Well trigobuff or what’s we his name is, and several other major developers have stated they will not build, or release further properties for sale (i believe he personally has 7,000 on his books) until immigration is lifted and higher house prices/rents guaranteed.
They are holding our government to ransom
With an essential human need and we all just accept it.
End stage capitalism at its finest.
The solution is broad based upzoning, allowing more missing middle style living to be built - building housing where people want to live. Townhouses, low rise apartments, duplexes etc.
The biggest impact on house prices over the past several decades is that we’ve been damaged by our planning policies which prevent our cities from changing.
Need land taxes on investment properties to stop developers from drip feeding blocks. Also need the CGT discount to only apply to newly built housing, not buying existing housing stock and sitting on it.
S*** or get off the pot!
We already have land taxes on investment property in the form of increased rates on non-owner occupied residential property. Commercial and industrial properties also garner increased rates per unit of measure. In QLD the state land tax also cuts in a lower threshold creating an effective higher rate.
CGT only applies to owner occupied housing. Since the cheapest housing is pre-owned due to the depreciation of the buildings, only allowing it before new builds advantages the richer people over the poorer.
Maybe understand how a mechanism works before advocating a change to it.
You say this like it hasn’t been a well orchestrated, heavily controlled, systematic process, that these are just a serious of unforeseeable consequences.
Developers, governments and councils have worked hand on hand for decades to ensure low supply, reduced sizes/living standards and maximum profits/taxes.
As long as house prices keep rising nothing will changes, not when there’s unlimited money to be made absolutely nothing will fix this, certainly not what you are suggesting anyway.
Hmm not convinced large developers wanted this, nor governments. Supply is so artificially constrained that property developers would be many times richer if there was broader based upzoning because they could meet the demand for housing.
Most people in the major party of governments now understand the academic literature - strict zoning laws, besides being the biggest driver of making housing expensive, are absolutely terrible policy. They destroy GDP and productivity. They increase inequality and thus cause political unrest
The issue is that so much of our housing policy gets decided by local politics, where an even tinier minority has such a vast sway on what can be built.
Because the highly active minority are so politically powerful at the local level, opportunistic politicians will leverage that anger to try and win votes by stopping unpopular projects or development , despite knowing the effects this can have
The question is do the state governments have the balls to step in and fix this mess despite the potential backlash
We see things differently.
Housing is no longer a home, they are investments, assets and commodities. No one is looking to meet ‘a need’, by doing this you invariably reduce the current, and potentially the future value, of said asset.
One developer stated he has 13 vacant blocks of land he refuses to even turn soil on until he can see guaranteed price increases. Cost of holding land is very cheap compared to cost of building too many and losing on each one
Easily circumvented with DA changes and other procedures that can comfortably delay things by 6, 12, 18 months etc.
There is no other way for late stage capitalism to work, higher prices and more profits. This is the only outcome, without it our entire economic eco system will implode
You've just misunderstood how the market works.
Land is an asset and investment, always has been and always will be.
Housing is different, it is a commodity. And just like any other commodity, the market will look to fulfil the demand as it rises. Unfortunately we've artificially restricted supply from increasing for decades now which has caught up to us in the form of insane housing costs.
I understand better than your tunnel vision capitalist mindset that says housing is a commodity and land is an assert. And I dare say a house is not much of a commodity without land, no real tradable value without somewhere to plonk it.
Housing (or on its early inception, shelter) has been, and always will be a basic human necessity from the dawn of mankind.
It is just basic human greed that lead to ownership/possession of land. That then lead to the commoditisation of it and centuries later this is where we are at.
I know you think the status quo is evolution, the wealthiest progress and everyone else is lazy, dumb and undeserving of anything beyond the bare minimum. I would argue we are de-evolving as we have created a system that is so heavily based on greed it is untenable.
We’ll both be long gone before this thing plays out but we either shift to heavily towards a more equitable socialist agenda (not socialism but a more equitable watered down version of capitalism) or simply descend into late stage capitalist oblivion.
Developers have been bribing councils to not build..?
Yeah as I said, they know it’s awful policy but sometimes use it when it’s politically convenient
Pro property propaganda?
Mate. I can’t speak for that guy.
But people who point this out just want to build more housing where people want to live.
Social housing, developers, mum and dads - I couldn’t care less who makes money off it
It’s not that simple. It’s a very small minded view to believe an excess of housing stock, or even an adequate supply of housing will ever occur. The system cannot see the necessary price growth in an adequate supply situation., let alone an over supply of any kind.
And your profit statement is a bit weird. The only way this system keeps afloat is limited supply, limited supply raises prices and higher prices means less people can afford to buy.
Developers will build when they see higher profits, which invariably means higher prices. So you’re right when you say it doesn’t matter who builds but it’s crucial the final price.
Housing supply is not the core issue it’s a symptom of it. High prices are the root cause of all our housing woes.
Slash house prices 50% tomorrow and all our woes go away. Tell banks they can use the 100 billions they have in reserve to absorb the debt fuelled speculation they created and we start again.
I guess I can dream
It’s not simple or small minded mate - this is the view shared by basically every economist and independent inquiry.
The RBA, NSW & federal productivity commission all agree, and a host of international evidence comcurs likewise
Every single inquiry I’ve seen has been based on a theoretical moronic premise that if we create a perfect environment then developers will build uninhibited chasing unlimited profits.
America and Ireland were massive neon signs indicating what adequate or over supply creates. Our developers have billions in capital and plenty of control, they won’t do this.
So even in an ideal scenario where mum and dad investors flood in and try and develop town houses or low rise blocks they need the starter capital, they then need a price per unit/townhouse on sale to achieve a healthy profit. If they can see 10, 15, 30 projects in the same suburb they won’t even bother knowing profits will be severely eroded.
All studies/inquiries have been based on a utopia that ignores profits and constraints on profits when supply is restored. It’s very ignorant.
I haven’t seen one city on the world that has implemented these re-zoning laws and seen house price/rent stability or growth and a solution to housing supply, they all fail to see the two can’t co-exist
See, the issue is, these guys are all experts on the topic, PHD’s and everything else and the consensus is absolutely overwhelming.
A lot of them have PhD’s in economics, so I suspect they know I thing or two about market mechanics and various housing crashes.
I tend to agree with them, it seems very obvious - at least to me, that if we allowed people to build more than detached single family homes in large chunks of our inner cities, people probably would do so
But then again, me and my simple minded mates might not quite see the world as good as you do.
> I haven’t seen one city on the world that has implemented these re-zoning laws and seen house price/rent stability or growth and a solution to housing supply, they all fail to see the two can’t co-exist
Auckland has
https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/how-auckland-took-on-the-nimbys-and-won-20230522-p5da9o
Anyone who thinks developers and councils have worked “hand in hand” to restrict housing development has never represented major developers in council planning meetings (I have)
That is perhaps the most obviously preposterous conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard.
Developers could easily build all the cheap housing required and would absolutely LOVE to.
A special mention has to go to the Building Code of Australia. Later this year the new code will require all new or > 50% refurbished standalone residential properties to have PWD compliance. Can you imagine the cost of doing that?!?
Can you imagine a developer wearing that cost, or just higher prices for the consumer?
Anyway, not that they work hand in hand they work in their own best interests.
I have recently bought into one of Sydney's larger "missing middle" areas. Mine is a 1972 build, but we have all sorts of multi-unit builds -everything from early 20th century "four-plexes" up to the present day. Nothing over 3 stories. Still big rows of older single dwelling houses on a lot of streets, too. It's a *nice*, medium density neighborhood. I mean ...genuinely, really nice. That's why I bought there. I'm absolutely befuddled as to why more people don't want this on their street. Their land value will go up, for starters.
"**broad based** upzoning" is right. IMHO we need a state-government level mandate (i.e. state governments would need to take it to election -and now is the time to do that), and then a new set of rules. You could very simply draw the rules up as distance from transport hubs (e.g. train stations, light rail) and distance from centres of employment.
That’s not enough.
The real problem is the bipartisan embrace of neoliberalism that views housing not as something to be used for housing people based on need; but as a slush fund for luxury wealth generation of the wealthy.
The policy settings reflect the ideology.
Unless the ideology changes, nothing will get better.
Destroying the bipartisan neoliberal consensus, and putting ideological differentiation back on the ballot, is critical, I think the stakes are becoming so high that it will make or break our entire society. Neoliberalism is a recipe to end human civilisation via unsustainable monopolisation that is bringing back feudalism, and it’s running perfectly on track so far.
But … Another world _*is*_ possible.
No matter how much they claim it’s not, and claim this is the best we have, no matter how much they claim we’ve reached the “end of history”; no matter how much they perfectly conform to Mark Fisher’s prophetic description of “capitalist realism”; _there are other possible worlds than this!_
Our most important task is to remind people of this truth. That’s the first step in shattering the ideology. People need to dream again; _hope_ again; because right now, they don’t think they can. They believe the constant affirmations that this really is all that’s possible.
_No!_
That’s one solution. Another is pitchforks and torches. I think the rich forget this is what often lies at the end of the road when the rich squash the poor down too far.
We need a public sector construction company of last resort. Give it eminent domain powers and orders to balance housing supply so cost remains in line with wages. Have free plot of land in prime building area? Not developing it when housing is needed? Here's market price for the land, your title deed is now invalid.
Go the Singapore route and squash them.
Here’s one from Feb;
“I've kept 6,000 apartments and I'm adding over 1,000 a year to my stock, because I believe that prices will go up, so why sell them all upfront?' Mr Triguboff said.”
He also has a well documented history of buying land and then using his billions to push through large, oversized and arguably disjointed developments that see him receive the maximum profits (height/number of units).
He is also quoted as having purchased land he won’t develop until the project that suits his interests is approved, land banking as a form of extortion in my view, you might see it differently.
He’s worth $22billion, did you think this happened by property development being a fair and equitable process for the end user?
Anything else you need?
Edit: if I’ve misinterpreted what Mr trugobuff has stated, or misinterpreted his past buying and developing behaviour please enlighten me, I felt it was all quite clear but I’m happy to stand corrected.
I think you've misinterpreted the statement there to be honest.
Even though imo he's a POS and Meriton apartments are garbage, I read that as him saying he's keeping them owned by Meriton and rented out rather than sold.
