidates who push "green issues". Seats that were long held by the conservative parties are going to independents and Greens candidates because of environmental issues. Well currently people are fed up. Because instead of focusing on issues that matter, such as COVID related issues, RAT's, cost of living, cost of housing (people can no longer afford to buy a house), fuel costs, payments to the unemployed which are horrifically low and unemployed people can't afford to buy food or pay rent, cost of medication, aged care system which is a complete disaster, healthcare system, etc.. Our Government decided to put all its focus on a Bill that would allow religious institutions and organisations led by religious people, to discriminate against others. So people are pissed. The last time people were this pissed, a man who had served as Prime Minister and was ousted by his party, lost his very very safe seat to an independent who pushed climate change issues. And that swing away from the government is getting even bigger now. Currently, people are even angrier. There was a by-election in Sydney - State election - where the seat of the former Premier of the State was up for grabs. She is a member of the conservative Liberal Party, who resigned due to corruption allegations.. But that seat was a safe seat for her party. No one should even come close. The swing against the ruling party is 20% currently. They risk losing the seat. Usually they can declare a winner on the day of the election for this seat, because it's such a safe seat or conservatives. An independent risks toppling them. And we are seeing a swing like this nation wide. Short of the Prime Minister declaring war with another country to try to save his position - since Australians will usually not change government if there's a war, there is a risk of a wipeout for the current government if the trend holds federally. Long standing ministers are now scrambling, removing the PM from their advertising, because he is so disliked that people may associate him with these candidates, so they are airbrushing him out. That's the situation in Australia currently. That depends on how you define "doing ok". Consider people who are employed, earn enough to allow them to live comfortably, go on a holiday each year, and are able to save. Say they have managed to save $250,000 in 10 years to buy a house. They won't be able to buy a house because they won't be able to afford a house. A single carpark is selling for half a million dollars. Houses that were worth $550,000 less than 5 years ago are now over $1 million. So those "doing ok" can't buy a house, and will find renting difficult, because of a severe housing crisis. Those who aren't "doing ok", say they are on unemployment benefits or disability or aged pension - can't afford to pay rent, buy food, buy medication. Dental? Forget it. Kids aren't leaving home when they become adults, because they can't afford to do so. This limits their education prospects and that had a knock-on effect for their future employment prospects. Let me put it to you this way. Say someone is in their 60's, close to retiring, have their own home and possibly an investment property.. They also have to help support their adult children, are being made to work for more years because the government pushed the retirement age back, if they are going to be self funded retirees, they have to try to manage because many will still have their adult children living at home. If their adult child is unemployed, that child won't be able to pay rent and eat on unemployment benefits. So they have to help out. If there's a health issue involved, the situation becomes even worse. These people normally vote for the conservative party. There is now a swing against them, because the conservative party is making life hell for their adult children - because making people work till later in years, means their kids can't find jobs and because the cost of living and a housing market that's become ludicrous means their kids won't be able to enjoy or benefit like they did when they were younger. The concept of leaving a nest egg or the family home to one's children so they can sell it and buy their own.. That's gone out the window, because no one can afford to buy a house.
Seattle, things aren't as clear cut as Bells writes and as soon as people get burnt by either of the major political parties they tend to support the independents. In 2009 the then ALP government introduced changes to the federal budget papers that reflected a future increase in the retirement age to 67. It then spent the AU$5b in savings generated as a result of this change. The LNP was in power 10 years later when the future retirement age was due to be legislated so they had to either introduce the law or find $5b to fill the hole in the federal budget as the money had already been spent. The major political parties have more recently introduced mandatory preferential voting to force people who vote for independents to record all of their preferences down to the bottom of the ticket or have their vote invalidated so that the two main political parties get their final vote. Previously you could just vote for 1 and leave it at that.