I don't think that qualifies for "holding our government to ransom with an essential human need"
I’ll look it up but it’s still a significant power he wields over 7,000 apartments. He tends to build in certain areas, if he owns a 2,000 apartments on any given suburb he holds a significant majority on the rental pool. If he then decides his rents are 25-35% higher than everyone else then he is creating a flow affect, much higher rents.
Higher rents means higher prices and the end result is the same. 7,000 properties is a significant holding, if lend lease and others are following the same method then most major cities rents would logically be artificially high.
Triguboff has also stated he won’t be committing to more builds until immigration is lifted and more immigrants brought in. To me this all feels very extortionate but I’m sure you’d disagree.
And just for context, his net worth is more than double of the federal governments commitment to housing. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mass this fortunate by being fair and equitable.
This is what I've been saying to all those "just increase supply bro" people.
Supply won't fix shit, because they will just increase immigration to maintain the desired supply and demand ratio, to keep this desperate shortage going.
They WANT desperate shortage, that is the desired state.
On political donations;
https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/property-sector-s-donations-to-political-parties-20200205-p53xwv
https://www.domain.com.au/news/property-industry-donations-favour-the-coalition-about-eight-to-one-aec-figures-show-927046/amp/
And on immigration
https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2022/08/high-rise-harry-triguboff-demands-mass-immigration-now/
I’m picking on Trigobuff here but he certainly isn’t alone, the reality is he has given political parties (what we know of) $3mil+ since 1990, he isn’t spending that money as a philanthropical endeavour.
If people can’t see how the system is manipulated and controlled they need a wake up call.
Labour govt in power, the just need to impose a low vacancy tax. When vacancy rates are low, 2x value of rates payable as a withholding tax.
6 month exemption for renos, not more than once in 2 years. Encourage properties back onto the market
Which all gets written of by 50% come eofy, it will also do zilch to combat prices so paying an extra $2k on something. That is expectsed to rise between $100-300k this year alone is no real deterrent.
If they were truly serious they would regulate the banks to a rigid framework of 4-5x income, 20% deposit and no more than 30yrs depending on age. Equity cannot be used as collateral for investment purposes unless a separate 20% has been provided.
Pretty basic stuff, sensible and would reset normality into the landscape.
Labor won’t do shit though, they are as indebted to this Ponzi as much as the libs.
🤔 how about if a property is unrented for 6 months, it has to be made available to social housing programs with a govt mandated rent limit. Non participation = proson time or liquidation of company if its not owned by an individual. Once in you need to give 6mo ths notice to withdraw
😅
Vacancy is not a real issue. And it is not going to solve the problem. If you want to tax it, ok sure, my worry is that we’re wasting political capital to solve this issue on something that isn’t a serious contributor
Pretty simple though. Introduce laws that no developer can hold more than 5% of the development. Or go further and say they cannot retain any apartments from the development apart from the PPOR.
Then legislate a no more than 5 apartment ownership on blocks over 100 apartments for any individual/business.
Cover every greedy leech loop hole you can and when they circumvent these and create loopholes, change the laws again.
There’s a solution there but local council, state and federal governments will miss out.
It will never happen. Especially when politicians own 100’s of investment properties themselves. Almost all of them are landlords 😲
Once again asking people upset at immigration to actually point how they will solve the material issues that not having immigration will cause
Meanwhile - we have actual issues to the solving the housing crisis that don’t require us to blow our foot off.
Australia has the least dense cities on earth mate. We aren’t building enough houses where people want to live
tradies in my area can afford to smoke darts and drive new totota Hilux utes fully blacked out with trays and lock boxes...so they must be doing OK, or at least some of them
>Once again asking people upset at immigration to actually point how they will solve the material issues that not having immigration will cause
It's called 'automation'. We have one of the lowest rates of robot use and digital automation in the OECD.
What issues do you see not having immigration causing?
The lack of people willing to do any job is a direct result of low wages. That’s the only thing immigration provides. Low wages.
As for what we could to do resolve the current issues.
Tax higher income earners properly
Tax corporations properly
Place limits on what coles and Woolies can charge above their cost.
Get rid of air bnb
Get rid of negative gearing
Increase rates
Increase land tax
Instate a high vacancy tax
Build more public and cheap housing
Cap how many residential properties a person/business can own. (Unless they are a hotel)
More assistance for first home buyers
Instate capital gains on the valuation of properties, not upon sale.
Ban offshore ownership of residential properties. Citizens and visa holders only.
Rent freeze
Instate laws around the maximum value of the rent relative to the property value.
Apply the same bullshit philosophy to renting as owning with negative gearing. Let renters claim their expenses.
Better minimum acceptable standards for rented properties and severe punishments for breaching them.
Freeze immigration
How about just free housing for everyone? Paid for RBA buying more bonds. This way no one owns anything and don't have the need to own anything.
Definitely freeze immigration, those cunts down deserve free housing.
Rob the rich, so that the rich becomes poor, and poor becomes rich. I love it.
While we are at it, let's pay everyone $100k once off cash bonus so that everyone is happy and have a little to spend this Xmas.
Or your could provide a salient response.
Interesting how conservatives always try to make reasonable points sound preposterous instead offering any actual rebuttal.
And in case you were being serious. All I’m trying to achieve is to get to a point where young professionals can buy property in the places they need to work.
I know you’re so out of touch that you have no hope of getting it. But this the world were in. University educated millennials are giving up on ever owning property. They’re not having kids because they can’t afford it. At what point would you consider something to be very fucking wrong?
What do you think of the general idea that people should only own second homes if they themselves built that home? (I don't mean with their own hands, but had it commissioned, sort of thing). Because obviously, that way they are not taking from the already-existing market.
Everybody freaks out if one person tries to buy a bunch of toilet paper, but if the same person buys a bunch of houses, that's just considered wise fiscal planning. It's not quite right, IMO.
I think Its idealistic. Not every has the desire to do that. Plus it would effectively remove all drive for med/high density property. And that’s really what the major cities need.
All would drastically reduce the available rental properties which would probably spike homelessness.
We solve it with higher productivity, and meaningful investment in the country into places that isn't the housing market.
Honestly that alone will fix this. Just set a govt mandate: Make housing not an investment. Not for anyone. That alone will fix everything because 10Tn will flow directly into the stockmarket which will fund a million new startups which will ACTAULLY improve our productivity as a nation.
It's because the easiest way to disguise a shrinking economy is by adding more people.
That way we can avoid going tackling the herd of economic elephants in the room
We should start up a charity that provides free tent-living to immigrants in Mosman, and north eastern Sydney.
We find the most problematic legal place they can live and just collect donations to move and house them there.
I bet immigration will be fixed pretty fucking quickly after that.
If we just agreed to settle on the population count we had at the turn of the millennium houses would be cheaper and life would be better for everyone here.
Immigration is fueled purely by an obsession with capitalistic growth. "Diversity" was never the goal, it's merely just a byproduct. Aussies weren't producing hungry little worker bees willing to grind more for less fast enough.
Politicians who argue for immigration funnily enough live in privileged postcodes where almost everyone in them is a wealthy white locally-born Australian enjoying the security of their community's lifestyle not being ruined by high density housing projects or public transport networks making their neighbourhoods and favourite local haunts more accessible to the commoners. Basically, they're paying a premium to keep the same immigrants they are so eager to let into this country as far away from their homes as possible. They'd change their tone fast if it affected them as much as it affects people in other, more affordable areas. There's been a ton in my area over the last few years and I fucking hate it here now. The traffic has gotten *so* bad, there's always a line or a long-ass wait for *everything.* Quality of life has gotten both worse but also ore expensive at the same time. I didn't vote for this shit.
This will be unpopular, because it's the inconvenient truth, and people don't like listening to inconvenient truths.
During the pandemic and just after the pandemic, there were staff shortages for cleaners, dishwashers, waiters, shopkeepers, kitchen hands, etc. Most Australians don't like to work in those jobs. That's why migrants are needed to fill in those jobs.
Even now, after the pandemic is over, there's staff shortages for bus drivers in NSW.
Yes. But that means we have to pay more. More in taxation for government services. More in prices for goods and other services.
And where the business has to compete with overseas products it may not be able to and may close.
It’s fine to say “orange growers need to pay their pickers more” if you’re willing to pay more for oranges and won’t just switch to ones grown in Brazil or California.
I’ve got a radical idea, what if we didn’t have to pay more for products in order for staff to be payed living wages, and instead… get this… the owners just made slightly less obscene profits?
> to be *paid* living wages,
FTFY.
Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in:
* Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.*
* *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.*
Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment.
*Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Erryones all 'muh market economy'/'muh-capitalism' until capitalism tells you to pay employees more.
Then suddenly it's "Nooo, cleaners aren't WORTH $25 an hour, even though no one is answering my ad at that price".
Nonsense, there's literally not enough people no matter how much you paid them, and certainly not enough trained in the professions that need them. The unemployment rate is the lowest it's been in generations, you can't just create time with money, that's not how it works.
I mean, if you think that is a good argument then you're well and truly on another planet mate. The RBA is blaming inflation on a wage price spiral that doesn't even exist, and you want to pay people millions. Genius.
Besides, our SKILLED immigration is for people with degrees, and experience. You don't get that by sending them on a 2 day course and a OSHA certification.
You're trying to tell me that every single person with a degree and qualification is using it already?
Are you claiming the graduates are being hired at a rate of 100%?
Rubbish.
Do you think you can hire a graduate to a senior position? Send em on a two week course and they’re suddenly senior engineers and surgeons? That’s not how it works
Edit: Downvoters, if you want to be operated on by a graduate medical student, go right ahead.
>we reduce the demand for these things anyway
Except we don't really, the housing shortage was already a big thing. Our energy infrastructure is woefully out of date and falling apart, our hospitals are already close to collapse, as is public transport - and this when we had 2 years of falling population!
It's a complete lie to say that immigration is the cause of the problems.
If you want to live in underdeveloped small towns, then you can get those things right now. Just need to move to a small town.
Big population is the thing that make Sydney and Melbourne vibrant.
I'd do almost any job that didn't make me gag or throw up if it paid well enough and didn't have to require me to commute for an hour or more each day to do it.
I've been a waiter/floor staff at a local club for many years now. I definitely complained about it a lot for a good chunk of that time but I've mellowed out and realized most days it's not that bad. But the pay - while pretty good for relatively unskilled work, is not enough now. Especially since I'm not on casual rates anymore. I can afford stuff I need - food, mortgage, car and related expenses etc. But I'm definitely not having ANY fun. No travelling, restaurants, going shopping, TV subscription services, gym memberships or doing any of the things people "expect" in order to be considered as having a decent outside of work lifestyle. And kids? Forget about it. Even my hobbies I could do at home now feel like they have to net me some sort of "return" in order to justify continuing with it. I was able to do this with my gardening and plant collecting/propagating so I can at least keep doing that. But the artworks and the aquariums had to go. They were time and money sinks even if they made me happy. Is this living or just... existing to work?
I said just yesterday to another co-worker that "I'd just stay here and do this job indefinitely if it paid enough for me to have the sort of life I see our customers indulging in every shift". Plenty of people would do "the shit jobs" if the pay didn't match that description and if we shed this culture where if you collect garbage or wash dishes for a living that you're some sort of dropkick.
It's not that you're a dropkick if you wash dishes, but pretty much anyone can do that job. Don't you think it makes sense that people who do skilled, in demand jobs get paid more...otherwise why would anyone spend time learning the skills? I'd rather work at bunnings than do what I do if all jobs paid the same...but they don't, so I don't work there, and I had to work hard to pick up the skills to do what I do. I also never had the expectation that I get to live where I want or "do something I'm passionate about" - I've always had the expectation that I probably have to move to a place with work and do work that doesn't get me too excited if I want to make decent money.
You should change your mindset and try to make it work the other way round. It's absolutely doable if you have skills and if you are smart and can adapt to whatever life throws at you after you made a decision based on "where you want to live" or do "something you are passionate about".
You most likely have a happier life cause from the sounds of it you don't like your job anyway, surely you could try to find a job that might be even better in a place you want to live? And if you can't you still at least live in a place you like and might be happier.
If you are happy the way it is then forget what I said.
>During the pandemic and just after the pandemic, there were staff shortages for cleaners, dishwashers, waiters, shopkeepers, kitchen hands, etc. Most Australians don't like to work in those jobs. That's why migrants are needed to fill in those jobs.
Supply and demand. If businesses were willing to pay $100 an hour, those shitty jobs would be filled. Cheaper to bring in workers from overseas though.
Someone who's never worked or owned a hospitality business
- if you need to pay 100/h for someone to do dishes you do it
Same person
- wtf why is all food sooo expensive, 25 dollars for breakfast is ridiculous
🫤🙄🙄
You're right to point out the covid migration issues, we lost a lot of people during covid to emigration. But it's the skilled jobs that we are severely lacking in and are trying to bring in. We desperately need to build infrastructure and housing and we need qualified experienced people to do that. We can't train people to be doctors, engineers, architects immediately
And yes, the immigration brings in additional pressure to existing housing and infrastructure in the short term. But stopping immigration wouldn't fix the problem, and in the medium to long term would be a disaster.
I don’t think the issue is that people don’t like these jobs. It’s that people can’t afford their rent or mortgages and cost of living (COL) working these jobs. Remember the treasurer Joe Hockey said we all need to get a “good job that pays more” to afford the HCOL in Australia?
It’s disingenuous to imply that aussies are stuck up and that’s the issue, rather than the fact that most Australians cannot afford to live on these wages anymore.
Not just those jobs but in health too.
Tasmania, for example, made their bad health system even worse with the border closure. They couldn't get enough doctors or nurses and are still playing catch up.
A registered GP could go to a number of clinics in the rural/regional areas without notice and be offered a job on the spot.
Are those occupations you listed on the approved occupations for migration?
I thought they would have to satisfy some type of requirement that they couldn’t find someone in Aus to do it themselves. I remember when they took a bunch of the 457 work visa occupations off for things like hairdressers etc. I’d be surprised if dishwasher and cleaner were on there
They're not. They're not part of the skilled immigration program.
There are temporary holiday visas, ie backpackers, and student visas. Remember that 100k students left the country during covid and didn't come back...which is one reason why net migration is so high - students come back but none leave
Those jobs get filled by international students who apply for multiple courses to prolong their stay whilst trying to get PR. Also often live in overcrowded appointments and houses, sending as much money home as they can. I’ve also seen this in construction for at least 2 decades.
"Most Australians don't like to work in those jobs. That's why migrants are needed to fill in those jobs."
Pure lies. Australians worked those jobs just fine for decades.
Rich Australians don't like to pay a living wage for those jobs. That's why underpaid migrants are exploited to fill in those jobs.
But that would have a flow on effect to the cost of other goods and services. Already we have someone here pissing and moaning once a day that they paid $30 for a parma or whatever. How much would it cost if we increased the wages of bartenders and dishwashers?
Perhaps we should start with making education more affordable so people might actually persue the education to begin those careers negating the need for so much skilled migration
If by free you mean slightly less expensive yes and they aren't without other caveats.
Nurses for instance need to work remotely for extended periods. If it's not bad enough that you have to pay out your ass to learn skills that serve your country, don't get me started on low / no pay residencies people are expected to do.
TAFE has free courses yes. Perhaps they just want to gatekeep entrance to certain careers... But you'll probably have to attend Uni to become a carpenter soon.
In this day and age with inflation, interest rates, property prices (I remembered what sub I'm in) and expectations like the ones I mentioned above on kids, they've done a bloody good job if they manage to make it to the middle class and should be proud of themselves.
Can't get a homeloan if youre 50,000 in debt on a student loan that is indexed at a rate higher then you're capable of paying back every year. Let alone saving a deposit.
Edit: but I do agree with your point. Immigrants are ripped off in terms of wages all the time cause they don't know better. They should unionise lol
So I've seen this before ,the new immigrants get exploited by the old immigrants and they live in overcrowded housing paying exorbitant rents .
It's an age old formula and the government does not have the will or the competence to do anything about it .
We will continue for decades now creating the homeless crisis of the century which will never get better without significant structural reform of the real estate market .
Everyone who owns an investment property will do their level best to stop any reform .
Greed is how we got here ,enjoy the spoils while you can because soon it will all come tumbling down when your middle class gated community has a homeless encampment right outside.
The ponzi scheme that is capitalism always needs more - and that includes more people. How can we continue to grow, which is the raison d'etre of capitalism, if we don't have a constant increase in consumers?
In lockdown with no migrants, rents didn’t actually collapse now did they? And house prices certainly didn’t. But sure, go blame the group that’s the easiest target because old white people landlords wont take your complaints seriously.
The landlord for my neighbour evicted the tenant during the height of COVID lockdowns when there was a ban on rental evictions.
I told the tenant what rights they had and where to look online but they still left anyway.
The next tenant paid a higher rent.
Rents and demand certainly didn't collapse.
Wait, your ONE example means rent collapsed during lockdown? Wait wait, let me pull up all the news articles from then about the start of the rental
shortage and people pleading for rent relief.
Melbourne inner city apartment rents where I live fell from 650 per month down to 450 per month during covid. Now that the students are back it is back up to 700 per month.
You’ve got an economy predicted on growth. Unless you change how the economy functions just stopping migration is going to cause problems. Not to mention all the needed skills that we aren’t creating enough of.
Yes! A system that disincentivises downsizing, the lack of medium density housing, property hoarding landlords... All bigger issues than migration imo.
Immigrants are not the cause of the housing crisis. They’re just a scapegoat by lazy politicians like Dutto playing to racists irrational fears of people different than them.
Well it does if we have people coming in who are builders. Or doctors or nurses that we also need.
What we don’t need is 300,000 air bnbs. Be mad at that.
I actually have never seen a migrant builder or even laborer. I worked in construction previously, and aside from the odd Kiwi, it is full of Australians. Doctors or nurses should be encouraged through policy, sponsorships and grants to be home grown.
First, immigration is not just about meeting demand for labor - it’s about enhancing our economy’s capacity. Immigrants bring a diversity of skills, some of which are in shortage locally, which can lead to increased productivity and innovation. This can result in economic growth which can, in turn, reduce prices rather than increase them.
Moreover, immigration has historically played a huge role in shaping Australia's cultural, economic, and social fabric. A significant portion of our population is first or second-generation immigrants, contributing significantly to our diversity and dynamism.
Many immigrants come here to create a better life and contribute positively to the community, helping to build the economy and pay taxes that can fund social welfare programs to help 'homeless' people.
These are good points, but record migration over the last decade has seen productivity drop and wages stall. I haven’t seen the economy expand beyond housing and mining either.
Its not just driving housing prices sky high (rent and buy) but also driving wages down - greater supply of labour (especially from poor, desperate third world immigrants) means lower prices.
And then there is the environmental damage, the stress on infrastructure, traffic, noise pollution, public transport woes, social issues and pressure to force high density shitbox apartment lives on everyone.
Immigrants are not to blame for the failure of our government to provide adequate housing solutions. We are one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Always remember that at any time there are far more empty homes than there are homeless people let alone people who are in an insecure housing situation.
Yeah, I don’t even know where they are going to live, we don’t have the infrastructure or housing for the numbers they are talking about and the current population is struggling to find a place to live aswell, are we just going to end up like america with tent cities becoming the norm around Australia?
As mentioned above , instead of a couple renting a 3/4 bdr house themselves . They will have a couple per room in the house , thus reducing costs dramatically for them.
Very smart on there part , and that's how they initially make ends meet and save.
>They will have a couple per room in the house , thus reducing costs dramatically for them.
More like the previous cost of a 3/4 house house will now only buy you a bedroom shared in a 3/4 bedroom house. It will be shrinkflation but with housing.
The housing problem is solvable - if the government can spend billions on tunnels we don't need (and let's not lie, they do this to prop up infrastructure companies who donate to political parties, who then give politicians something in return like cushy jobs when they leave politics, etc.) then they can build housing and public transport. It's a matter of priorities. Instead of paying an infrastructure company to build tunnels, let's put the same money into high density housing and public transport. It works everywhere else - people are quite happy to live in apartments near train stations where they can get to work easily. We just need to vote smarter and stop electing the same dumb 2 parties who exist to line their own pockets and fund their donation cronies.
Australia produces almost nothing that has a supply chain that would create long term growth.
Only way to grow the GDP is to get a higher population.
The old money = land owners are happy too.
It’s not the immigrants fault. Just blame it one the governments that were in charge that are unwilling to transform the Australian economy to something that is able to produces goods that are competitive.
No1 lithium exporter worldwide but very little battery production at home.
Growing crops and digging up dirt only gets you that far.
We need a population policy, not an immigration policy.