I think more people here would think that way as well if it felt like we got something for our taxes and if it felt like the taxation was fairly distributed. It starts out as just taxing the "rich" but that isn't a good idea and it doesn't work anyway so it gets broadened so it it all falls on those in the middle who are doing OK but not great, which is unworkable ultimately as it just "punishes" those who do manage to be "successful" to some extent, which should be the goal for everyone. Unemployment in Australia is about 4 percent and home ownership is about 67 percent I believe. That seems pretty reasonable as far as unemployment (except for those who are unemployed of course) and if 67 percent own homes that seems pretty reasonable as well. It doesn't seem reasonable to say that no one can afford a home if 67 percent do have homes does it? I understand that prices are high (here as well) but home ownership is about the same here I think. You can get a mortgage (here) with as little as 3 per cent down. We face the same issues with high housing costs and limited supply but that's always been the case to varying degrees. The free market is setting those house prices so I'm not sure what the government could or should do in this regard? Price controls, historically, just makes the problem much worse. I'm just picking those two issues from your comments as those were the ones that stood out to me as being similar to here but also I'm not sure they are government problems since housing is a free market thing and unemployment is pretty low just based on the statistics I'm seeing. Is it just an education thing with jobs being available but low paying? Education is more affordable there than in the U.S., right? I'm not sure I understand why adult children are still living at home? That happens here too but it's not most people. I think I did read that Australia's economy isn't as diversified as an outsider might think, being more heavily dominated by mining?
Now look at home ownership by age group. Home ownership data from the 2016 Census show a home ownership rate of 67%, down slightly from 68% in 2011. While the home ownership rate remained around 67–70% from the mid-1960s, the rate for different age groups has varied markedly over this time. The rates among different age groups can be determined using the age of the Census household reference person. Specifically, the number of private dwellings by age of household reference person and tenure type can be used to calculate the proportion of homeowners of specific age groups from total households (excluding not stated). The home ownership rate of 30–34 year olds was 64% in 1971, decreasing 14 percentage points to 50% in 2016, according to Census data. For Australians aged 25–29, the decrease was similar—50% in 1971, decreasing to 37% in 2016. Home ownership rates have also decreased among people nearing retirement. Since 1996, home ownership rates have gradually declined; rates for the 50–54 age group have seen a 6.6 percentage point fall over these 20 years (80% to 74%) (ABS 2017b). To further illustrate these changes in home ownership rates, Census data can be presented by birth cohorts (Figure 2). The rate has fallen for each successive birth cohort since 1947–1951. Home ownership rates of Australians born during 1947–1951 increased from 54% in 1976 (when they were aged 25–29) to 82% 40 years later in 2016 (when they were aged 65–69). By contrast, the home ownership rate of those born during 1987–1991 was 37% in 2016 (when they were aged 25–29), 17 percentage points lower than the 1947–1951 cohort at the same age (ABS 2017b). That 67%, by the way, is the lowest figure since the 1950's. That 67% figure was a few years ago. It will be even worse now. This will have a knock-on effect on how people retire and will result in greater pressure on the welfare system: https://www.afr.com/property/reside...change-how-australians-retire-20211117-p599nc The reality in Australia can be surmised as: Home ownership rates have been plummeting since the 1980s in a nation that used to boast of being an egalitarian society. With the intergenerational shrinkage of stable income and a spike in debt-to-income ratio, young people and those with a modest income have been gradually locked out of the real estate market. Consequently, many young adults are sharing rental homes or boomeranging to parental homes out of economic necessity. Home ownership is increasingly becoming hereditary; something that used to be attained is more likely to be inherited by those who come from money. The current government has no intention of fixing a clearly broken system: Indeed, treasurer Josh Frydenberg remarked back in June that the rise is good for the economy. The federal government extended lukewarm sympathies for those who are struggling to get a foot in the property door for the first time, while merrily pointing out that many households are gaining from continued property price inflation. Therefore, price hikes are here to stay because simple solutions – such as building more houses and properly taxing property investments – are not as politically sound. One simple fix would be to change the tax laws that would prevent investors from essentially having ridiculous tax breaks through things like negative gearing. No. It's that house prices have shot up to ridiculous amounts. For example, a town in New South Wales, called Orange - it's a country precinct. Not much goes on in Orange. House prices used to be quite cheap. Now houses that were $450k four years ago, are now selling for over $1 million. Here is another example: Tamsin Rose, from The Guardian, tweeted: “At a 1 bedroom apartment auction in Birchgrove. It was listed for $800,000. It just sold for $1.532m.” The frustrated journo also pointed out about the property: “Sucky under quoting, waste of time for many. “First listed at $750,000 on February 4. So it sold for more than double initial guide.” The Birchgrove apartment has one bedroom, one bathroom and one garage space, making its $1.5 million sale a staggering price indeed. The inner west apartment last sold in 2014, according to property records, for just $600,000. Low salary has nothing to do with it. It's investors who are driving the prices up and causing a shortage in the housing market, which drives the prices up even more. They are able to borrow or mortgage of their other properties and are able to borrow more money than first home buyers.. So they drive the prices up. They buy run down properties for ridiculous amounts, either knock down and rebuild a cheap house on the property and resell and basically make $1 million + profit, or they do a superficial renovation, white paint, new cheap kitchen and bathroom, floating laminated flooring and then sell it for even more - and they can do this without costing them anything at all basically because of our tax laws. I know someone who had an investment property, renovated the whole house, they did not pay anything out of their own money to do so and instead claimed it through their tax and 2 years later, sold it for 4 times what they paid for it.. Or they rent it out as is for exorbitant amounts, because even that is now a competition where renters are entering bidding wars. They still live at home because they either can't afford the rent, can't find a house or property to rent because there aren't enough available to cope with the surging market (people who can't afford to buy a house because the housing market is insane, have to rent instead, which is driving the shortage) or they can't afford to buy a home or they are saving to try to get a down payment for their first home. Yes. We sell a lot to China and other countries. How that pans out given the government's drive to start a war with China, remains to be seen. Our economy is taking a hit because of the Government's 'red menace' stance - because wars win elections.
Off-topic, but here's a hint on formatting: the forum software interprets a dollar sign $ to indicate the start of a TeX equation, which is why the formatting of text after a dollar sign tends to go screwy. One way to stop that happening is to enclose the dollar sign in some other kind of formatting tag, such as italics or bold. In the editor, you can just highlight the dollar sign and hit CTRL-I to make it italic, for example. Or write [i]$[/i] when you want the dollar sign. Not ideal, but it is a work-around.
It does the same with the percent sign (I think). When I'm feeling lazy I just write out percent or dollar to avoid all that.
Bells, I'd never heard the term "negative gearing" before but I looked it up. How does investors buying a house to use as a rental drive prices up any more than a first time home buyer? I understand that you disagree with the tax treatment but, in general, doesn't that just lead to less rental units being available to those who need to rent? I see that 50 percent of 30-35 year olds own homes. Yes, that's down from earlier that that's still pretty good for that age range most places I would think. It's hard to get around the fact that housing prices go up the more buyers that there are. When there are no more buyers, prices go down. That rarely happens around major cities though because of limited land/supply. It doesn't mean that not every person can afford to live in a major city if their job is in retail (for example). That's really more about low interest rates than anything else IMO. I live in Seattle and house prices have always been high. It got a little crazier in the last couple of years and has slowed down a bit but all available housing is taken so it's not like prices are so high that no one is buying. When interest rates were higher, home prices had to be a little lower due to the interest payment portion. Now rates are lower and sales prices are high. In big major cities (in the U.S.) it's never been easy to afford a house. I know attorney's that have roommates and are either renting or buy condos. Most currencies (certainly the US dollar) are worth less and less every year due to government spending so what we are talking about is really just inflation. My house is old, small and yet has gone up about 400 percent over 25 years or so. It's not really "worth" any more, it still has the same function but inflation has just made it that much more expensive to buy than it was 25 years ago. 25 years ago it still seemed expensive as well. Yet, at the same time and in the same city I know of a young (25 year old) school teacher who just bought a condo. The point being, it's never been easy and yet it is still possible even today but it is harder over the last few years. It's always been rare for a 30 year old to own a house in Seattle. I've noticed that house prices seem high even in smaller towns not within commuting distance to a large city but relatively speaking they are still much less than in the larger cities. Is it your view that one should be able to afford a house in a major city, regardless of the size of your family and regardless of your job? Meaning should someone with a retail job and a few kids expect to buy a large house in a major city? I think that's always been hard hasn't it? I'm just seeing that what you are describing seems to be a developed country phenomena that is happening in most all countries at the moment. It's a combination of a Covid disruption and low interest rates and limited available land.