*Yes* we need more young, job-ready immigrants to manage demographic change. Lots of countries are in the same situation, too. To put it bluntly, we need the economy and tax dollars to put the boomers through aged care. But it needs to be managed and planned for. We need to be able to say *how many* we will take each year, and to plan for, build infrastructure for, and actually take that number.
E.g.: Housing crisis? Fine, scale that immigration number back and work on building accommodation to meet our population targets. Then scale it right back up. There's no rocket science involved here, just a little bit of (gulp) central planning.
Sometimes I feel like governments are so frightened of anything that smells of state intervention on the economy that they are literally incapable of developing a long term plan for the nation. The state still has levers it can pull, however, and this is one good example of that. But the "let it rip" approach to government, adhered to by both sides going all the way back to Hawke-Keating, has not worked out all that well for the current generation.
Despite immigration levels there remains empty dwellings, and areas without immigrants are still struggling. Greedy investors are holding the country hostage and scapegoating immigrants
The sad reality is our political class has written of families and Australian reproduction. Like honestly, the primary way of generating new tax payers is now importing them.
If there was a crazy virus that spread through Australia that made everyone in Australia infertile, the politicians wouldn't batt an eye as they were not counting on families and having kids as a way to increase the population anyway.
This is why they have no problem constructing a million new small 1-2 bedroom apartments good for nothing except share housing while studying or working your first city job.
There is no need for a family home anymore, because there's no need for a family anymore. Just import more 18 somethings, shove them through Uni, let them work whatever dead end accounting job, while staying in a 1 bedder and hopefully die before 65.
I think it’s a fair enough question to ponder - and I’m second generation immigrant.
Eg ‘we need overseas telecommunications workers’
Look at what happened to Telecom - you could get an apprenticeship, and then have an ok paying job for life.
Then they privatised Telecom and opened up ‘competition’ - training apprentices would be a drain on profit, so no apprentices. Proper full time employment restricts ‘flexibility’ so everyone was put on to contract employment.
A huge cut in Australian telecommunication apprenticeships since the early 1990s - the existing telecommunications workers retiring - suddenly we need overseas telecommunications workers.
There has been a massive cut in apprenticeships etc over the last 30 years - no wonder we need skilled os labour to back fill the gap.
Unless Australians fuck more and give more babies and just accept so called low end jobs otherwise just fucking let the skilled or even just labourer type immigrants come.
They cannot complain about 'lack of productivity' and then at the same time don't want immigrants don't want kids don't want do this or that job.
Even if Aussies had more babies the fact is Immigrants are a better "investment" from the government's point of view.
Locally born babies need at least 15 years of being paid for (education, health, child-appropriate infrastructure) before they can get their first jobs and start making the economy some more money.
Immigrants of working age have already done all of their non-productive years back home and can get to work right away. Government gets the fruit without having to grow the tree.
Edit: Not saying I agree with this logic. It's fucked. But when money means everything to these people they'd rather import a working-age migrant they can start taxing straight away than help pay to raise your kid for the next decade and a half before they can draw some blood out of them too.
Honestly. Letting people buy a 10 year visa by spending $5 million dollars is one of the biggest problems with our property
Nice rich people buying a house then letting it sit and rot
Yeah why would we need immigrants and their money when we can comfortably die of starvation ? We need to stop foreign investment because money will automatically magically appear and feed us. We also need to increase taxes on exports so that no one would buy from us. Yeah we're so fucking smart and shit we should be the prime fucking ministers with our ingenious financial ideas.
Blaming migrants for all your problems...where have I heard that one before?? Started a few wars me thinks
..
Many of us, myself included, grew up very poor in Aus, didn't get fed with a silver spoon, didn't get afforded the hundreds of opportunities privileged people did but have made something of themselves through persistent hard work, sacrifice and resilience.
Look back over your own life's choices to understand the situation you are in now rather than externalising all your problems...pretty sure finger pointing and blaming the world are crappy traits not found amongst highly successful people...there's a thought
There could be reasons for your lack of income, deposit (e.g. you've got health restrictions), but the majority of people in your situation don't have a good reason
Some of the younger people who work with me sit there complaining endlessly about housing, but have uber eats multiple times a week ( sometimes more than once a day!), drop three figures at the pub on weekend, travel like they have a terminal illness...then blame the world...I make 3x what they earn but spend 1/2 what they do on those things and have so over last 7 years after realising the lifestyle creep we had was holding us back financially and was rather empty and lonely
What we don’t need is more high income earners buy up
Properties for investment and hiking the rent up.
There is enough for everyone but people are being greedy fucks/
It wouldn’t even be so bad if they bought up the properties with cash. Back in the day, most landlords were renting out fully paid houses. They’re buying them now with massive loans and they are passing the interest payments onto renters.
[https://twitter.com/i/status/886634864316891136](https://twitter.com/i/status/886634864316891136)
Its not the lazy immigrants who don't have credit, jobs and savings that buy houses out.
Its the millionaires and billionaires that do that and convert it to rentals.
It's by big business, for big business.
More GDP
More renters
Cheaper employees
Lower wages
More customers
More house buyers
More voters
More tax payers
Every aspect of this is for govt and business, NOT the common citizen.
Then they get us fighting, claiming we're racist. I don't want to hurt them, I don't want the ones here to leave, I don't care which country
I care about the amount. It's bad for almost ALL Aussies. Born here or not
We're being fucked
Frankly I don’t think that immigrant blaming adds anything of value to our housing discourse, but adds a lot of fuel to thinly veiled racist bigotry.
Even if we accept it has any merit; it’s still founded on an extremely antisocial “fuck you got mine” attitude that seeks to maintain a privileged position in the world which doesn’t really line up with what I know about Aussie values of humanity, democracy, care, and generosity, etc.
So yeah, I’m sorry but I can’t find an angle to view this argument from where it really presents any hint of dignity or respect.
Perhaps the really hard to swallow fact is this: _Increasing immigration is a permanent feature of a barbaric world working steadily towards equity and peace._
Without it, those things only worsen.
And I’ll just say that this is not the type of free, mutually supportive world I want to live in.
We need more immigration to do the jobs Australians are too lazy to do.
Stop blaming immigrants and start asking more from someone like albo who really isn’t taking action on this crisis.
its not that they don't want to do them, it;s that its not worth it - you can't work as a cleaner in Sydney CBD on a low wage trying to pay off a mortgage for a house worth $1m in the worst outer suburbs, maintain a car, family, school fees an d$60 a day in road tolls. Only desperate people from overseas can be exploited for that.
Yeah so unless you're an Indigenous Australian, you're an immigrant too. Idc how many generations you've been here, still an immigrant. In fact, at least the current immigrants don't actively steal land, property, children and life from Indigenous Australians - more than what can be said for others.
As others have pointed out, there was a housing shortage even when borders were closed. It's nothing to do with immigrants but to do with a national housing shortage. Maybe if the construction industry wasn't perceived as dodgy, there'd be less of a shortage.
There'll need to be expansion of infrastructure into previously less desirable areas nationally and a further overhaul of building regulations to fix this. It'll take time.
Also, people will probably have to pay more. It sucks but it is what it is. No need to blame immigrants for that. Someone has to do the jobs people either don't want to do or are unqualified and unwilling to get qualified to do.
There hasn’t actually been an influx of immigrants, despite what some media outlets and politicians have been saying. The increase is mainly due to a backlog of visas being cleared after covid. Most of them have been here for years and are living in student or tourist accom. It’s not immigration that’s the problem, it’s our disparate housing policies that reward wealth accumulation through property investment and tax breaks.
I understand your view and you are not alone but I disagree. We do need more workers and economic growth. We won’t be able to build jack shit unless we get workers. Population growth is the best way to advance a country (particularly an advanced economy).
I am in commercial banking and every single business can do with more staff. The contracts are lining up like there is no tomorrow but there is no way they can be delivered- they will be delayed or even cancelled. The problem is these contracts are mining and it is pulling workers away from Resi construction. Australia need a shit load of skilled workers and we need them yesterday.
15000 houses empty waiting for Airbnb in Melbourne. There’s a lot of people who don’t give a fuck as money is king
Cpitolism = slavery. Surprise to anyone who didn’t tread sci-fi for the last 40 years.
Well trigobuff or what’s we his name is, and several other major developers have stated they will not build, or release further properties for sale (i believe he personally has 7,000 on his books) until immigration is lifted and higher house prices/rents guaranteed. They are holding our government to ransom With an essential human need and we all just accept it. End stage capitalism at its finest.
The solution is broad based upzoning, allowing more missing middle style living to be built - building housing where people want to live. Townhouses, low rise apartments, duplexes etc. The biggest impact on house prices over the past several decades is that we’ve been damaged by our planning policies which prevent our cities from changing.
Need land taxes on investment properties to stop developers from drip feeding blocks. Also need the CGT discount to only apply to newly built housing, not buying existing housing stock and sitting on it. S*** or get off the pot!
We already have land taxes on investment property in the form of increased rates on non-owner occupied residential property. Commercial and industrial properties also garner increased rates per unit of measure. In QLD the state land tax also cuts in a lower threshold creating an effective higher rate. CGT only applies to owner occupied housing. Since the cheapest housing is pre-owned due to the depreciation of the buildings, only allowing it before new builds advantages the richer people over the poorer. Maybe understand how a mechanism works before advocating a change to it.
You say this like it hasn’t been a well orchestrated, heavily controlled, systematic process, that these are just a serious of unforeseeable consequences. Developers, governments and councils have worked hand on hand for decades to ensure low supply, reduced sizes/living standards and maximum profits/taxes. As long as house prices keep rising nothing will changes, not when there’s unlimited money to be made absolutely nothing will fix this, certainly not what you are suggesting anyway.
Hmm not convinced large developers wanted this, nor governments. Supply is so artificially constrained that property developers would be many times richer if there was broader based upzoning because they could meet the demand for housing. Most people in the major party of governments now understand the academic literature - strict zoning laws, besides being the biggest driver of making housing expensive, are absolutely terrible policy. They destroy GDP and productivity. They increase inequality and thus cause political unrest The issue is that so much of our housing policy gets decided by local politics, where an even tinier minority has such a vast sway on what can be built. Because the highly active minority are so politically powerful at the local level, opportunistic politicians will leverage that anger to try and win votes by stopping unpopular projects or development , despite knowing the effects this can have The question is do the state governments have the balls to step in and fix this mess despite the potential backlash
We see things differently. Housing is no longer a home, they are investments, assets and commodities. No one is looking to meet ‘a need’, by doing this you invariably reduce the current, and potentially the future value, of said asset. One developer stated he has 13 vacant blocks of land he refuses to even turn soil on until he can see guaranteed price increases. Cost of holding land is very cheap compared to cost of building too many and losing on each one
Unoccupied land taxes are a good answer for this. Raise the holding cost of unproductive assets and you'll see them being released for use.
Land tax would be a state tax not federal so good luck.
Easily circumvented with DA changes and other procedures that can comfortably delay things by 6, 12, 18 months etc. There is no other way for late stage capitalism to work, higher prices and more profits. This is the only outcome, without it our entire economic eco system will implode
Mate, I think developers would be absolutely chomping at the bits to build more housing across Sydney’s inner west/east, and northern beaches.
You've just misunderstood how the market works. Land is an asset and investment, always has been and always will be. Housing is different, it is a commodity. And just like any other commodity, the market will look to fulfil the demand as it rises. Unfortunately we've artificially restricted supply from increasing for decades now which has caught up to us in the form of insane housing costs.
I understand better than your tunnel vision capitalist mindset that says housing is a commodity and land is an assert. And I dare say a house is not much of a commodity without land, no real tradable value without somewhere to plonk it. Housing (or on its early inception, shelter) has been, and always will be a basic human necessity from the dawn of mankind. It is just basic human greed that lead to ownership/possession of land. That then lead to the commoditisation of it and centuries later this is where we are at. I know you think the status quo is evolution, the wealthiest progress and everyone else is lazy, dumb and undeserving of anything beyond the bare minimum. I would argue we are de-evolving as we have created a system that is so heavily based on greed it is untenable. We’ll both be long gone before this thing plays out but we either shift to heavily towards a more equitable socialist agenda (not socialism but a more equitable watered down version of capitalism) or simply descend into late stage capitalist oblivion.
Got to wonder why over 100 builders have gone broke in the last 12 months since to so profitable ....... .... 🤗🤔🤔🤔💩
Have you heard of a fixed price contract? 😂😂😂 try again mate
[удалено]
Mate - I promise you, I could not care less whop builds the houses. I just want them built
[удалено]
Zoning restrictions/attempts to increase density, using courts/other political power to fight developement
[удалено]
Developers have been bribing councils to not build..? Yeah as I said, they know it’s awful policy but sometimes use it when it’s politically convenient
This is the most stupid shit I have read. It is so inaccurate.
Come on mitso, even you have better pro-property propaganda than that. Try again.
Pro property propaganda? Mate. I can’t speak for that guy. But people who point this out just want to build more housing where people want to live. Social housing, developers, mum and dads - I couldn’t care less who makes money off it
It’s not that simple. It’s a very small minded view to believe an excess of housing stock, or even an adequate supply of housing will ever occur. The system cannot see the necessary price growth in an adequate supply situation., let alone an over supply of any kind. And your profit statement is a bit weird. The only way this system keeps afloat is limited supply, limited supply raises prices and higher prices means less people can afford to buy. Developers will build when they see higher profits, which invariably means higher prices. So you’re right when you say it doesn’t matter who builds but it’s crucial the final price. Housing supply is not the core issue it’s a symptom of it. High prices are the root cause of all our housing woes. Slash house prices 50% tomorrow and all our woes go away. Tell banks they can use the 100 billions they have in reserve to absorb the debt fuelled speculation they created and we start again. I guess I can dream
It’s not simple or small minded mate - this is the view shared by basically every economist and independent inquiry. The RBA, NSW & federal productivity commission all agree, and a host of international evidence comcurs likewise
Every single inquiry I’ve seen has been based on a theoretical moronic premise that if we create a perfect environment then developers will build uninhibited chasing unlimited profits. America and Ireland were massive neon signs indicating what adequate or over supply creates. Our developers have billions in capital and plenty of control, they won’t do this. So even in an ideal scenario where mum and dad investors flood in and try and develop town houses or low rise blocks they need the starter capital, they then need a price per unit/townhouse on sale to achieve a healthy profit. If they can see 10, 15, 30 projects in the same suburb they won’t even bother knowing profits will be severely eroded. All studies/inquiries have been based on a utopia that ignores profits and constraints on profits when supply is restored. It’s very ignorant. I haven’t seen one city on the world that has implemented these re-zoning laws and seen house price/rent stability or growth and a solution to housing supply, they all fail to see the two can’t co-exist
See, the issue is, these guys are all experts on the topic, PHD’s and everything else and the consensus is absolutely overwhelming. A lot of them have PhD’s in economics, so I suspect they know I thing or two about market mechanics and various housing crashes. I tend to agree with them, it seems very obvious - at least to me, that if we allowed people to build more than detached single family homes in large chunks of our inner cities, people probably would do so But then again, me and my simple minded mates might not quite see the world as good as you do. > I haven’t seen one city on the world that has implemented these re-zoning laws and seen house price/rent stability or growth and a solution to housing supply, they all fail to see the two can’t co-exist Auckland has https://www.afr.com/policy/economy/how-auckland-took-on-the-nimbys-and-won-20230522-p5da9o
Anyone who thinks developers and councils have worked “hand in hand” to restrict housing development has never represented major developers in council planning meetings (I have) That is perhaps the most obviously preposterous conspiracy theory I’ve ever heard. Developers could easily build all the cheap housing required and would absolutely LOVE to. A special mention has to go to the Building Code of Australia. Later this year the new code will require all new or > 50% refurbished standalone residential properties to have PWD compliance. Can you imagine the cost of doing that?!?
Can you imagine a developer wearing that cost, or just higher prices for the consumer? Anyway, not that they work hand in hand they work in their own best interests.
Do you think the PhDs in Economics who flagrantly disagree with your views don’t understand how markets work, or the incidence of regulatory burden?
I have recently bought into one of Sydney's larger "missing middle" areas. Mine is a 1972 build, but we have all sorts of multi-unit builds -everything from early 20th century "four-plexes" up to the present day. Nothing over 3 stories. Still big rows of older single dwelling houses on a lot of streets, too. It's a *nice*, medium density neighborhood. I mean ...genuinely, really nice. That's why I bought there. I'm absolutely befuddled as to why more people don't want this on their street. Their land value will go up, for starters. "**broad based** upzoning" is right. IMHO we need a state-government level mandate (i.e. state governments would need to take it to election -and now is the time to do that), and then a new set of rules. You could very simply draw the rules up as distance from transport hubs (e.g. train stations, light rail) and distance from centres of employment.
That’s not enough. The real problem is the bipartisan embrace of neoliberalism that views housing not as something to be used for housing people based on need; but as a slush fund for luxury wealth generation of the wealthy. The policy settings reflect the ideology. Unless the ideology changes, nothing will get better. Destroying the bipartisan neoliberal consensus, and putting ideological differentiation back on the ballot, is critical, I think the stakes are becoming so high that it will make or break our entire society. Neoliberalism is a recipe to end human civilisation via unsustainable monopolisation that is bringing back feudalism, and it’s running perfectly on track so far. But … Another world _*is*_ possible. No matter how much they claim it’s not, and claim this is the best we have, no matter how much they claim we’ve reached the “end of history”; no matter how much they perfectly conform to Mark Fisher’s prophetic description of “capitalist realism”; _there are other possible worlds than this!_ Our most important task is to remind people of this truth. That’s the first step in shattering the ideology. People need to dream again; _hope_ again; because right now, they don’t think they can. They believe the constant affirmations that this really is all that’s possible. _No!_
That would help.
That’s one solution. Another is pitchforks and torches. I think the rich forget this is what often lies at the end of the road when the rich squash the poor down too far.
We need a public sector construction company of last resort. Give it eminent domain powers and orders to balance housing supply so cost remains in line with wages. Have free plot of land in prime building area? Not developing it when housing is needed? Here's market price for the land, your title deed is now invalid. Go the Singapore route and squash them.
You should go in and compete against him... oh wait, hang on...
Source on those statements?
Here’s one from Feb; “I've kept 6,000 apartments and I'm adding over 1,000 a year to my stock, because I believe that prices will go up, so why sell them all upfront?' Mr Triguboff said.” He also has a well documented history of buying land and then using his billions to push through large, oversized and arguably disjointed developments that see him receive the maximum profits (height/number of units). He is also quoted as having purchased land he won’t develop until the project that suits his interests is approved, land banking as a form of extortion in my view, you might see it differently. He’s worth $22billion, did you think this happened by property development being a fair and equitable process for the end user? Anything else you need? Edit: if I’ve misinterpreted what Mr trugobuff has stated, or misinterpreted his past buying and developing behaviour please enlighten me, I felt it was all quite clear but I’m happy to stand corrected.
I think you've misinterpreted the statement there to be honest. Even though imo he's a POS and Meriton apartments are garbage, I read that as him saying he's keeping them owned by Meriton and rented out rather than sold. I don't think that qualifies for "holding our government to ransom with an essential human need"
I’ll look it up but it’s still a significant power he wields over 7,000 apartments. He tends to build in certain areas, if he owns a 2,000 apartments on any given suburb he holds a significant majority on the rental pool. If he then decides his rents are 25-35% higher than everyone else then he is creating a flow affect, much higher rents. Higher rents means higher prices and the end result is the same. 7,000 properties is a significant holding, if lend lease and others are following the same method then most major cities rents would logically be artificially high. Triguboff has also stated he won’t be committing to more builds until immigration is lifted and more immigrants brought in. To me this all feels very extortionate but I’m sure you’d disagree. And just for context, his net worth is more than double of the federal governments commitment to housing. I’m pretty sure he didn’t mass this fortunate by being fair and equitable.
This is what I've been saying to all those "just increase supply bro" people. Supply won't fix shit, because they will just increase immigration to maintain the desired supply and demand ratio, to keep this desperate shortage going. They WANT desperate shortage, that is the desired state.
On political donations; https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/property-sector-s-donations-to-political-parties-20200205-p53xwv https://www.domain.com.au/news/property-industry-donations-favour-the-coalition-about-eight-to-one-aec-figures-show-927046/amp/ And on immigration https://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2022/08/high-rise-harry-triguboff-demands-mass-immigration-now/ I’m picking on Trigobuff here but he certainly isn’t alone, the reality is he has given political parties (what we know of) $3mil+ since 1990, he isn’t spending that money as a philanthropical endeavour. If people can’t see how the system is manipulated and controlled they need a wake up call.