Because there are now more renters than houses. Particularly affordable housing. Because rental prices are so high, people are moving further afield to rent a house. They then essentially lock out locals from the rental market because they have more money to spend, but are unable to rent closer to town. Investors are buying up cheaper housing in many regional areas and renting them out for a lot more - which creates a two pronged issue. Locals can no longer buy housing locally because they have been priced out of the market by investors and they can't rent there, because cashed up people from city areas are moving further out to rent, because the rental market closer to the cities are a) expensive and b) highly competitive. This is made worse by foreign investors who buy houses here and then don't rent them them out, putting even more pressure on the market. The houses and apartments remain empty, sometimes for years. It isn't good at all. You may think it is and perhaps it may be in the US, but in Australia, where affordable housing is scarce, if people can't afford to buy in the market now at 30-35 years of age, with a 25 year mortgage, then that's 50% of that age range who will probably never be able to buy a home, which is 50% of people trying to rent a home and it becomes an even more vicious cycle. But there aren't "more buyers", by which I mean more people buying. The majority of the time here, the prices are so high, it's aimed purely at foreign investors, who buy up the properties and never rent them out or live in them. Local investors will lease those houses. Foreign investors rarely do. Or billionaires like Clive Palmer, who James mentioned above, will go through and buy up every house he can in street and the houses remain empty. He drives up the prices and then sells them. You're talking about a normal property market in Seattle where supply and demand dictate the prices. What's happening here is completely different. There's local demand, but no one can afford the exorbitant prices that's driven up by local and foreign investors, who want to drive the prices up more, for a higher return when they sell the property. Local investors buy up more affordable housing in more regional areas and then rent them out and price out the local market, they do the same in city areas as well.. And there is a huge demand, because people who would normally be putting down a down payment on their first home, are forced to rent, because they have been priced out of the housing market and it becomes a ridiculously vicious cycle. While this is happening in may places, our Government is refusing to do anything about it. New Zealand had the exact same thing happen in their country and their solution was to simply ban foreign investors from purchasing residential property as investments.. Australia's government is unwilling to do that. Five years ago, my parents valued their home. It's now worth nearly 4 times that.. If I put it on the market today, I'd easily get nearly 5 times what it was valued 5 years ago. This is a house that is in a middle class suburb, where housing was affordable and aimed at young families - usually buying their first home. Those families who may now wish to get a bigger house or dip their toes into that suburb, won't be able to. Your comparing a normal market to one that is out of control in a completely different and unrelated circumstance in a different country. Think of it this way.. Someone in their 30's gets a loan for 25 years to buy a house. Normally this would fall well within their earnings, so they are able to repay the loan over that period of time, because they are earning enough to repay it. In a nutshell, that's how the system is meant to work. Property prices are now so high, that people in their 30's who have managed to save up 6 figure sums, are unable to get a loan to buy a house, because the property market is so inflated, that they will never be able to repay that loan in their lifetime, so banks won't lend it to them. By the time they hit their 40's, it becomes even worse. And I am not talking about inner city houses. I'm talking about houses with 1.5 hour commute at a bare minimum. I'm not just talking about major city or living in a major city. It's my view that people should be able to afford to buy a damn house if they are working, have a steady income and have saved a big chunk in a deposit. It's my view that people should not be priced out of the housing market completely, because of a desire to appease foreign and local investors. Frankly, I don't get your role here. You've driven the entire thread off topic, talking about something you don't really understand and telling those that do understand that what's happening here is completely normal, when the reality is that in this country, what we are now seeing is not normal at all. I'll put it this way, short of having very rich family or winning the lottery, the next generation who will reach adulthood in the next 10 years, will not be able to buy a house. And to be honest, your dismissal of the person working in retail is ridiculous. Yes, they should be able to buy a house where they choose to live and where it is convenient for them to do so. Currently someone working in retail can't even afford to buy a house 4 hours away from a capital city. Not because they aren't earning enough. But because investors have priced them out completely. You should keep in mind that if people who work in retail move away, capital cities are screwed. It benefits wealthy people to ensure retail workers can actually live close enough to their workplaces. Right.. Please Register or Log in to view the hidden image! In my state, around 1 in 10 to 1 in 12 houses remain empty and unoccupied. Owned by investors, usually foreign. Is it hard to understand how this makes the housing crisis worse in this country? Investors, for example, build massive apartment buildings. All remain empty. They aren't rented out or bought locally. They just remain empty. The target is foreign investors, who buy and don't live in them. There are suburbs here when I can drive though and every 3rd house is empty and unoccupied. They buy up, drive the prices up and then let the house remain empty. Local investors buy up and rent at exorbitant prices.