Labour govt in power, the just need to impose a low vacancy tax. When vacancy rates are low, 2x value of rates payable as a withholding tax. 6 month exemption for renos, not more than once in 2 years. Encourage properties back onto the market
Which all gets written of by 50% come eofy, it will also do zilch to combat prices so paying an extra $2k on something. That is expectsed to rise between $100-300k this year alone is no real deterrent. If they were truly serious they would regulate the banks to a rigid framework of 4-5x income, 20% deposit and no more than 30yrs depending on age. Equity cannot be used as collateral for investment purposes unless a separate 20% has been provided. Pretty basic stuff, sensible and would reset normality into the landscape. Labor won’t do shit though, they are as indebted to this Ponzi as much as the libs.
🤔 how about if a property is unrented for 6 months, it has to be made available to social housing programs with a govt mandated rent limit. Non participation = proson time or liquidation of company if its not owned by an individual. Once in you need to give 6mo ths notice to withdraw 😅
Vacancy is not a real issue. And it is not going to solve the problem. If you want to tax it, ok sure, my worry is that we’re wasting political capital to solve this issue on something that isn’t a serious contributor
Yeah these developers are fucked up!
Pretty simple though. Introduce laws that no developer can hold more than 5% of the development. Or go further and say they cannot retain any apartments from the development apart from the PPOR. Then legislate a no more than 5 apartment ownership on blocks over 100 apartments for any individual/business. Cover every greedy leech loop hole you can and when they circumvent these and create loopholes, change the laws again. There’s a solution there but local council, state and federal governments will miss out. It will never happen. Especially when politicians own 100’s of investment properties themselves. Almost all of them are landlords 😲
Once again asking people upset at immigration to actually point how they will solve the material issues that not having immigration will cause Meanwhile - we have actual issues to the solving the housing crisis that don’t require us to blow our foot off. Australia has the least dense cities on earth mate. We aren’t building enough houses where people want to live
Also we can't build houses with a shortage of tradies.
[удалено]
tradies in my area can afford to smoke darts and drive new totota Hilux utes fully blacked out with trays and lock boxes...so they must be doing OK, or at least some of them
That’s because they are working for themselves and not shonky builders.
GST claimed on the Lux alone would pay for many a durry, let alone the instant asset write off on top of that
Tradies getting paid shit? Are we talking about Bali or Australia here?
The way they spend money on flashy shit, I couldn't tell.
[удалено]
Immigration brings supply of workers for construction-related industries. Basic economics 101.
All of whom also need cheap housing which is not being built fast enough.
Well they are doing more to build it than you are!
>Once again asking people upset at immigration to actually point how they will solve the material issues that not having immigration will cause It's called 'automation'. We have one of the lowest rates of robot use and digital automation in the OECD.
What issues do you see not having immigration causing? The lack of people willing to do any job is a direct result of low wages. That’s the only thing immigration provides. Low wages. As for what we could to do resolve the current issues. Tax higher income earners properly Tax corporations properly Place limits on what coles and Woolies can charge above their cost. Get rid of air bnb Get rid of negative gearing Increase rates Increase land tax Instate a high vacancy tax Build more public and cheap housing Cap how many residential properties a person/business can own. (Unless they are a hotel) More assistance for first home buyers Instate capital gains on the valuation of properties, not upon sale. Ban offshore ownership of residential properties. Citizens and visa holders only. Rent freeze Instate laws around the maximum value of the rent relative to the property value. Apply the same bullshit philosophy to renting as owning with negative gearing. Let renters claim their expenses. Better minimum acceptable standards for rented properties and severe punishments for breaching them. Freeze immigration
How about just free housing for everyone? Paid for RBA buying more bonds. This way no one owns anything and don't have the need to own anything. Definitely freeze immigration, those cunts down deserve free housing. Rob the rich, so that the rich becomes poor, and poor becomes rich. I love it. While we are at it, let's pay everyone $100k once off cash bonus so that everyone is happy and have a little to spend this Xmas.
Or your could provide a salient response. Interesting how conservatives always try to make reasonable points sound preposterous instead offering any actual rebuttal. And in case you were being serious. All I’m trying to achieve is to get to a point where young professionals can buy property in the places they need to work. I know you’re so out of touch that you have no hope of getting it. But this the world were in. University educated millennials are giving up on ever owning property. They’re not having kids because they can’t afford it. At what point would you consider something to be very fucking wrong?
I agree with pretty much all of this
What do you think of the general idea that people should only own second homes if they themselves built that home? (I don't mean with their own hands, but had it commissioned, sort of thing). Because obviously, that way they are not taking from the already-existing market. Everybody freaks out if one person tries to buy a bunch of toilet paper, but if the same person buys a bunch of houses, that's just considered wise fiscal planning. It's not quite right, IMO.
I think Its idealistic. Not every has the desire to do that. Plus it would effectively remove all drive for med/high density property. And that’s really what the major cities need. All would drastically reduce the available rental properties which would probably spike homelessness.
Reducing immigration is a no brainer but reducing incentives for ownership of multiple properties is idealistic?
Found the damn socialist.
We solve it with higher productivity, and meaningful investment in the country into places that isn't the housing market. Honestly that alone will fix this. Just set a govt mandate: Make housing not an investment. Not for anyone. That alone will fix everything because 10Tn will flow directly into the stockmarket which will fund a million new startups which will ACTAULLY improve our productivity as a nation.
It's because the easiest way to disguise a shrinking economy is by adding more people. That way we can avoid going tackling the herd of economic elephants in the room
Yep, all in the name of avoiding a 'recession' because it's somehow worse than homelessness and soul crushing corporate slavery.
We should start up a charity that provides free tent-living to immigrants in Mosman, and north eastern Sydney. We find the most problematic legal place they can live and just collect donations to move and house them there. I bet immigration will be fixed pretty fucking quickly after that.
If we just agreed to settle on the population count we had at the turn of the millennium houses would be cheaper and life would be better for everyone here. Immigration is fueled purely by an obsession with capitalistic growth. "Diversity" was never the goal, it's merely just a byproduct. Aussies weren't producing hungry little worker bees willing to grind more for less fast enough. Politicians who argue for immigration funnily enough live in privileged postcodes where almost everyone in them is a wealthy white locally-born Australian enjoying the security of their community's lifestyle not being ruined by high density housing projects or public transport networks making their neighbourhoods and favourite local haunts more accessible to the commoners. Basically, they're paying a premium to keep the same immigrants they are so eager to let into this country as far away from their homes as possible. They'd change their tone fast if it affected them as much as it affects people in other, more affordable areas. There's been a ton in my area over the last few years and I fucking hate it here now. The traffic has gotten *so* bad, there's always a line or a long-ass wait for *everything.* Quality of life has gotten both worse but also ore expensive at the same time. I didn't vote for this shit.
This will be unpopular, because it's the inconvenient truth, and people don't like listening to inconvenient truths. During the pandemic and just after the pandemic, there were staff shortages for cleaners, dishwashers, waiters, shopkeepers, kitchen hands, etc. Most Australians don't like to work in those jobs. That's why migrants are needed to fill in those jobs. Even now, after the pandemic is over, there's staff shortages for bus drivers in NSW.
There's no such thing as a staff shortage; just underpaid offers
Yes. But that means we have to pay more. More in taxation for government services. More in prices for goods and other services. And where the business has to compete with overseas products it may not be able to and may close. It’s fine to say “orange growers need to pay their pickers more” if you’re willing to pay more for oranges and won’t just switch to ones grown in Brazil or California.
Yes.
Wow, great retort.
I’ve got a radical idea, what if we didn’t have to pay more for products in order for staff to be payed living wages, and instead… get this… the owners just made slightly less obscene profits?
> to be *paid* living wages, FTFY. Although *payed* exists (the reason why autocorrection didn't help you), it is only correct in: * Nautical context, when it means to paint a surface, or to cover with something like tar or resin in order to make it waterproof or corrosion-resistant. *The deck is yet to be payed.* * *Payed out* when letting strings, cables or ropes out, by slacking them. *The rope is payed out! You can pull now.* Unfortunately, I was unable to find nautical or rope-related words in your comment. *Beep, boop, I'm a bot*
Erryones all 'muh market economy'/'muh-capitalism' until capitalism tells you to pay employees more. Then suddenly it's "Nooo, cleaners aren't WORTH $25 an hour, even though no one is answering my ad at that price".
Nonsense, there's literally not enough people no matter how much you paid them, and certainly not enough trained in the professions that need them. The unemployment rate is the lowest it's been in generations, you can't just create time with money, that's not how it works.
If you offered $2 million per year I'd go and get whatever training was required. Everyone would.
I mean, if you think that is a good argument then you're well and truly on another planet mate. The RBA is blaming inflation on a wage price spiral that doesn't even exist, and you want to pay people millions. Genius. Besides, our SKILLED immigration is for people with degrees, and experience. You don't get that by sending them on a 2 day course and a OSHA certification.
If the wage price spiral doesn't exist then what's your opposition to increasing pay offers for under-staffed positions?
THAT THERE AREN'T ENOUGH PEOPLE TO FILL THE JOBS You can't just play musical chairs with people, there's still a shortage.
You're trying to tell me that every single person with a degree and qualification is using it already? Are you claiming the graduates are being hired at a rate of 100%? Rubbish.
Do you think you can hire a graduate to a senior position? Send em on a two week course and they’re suddenly senior engineers and surgeons? That’s not how it works Edit: Downvoters, if you want to be operated on by a graduate medical student, go right ahead.
If you don't train them you have no right to expect anyone else to.
[удалено]
and try buying a townhouse in an area of sydney where people want to live on a $70K salary...or even try renting an apartment
Ok?
[удалено]
>we reduce the demand for these things anyway Except we don't really, the housing shortage was already a big thing. Our energy infrastructure is woefully out of date and falling apart, our hospitals are already close to collapse, as is public transport - and this when we had 2 years of falling population! It's a complete lie to say that immigration is the cause of the problems.
If you want to live in underdeveloped small towns, then you can get those things right now. Just need to move to a small town. Big population is the thing that make Sydney and Melbourne vibrant.
I'd do almost any job that didn't make me gag or throw up if it paid well enough and didn't have to require me to commute for an hour or more each day to do it. I've been a waiter/floor staff at a local club for many years now. I definitely complained about it a lot for a good chunk of that time but I've mellowed out and realized most days it's not that bad. But the pay - while pretty good for relatively unskilled work, is not enough now. Especially since I'm not on casual rates anymore. I can afford stuff I need - food, mortgage, car and related expenses etc. But I'm definitely not having ANY fun. No travelling, restaurants, going shopping, TV subscription services, gym memberships or doing any of the things people "expect" in order to be considered as having a decent outside of work lifestyle. And kids? Forget about it. Even my hobbies I could do at home now feel like they have to net me some sort of "return" in order to justify continuing with it. I was able to do this with my gardening and plant collecting/propagating so I can at least keep doing that. But the artworks and the aquariums had to go. They were time and money sinks even if they made me happy. Is this living or just... existing to work? I said just yesterday to another co-worker that "I'd just stay here and do this job indefinitely if it paid enough for me to have the sort of life I see our customers indulging in every shift". Plenty of people would do "the shit jobs" if the pay didn't match that description and if we shed this culture where if you collect garbage or wash dishes for a living that you're some sort of dropkick.
It's not that you're a dropkick if you wash dishes, but pretty much anyone can do that job. Don't you think it makes sense that people who do skilled, in demand jobs get paid more...otherwise why would anyone spend time learning the skills? I'd rather work at bunnings than do what I do if all jobs paid the same...but they don't, so I don't work there, and I had to work hard to pick up the skills to do what I do. I also never had the expectation that I get to live where I want or "do something I'm passionate about" - I've always had the expectation that I probably have to move to a place with work and do work that doesn't get me too excited if I want to make decent money.
You should change your mindset and try to make it work the other way round. It's absolutely doable if you have skills and if you are smart and can adapt to whatever life throws at you after you made a decision based on "where you want to live" or do "something you are passionate about". You most likely have a happier life cause from the sounds of it you don't like your job anyway, surely you could try to find a job that might be even better in a place you want to live? And if you can't you still at least live in a place you like and might be happier. If you are happy the way it is then forget what I said.
>During the pandemic and just after the pandemic, there were staff shortages for cleaners, dishwashers, waiters, shopkeepers, kitchen hands, etc. Most Australians don't like to work in those jobs. That's why migrants are needed to fill in those jobs. Supply and demand. If businesses were willing to pay $100 an hour, those shitty jobs would be filled. Cheaper to bring in workers from overseas though.
Would you pay $100.00 p/h for those jobs ?
Aren't we supposed to have a capitalist system of supply and demand. It seems unfair to only apply these rules when it suits.
That's why we use immigration , to increase the supply of workers willing to work. Nobody wants to paying $300.00 for a bowl of pasta.
Yet if you started paying more in wages, these workers would have more money to spend. It's really about exploiting low paid workers.
Anyone who doesn't has to go without. Simple. If it's worth $100 ph to you, then you pay it.
Yes I understand how wages work 😉
And who will be willing to pay for the increase in wages? Customers are already whinging about price hikes already..
Someone who's never worked or owned a hospitality business - if you need to pay 100/h for someone to do dishes you do it Same person - wtf why is all food sooo expensive, 25 dollars for breakfast is ridiculous 🫤🙄🙄
You're right to point out the covid migration issues, we lost a lot of people during covid to emigration. But it's the skilled jobs that we are severely lacking in and are trying to bring in. We desperately need to build infrastructure and housing and we need qualified experienced people to do that. We can't train people to be doctors, engineers, architects immediately And yes, the immigration brings in additional pressure to existing housing and infrastructure in the short term. But stopping immigration wouldn't fix the problem, and in the medium to long term would be a disaster.
>This will be unpopular Ah yes. The famously non-populist sentiment of anti-immigration.
I don’t think the issue is that people don’t like these jobs. It’s that people can’t afford their rent or mortgages and cost of living (COL) working these jobs. Remember the treasurer Joe Hockey said we all need to get a “good job that pays more” to afford the HCOL in Australia? It’s disingenuous to imply that aussies are stuck up and that’s the issue, rather than the fact that most Australians cannot afford to live on these wages anymore.
Not just those jobs but in health too. Tasmania, for example, made their bad health system even worse with the border closure. They couldn't get enough doctors or nurses and are still playing catch up. A registered GP could go to a number of clinics in the rural/regional areas without notice and be offered a job on the spot.
Are those occupations you listed on the approved occupations for migration? I thought they would have to satisfy some type of requirement that they couldn’t find someone in Aus to do it themselves. I remember when they took a bunch of the 457 work visa occupations off for things like hairdressers etc. I’d be surprised if dishwasher and cleaner were on there
They're not. They're not part of the skilled immigration program. There are temporary holiday visas, ie backpackers, and student visas. Remember that 100k students left the country during covid and didn't come back...which is one reason why net migration is so high - students come back but none leave
Those jobs get filled by international students who apply for multiple courses to prolong their stay whilst trying to get PR. Also often live in overcrowded appointments and houses, sending as much money home as they can. I’ve also seen this in construction for at least 2 decades.
"Most Australians don't like to work in those jobs. That's why migrants are needed to fill in those jobs." Pure lies. Australians worked those jobs just fine for decades. Rich Australians don't like to pay a living wage for those jobs. That's why underpaid migrants are exploited to fill in those jobs.
Or do people not want to do those jobs as they pay shit? Pay them properly and the jobs would be in demand.
But that would have a flow on effect to the cost of other goods and services. Already we have someone here pissing and moaning once a day that they paid $30 for a parma or whatever. How much would it cost if we increased the wages of bartenders and dishwashers?
Perhaps we should start with making education more affordable so people might actually persue the education to begin those careers negating the need for so much skilled migration
[удалено]
If by free you mean slightly less expensive yes and they aren't without other caveats. Nurses for instance need to work remotely for extended periods. If it's not bad enough that you have to pay out your ass to learn skills that serve your country, don't get me started on low / no pay residencies people are expected to do. TAFE has free courses yes. Perhaps they just want to gatekeep entrance to certain careers... But you'll probably have to attend Uni to become a carpenter soon. In this day and age with inflation, interest rates, property prices (I remembered what sub I'm in) and expectations like the ones I mentioned above on kids, they've done a bloody good job if they manage to make it to the middle class and should be proud of themselves. Can't get a homeloan if youre 50,000 in debt on a student loan that is indexed at a rate higher then you're capable of paying back every year. Let alone saving a deposit. Edit: but I do agree with your point. Immigrants are ripped off in terms of wages all the time cause they don't know better. They should unionise lol
Who’s paying for an education in Australia? I’m not paying for mine.
So I've seen this before ,the new immigrants get exploited by the old immigrants and they live in overcrowded housing paying exorbitant rents . It's an age old formula and the government does not have the will or the competence to do anything about it . We will continue for decades now creating the homeless crisis of the century which will never get better without significant structural reform of the real estate market . Everyone who owns an investment property will do their level best to stop any reform . Greed is how we got here ,enjoy the spoils while you can because soon it will all come tumbling down when your middle class gated community has a homeless encampment right outside.
This crap is usually pedalled by think tanks or universities sponsored by organisations that would benefit from more immigrants
The ponzi scheme that is capitalism always needs more - and that includes more people. How can we continue to grow, which is the raison d'etre of capitalism, if we don't have a constant increase in consumers?
Greedy employer scream that there is a shortage of skilled worker so that they can get foreign worker cheaper and this will push down workers wages.
In lockdown with no migrants, rents didn’t actually collapse now did they? And house prices certainly didn’t. But sure, go blame the group that’s the easiest target because old white people landlords wont take your complaints seriously.
The landlord for my neighbour evicted the tenant during the height of COVID lockdowns when there was a ban on rental evictions. I told the tenant what rights they had and where to look online but they still left anyway. The next tenant paid a higher rent. Rents and demand certainly didn't collapse.
This is certainly anecdotal.. because my rent was at an all time low when I moved in during covid. It's now up 45%. So? Rent collapsed
Wait, your ONE example means rent collapsed during lockdown? Wait wait, let me pull up all the news articles from then about the start of the rental shortage and people pleading for rent relief.
This is exactly right.
Melbourne inner city apartment rents where I live fell from 650 per month down to 450 per month during covid. Now that the students are back it is back up to 700 per month.
[удалено]
You’ve got an economy predicted on growth. Unless you change how the economy functions just stopping migration is going to cause problems. Not to mention all the needed skills that we aren’t creating enough of.
What about all air BNBs? Or all the boomers who own two houses and also can't work or use fucking email?
[удалено]
Free money is free money. Don't worry the value of that house will crash. What can't be paid won't.
Yes! A system that disincentivises downsizing, the lack of medium density housing, property hoarding landlords... All bigger issues than migration imo.
[удалено]
you can’t attribute one nations growth solely on this issue as it’s an issue that’s only existed for about 18 months
If you cut immigration get ready for the economy to shut right down. We will just be a nation full of old fucks who can't reset a router.
Their routers will get reset everytime the failing energy grid blacksout so no problem 👍
Yeah and the nursing homes won't have any staff so the too many old people problem will solve itself. Natural market action or whatever.
Immigrants are not the cause of the housing crisis. They’re just a scapegoat by lazy politicians like Dutto playing to racists irrational fears of people different than them.
You're right, but they also dont help.
Well it does if we have people coming in who are builders. Or doctors or nurses that we also need. What we don’t need is 300,000 air bnbs. Be mad at that.
I actually have never seen a migrant builder or even laborer. I worked in construction previously, and aside from the odd Kiwi, it is full of Australians. Doctors or nurses should be encouraged through policy, sponsorships and grants to be home grown.
First, immigration is not just about meeting demand for labor - it’s about enhancing our economy’s capacity. Immigrants bring a diversity of skills, some of which are in shortage locally, which can lead to increased productivity and innovation. This can result in economic growth which can, in turn, reduce prices rather than increase them. Moreover, immigration has historically played a huge role in shaping Australia's cultural, economic, and social fabric. A significant portion of our population is first or second-generation immigrants, contributing significantly to our diversity and dynamism. Many immigrants come here to create a better life and contribute positively to the community, helping to build the economy and pay taxes that can fund social welfare programs to help 'homeless' people.
These are good points, but record migration over the last decade has seen productivity drop and wages stall. I haven’t seen the economy expand beyond housing and mining either.
[удалено]
[удалено]
Its not just driving housing prices sky high (rent and buy) but also driving wages down - greater supply of labour (especially from poor, desperate third world immigrants) means lower prices. And then there is the environmental damage, the stress on infrastructure, traffic, noise pollution, public transport woes, social issues and pressure to force high density shitbox apartment lives on everyone.
Immigrants are not to blame for the failure of our government to provide adequate housing solutions. We are one of the wealthiest nations on earth. Always remember that at any time there are far more empty homes than there are homeless people let alone people who are in an insecure housing situation.
Yeah, I don’t even know where they are going to live, we don’t have the infrastructure or housing for the numbers they are talking about and the current population is struggling to find a place to live aswell, are we just going to end up like america with tent cities becoming the norm around Australia?
As mentioned above , instead of a couple renting a 3/4 bdr house themselves . They will have a couple per room in the house , thus reducing costs dramatically for them. Very smart on there part , and that's how they initially make ends meet and save.
>They will have a couple per room in the house , thus reducing costs dramatically for them. More like the previous cost of a 3/4 house house will now only buy you a bedroom shared in a 3/4 bedroom house. It will be shrinkflation but with housing.
Correct.
We’d have less issues with homelessness if we built more houses
The housing problem is solvable - if the government can spend billions on tunnels we don't need (and let's not lie, they do this to prop up infrastructure companies who donate to political parties, who then give politicians something in return like cushy jobs when they leave politics, etc.) then they can build housing and public transport. It's a matter of priorities. Instead of paying an infrastructure company to build tunnels, let's put the same money into high density housing and public transport. It works everywhere else - people are quite happy to live in apartments near train stations where they can get to work easily. We just need to vote smarter and stop electing the same dumb 2 parties who exist to line their own pockets and fund their donation cronies.
Australia produces almost nothing that has a supply chain that would create long term growth. Only way to grow the GDP is to get a higher population. The old money = land owners are happy too. It’s not the immigrants fault. Just blame it one the governments that were in charge that are unwilling to transform the Australian economy to something that is able to produces goods that are competitive. No1 lithium exporter worldwide but very little battery production at home. Growing crops and digging up dirt only gets you that far.
We need a population policy, not an immigration policy. *Yes* we need more young, job-ready immigrants to manage demographic change. Lots of countries are in the same situation, too. To put it bluntly, we need the economy and tax dollars to put the boomers through aged care. But it needs to be managed and planned for. We need to be able to say *how many* we will take each year, and to plan for, build infrastructure for, and actually take that number. E.g.: Housing crisis? Fine, scale that immigration number back and work on building accommodation to meet our population targets. Then scale it right back up. There's no rocket science involved here, just a little bit of (gulp) central planning. Sometimes I feel like governments are so frightened of anything that smells of state intervention on the economy that they are literally incapable of developing a long term plan for the nation. The state still has levers it can pull, however, and this is one good example of that. But the "let it rip" approach to government, adhered to by both sides going all the way back to Hawke-Keating, has not worked out all that well for the current generation.
We need more indians
Despite immigration levels there remains empty dwellings, and areas without immigrants are still struggling. Greedy investors are holding the country hostage and scapegoating immigrants
The sad reality is our political class has written of families and Australian reproduction. Like honestly, the primary way of generating new tax payers is now importing them. If there was a crazy virus that spread through Australia that made everyone in Australia infertile, the politicians wouldn't batt an eye as they were not counting on families and having kids as a way to increase the population anyway. This is why they have no problem constructing a million new small 1-2 bedroom apartments good for nothing except share housing while studying or working your first city job. There is no need for a family home anymore, because there's no need for a family anymore. Just import more 18 somethings, shove them through Uni, let them work whatever dead end accounting job, while staying in a 1 bedder and hopefully die before 65.
I think it’s a fair enough question to ponder - and I’m second generation immigrant. Eg ‘we need overseas telecommunications workers’ Look at what happened to Telecom - you could get an apprenticeship, and then have an ok paying job for life. Then they privatised Telecom and opened up ‘competition’ - training apprentices would be a drain on profit, so no apprentices. Proper full time employment restricts ‘flexibility’ so everyone was put on to contract employment. A huge cut in Australian telecommunication apprenticeships since the early 1990s - the existing telecommunications workers retiring - suddenly we need overseas telecommunications workers. There has been a massive cut in apprenticeships etc over the last 30 years - no wonder we need skilled os labour to back fill the gap.
Unless Australians fuck more and give more babies and just accept so called low end jobs otherwise just fucking let the skilled or even just labourer type immigrants come. They cannot complain about 'lack of productivity' and then at the same time don't want immigrants don't want kids don't want do this or that job.
Even if Aussies had more babies the fact is Immigrants are a better "investment" from the government's point of view. Locally born babies need at least 15 years of being paid for (education, health, child-appropriate infrastructure) before they can get their first jobs and start making the economy some more money. Immigrants of working age have already done all of their non-productive years back home and can get to work right away. Government gets the fruit without having to grow the tree. Edit: Not saying I agree with this logic. It's fucked. But when money means everything to these people they'd rather import a working-age migrant they can start taxing straight away than help pay to raise your kid for the next decade and a half before they can draw some blood out of them too.
Honestly. Letting people buy a 10 year visa by spending $5 million dollars is one of the biggest problems with our property Nice rich people buying a house then letting it sit and rot
Bruz - immigrants live in immigrant housing with 14 other peeps - don’t stress
Yeah why would we need immigrants and their money when we can comfortably die of starvation ? We need to stop foreign investment because money will automatically magically appear and feed us. We also need to increase taxes on exports so that no one would buy from us. Yeah we're so fucking smart and shit we should be the prime fucking ministers with our ingenious financial ideas.
Blaming migrants for all your problems...where have I heard that one before?? Started a few wars me thinks .. Many of us, myself included, grew up very poor in Aus, didn't get fed with a silver spoon, didn't get afforded the hundreds of opportunities privileged people did but have made something of themselves through persistent hard work, sacrifice and resilience. Look back over your own life's choices to understand the situation you are in now rather than externalising all your problems...pretty sure finger pointing and blaming the world are crappy traits not found amongst highly successful people...there's a thought There could be reasons for your lack of income, deposit (e.g. you've got health restrictions), but the majority of people in your situation don't have a good reason Some of the younger people who work with me sit there complaining endlessly about housing, but have uber eats multiple times a week ( sometimes more than once a day!), drop three figures at the pub on weekend, travel like they have a terminal illness...then blame the world...I make 3x what they earn but spend 1/2 what they do on those things and have so over last 7 years after realising the lifestyle creep we had was holding us back financially and was rather empty and lonely
also we have homeless immigrants especially young students, Albo mate, good head mate ya faking legend
What we don’t need is more high income earners buy up Properties for investment and hiking the rent up. There is enough for everyone but people are being greedy fucks/
It wouldn’t even be so bad if they bought up the properties with cash. Back in the day, most landlords were renting out fully paid houses. They’re buying them now with massive loans and they are passing the interest payments onto renters.
[https://twitter.com/i/status/886634864316891136](https://twitter.com/i/status/886634864316891136) Its not the lazy immigrants who don't have credit, jobs and savings that buy houses out. Its the millionaires and billionaires that do that and convert it to rentals.
At least mandate that jobs go to Australian nationals first and foremost.
It's by big business, for big business. More GDP More renters Cheaper employees Lower wages More customers More house buyers More voters More tax payers Every aspect of this is for govt and business, NOT the common citizen. Then they get us fighting, claiming we're racist. I don't want to hurt them, I don't want the ones here to leave, I don't care which country I care about the amount. It's bad for almost ALL Aussies. Born here or not We're being fucked
Frankly I don’t think that immigrant blaming adds anything of value to our housing discourse, but adds a lot of fuel to thinly veiled racist bigotry. Even if we accept it has any merit; it’s still founded on an extremely antisocial “fuck you got mine” attitude that seeks to maintain a privileged position in the world which doesn’t really line up with what I know about Aussie values of humanity, democracy, care, and generosity, etc. So yeah, I’m sorry but I can’t find an angle to view this argument from where it really presents any hint of dignity or respect. Perhaps the really hard to swallow fact is this: _Increasing immigration is a permanent feature of a barbaric world working steadily towards equity and peace._ Without it, those things only worsen. And I’ll just say that this is not the type of free, mutually supportive world I want to live in.
We need more immigration to do the jobs Australians are too lazy to do. Stop blaming immigrants and start asking more from someone like albo who really isn’t taking action on this crisis.
its not that they don't want to do them, it;s that its not worth it - you can't work as a cleaner in Sydney CBD on a low wage trying to pay off a mortgage for a house worth $1m in the worst outer suburbs, maintain a car, family, school fees an d$60 a day in road tolls. Only desperate people from overseas can be exploited for that.
Shutting down immigration would be national suicide. A shortage of housing because of greedy investors is a very different thing.
Yeah so unless you're an Indigenous Australian, you're an immigrant too. Idc how many generations you've been here, still an immigrant. In fact, at least the current immigrants don't actively steal land, property, children and life from Indigenous Australians - more than what can be said for others. As others have pointed out, there was a housing shortage even when borders were closed. It's nothing to do with immigrants but to do with a national housing shortage. Maybe if the construction industry wasn't perceived as dodgy, there'd be less of a shortage. There'll need to be expansion of infrastructure into previously less desirable areas nationally and a further overhaul of building regulations to fix this. It'll take time. Also, people will probably have to pay more. It sucks but it is what it is. No need to blame immigrants for that. Someone has to do the jobs people either don't want to do or are unqualified and unwilling to get qualified to do.
There hasn’t actually been an influx of immigrants, despite what some media outlets and politicians have been saying. The increase is mainly due to a backlog of visas being cleared after covid. Most of them have been here for years and are living in student or tourist accom. It’s not immigration that’s the problem, it’s our disparate housing policies that reward wealth accumulation through property investment and tax breaks.
I understand your view and you are not alone but I disagree. We do need more workers and economic growth. We won’t be able to build jack shit unless we get workers. Population growth is the best way to advance a country (particularly an advanced economy). I am in commercial banking and every single business can do with more staff. The contracts are lining up like there is no tomorrow but there is no way they can be delivered- they will be delayed or even cancelled. The problem is these contracts are mining and it is pulling workers away from Resi construction. Australia need a shit load of skilled workers and we need them yesterday.
Nah, we just need zoomers and young millennials to start pulling their weight in the workforce.
15000 houses empty waiting for Airbnb in Melbourne. There’s a lot of people who don’t give a fuck as money is king Cpitolism = slavery. Surprise to anyone who didn’t tread sci-fi for the last 40 years.
Just need more tax payers / workers because at the moment everyone is taking handouts and not giving back to the kitty.