This is an edit of a live discussion with Economist Leith van Onselen, Co-founder of MacroBusiness, and Chief Economist at Nucleus Wealth. We will pick apart the latest housing disasters, and why things have gone so pear shaped, but also what could be done (with political will) to sort this mess out! It is NOT rocket science…
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Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
DFA Live HD Replay: The Great Housing Bust, And What Can Be Done About It: With Leith van Onselen
As we count down to the end of the year, Edwin and I discuss the idea that Government wants to keep property prices ever higher, look at a disaster of a building survey as a warning for those who trust vendor surveys, and spot areas where prices are well down from 2017 levels, despite all the hype.
Plus we consider the problem of not enough skilled construction workers to meet targets in Australia and the UK, and the underlying reasons why property is largely unaffordable.
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.
Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.
Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.
Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.
Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.
You can smell an election coming soon as Australia’s housing minister has declared that the Anthony Albanese government doesn’t want house prices to fall – despite them being very unaffordable for the young.
Clare O’Neil made the admission on Triple J’s youth-orientated Hack program recently, when she was hit with a barrage of questions about the housing market being ‘stacked against young people’.
‘We want to bring house price growth into something sustainable – so we’re not trying to bring down house prices,’ Ms O’Neil said.
That prompted a surprised host David Marchese to ask: ‘Why don’t you want to be seeing house prices drop? ‘If you’re looking to get into the market, if you’re a young person looking at what’s ahead of you, you definitely want to see house prices come down.’
O’Neil rejected the argument – saying ‘That may be the view of young people – it’s not the view of our government,’ she said.
Data keeps rolling out showing how unsustainable the current housing market policy path is, with the Real Estate Institute of Australia (REIA)’s latest Housing Affordability report for the September quarter showed average loan repayments amounted to 48.6 per cent of the median family income of $2501 a week.
This is the greatest proportion since the REIA began monitoring housing affordability in 1996.
Mind you we saw similar political confusion from the UK Deputy Prime Minister and Housing Minister who in a weekend interview managed to say both there was a housing shortage, and no housing shortage, despite high migration in the same interview. Again it shows the political back-flips polys are prepared to do.
For truth though Kudos to Adrian Orr the New Zealand Reserve Bank Governor, who said last week in an interview that the property market was a real mess. Can you imagine the RBA or Senior Politicians in Australia speaking such truth. No, because politics trumps housing policy rationality. High migration wins over bringing prices back under control. And Boomers win over younger Australians again.
Today’s post is brought to you by Ribbon Property Consultants.
If you are buying your home in Sydney’s contentious market, you do not need to stand alone. This is the time you need to have Edwin from Ribbon Property Consultants standing along side you.
Buying property, is both challenging and adversarial. The vendor has a professional on their side.
Emotions run high – price discovery and price transparency are hard to find – then there is the wasted time and financial investment you make.
Edwin understands your needs. So why not engage a licensed professional to stand alongside you. With RPC you know you have: experience, knowledge, and master negotiators, looking after your best interest.
Shoot Ribbon an email on info@ribbonproperty.com.au & use promo code: DFA-WTW/MARTIN to receive your 10% DISCOUNT OFFER.
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Revealed: The Politics Of Housing And The Intergenerational War!
Once in a while I find an article which really hits home. One such is an article in the AFR by John Kehoe, titled “Australia’s Economic Problems Have Been Brewing For Years”.
Indeed, bad policy from multiple Governments have gotten us to a bad place, and the current mob are making things worse. There are alternatives. But that would require braver leaders, and informed voters! What are the chances?
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Well, the federal parliament has passed legislation to ban people under 16 from having an account with some social media platforms. In doing so, it has ignored advice from a chorus of experts – and from the Australian Human Rights Commission, which said the government rushed the legislation through parliament without taking the time to get the details right. Or even knowing how the ban will work in practice.
Though passed, it was also appallingly mismanaged. The ban is very controversial, with many experts highly critical. That made it all the more necessary for the legislation to have proper parliamentary scrutiny. More than 15,000 submissions were received by the Senate committee that looked at the bill. The committee took just one morning’s evidence on Monday, and on Tuesday tabled its report.
Kudos for the Senators who stood up against the bill, down to the wire, as it passed the Senate.
While it remains unclear exactly which social media platforms will be subject to the ban, those that are will face fines of up to A$50 million if they don’t take “reasonable steps” to stop under 16s from having accounts.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
This week is Asbestos Awareness Week in Australia. Asbestos Awareness Week provides an important reminder as we head into end of year period when people may be looking to undertake renovation or DIY work on older properties and the need to be vigilant in managing safety on site.
If you’re working on homes built before 1990, you need to assume asbestos could be present in elements such as cladding, eave sheets, electrical switchboards, internal linings and even in pipework, roofing and floor underlays.
It is vital to engage a licensed assessor for inspection and testing, and if asbestos is found, ensure it’s removed by a licensed professional.
Check out our YouTube Channel where we feature Gill’s research into the whole asbestos scandal. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cocjr_xgqDI&list=PLBY81JyA5KYW_5nJ_rkFMjLpR5Be_ctHj
4,000 people are dying each and every year across Australia from exposure to Asbestos, a process which can take many years from initial exposure, as I know from personal experience, as my wife Gill died from exposure.
We launched Asbestos Awareness Australia, a charity to raise awareness and to campaign for reform. Unfortunately politicians do not want to touch this live rail, despite one in three homes containing asbestos, the fact we continue to import board containing Asbestos and the rising number of deaths from exposure among women.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
The Under 16 Ban on Account access to Social Media has been steamrollered through the lower house, and will be guillotined through the Senate without debate.
Questions of substance are being thrown off the table in an unseemly mess, being supported by both major parties. Why? Because under the hood this is actually the last battle between old media and new media, and both major parties must support the hidden hand.
As a result the door is flung open for greater digital control, in line with top-down directives.
Parents, children and ordinary Australians are caught in the cross-fire.
Kudos to small band of Senators who have stood against the bill. This will not end well for major parties.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
The Albanese government has dumped its controversial mis- and disinformation bill, conceding there is “no pathway” to getting the proposal passed through the Senate.
The communications minister, Michelle Rowland, insisted misinformation and disinformation remained a grave concern for democracy, national security and online safety, but said the government would not proceed with the proposal. It is the second time Labor has pulled the bill, after an initial version also failed to gain support and raised concerns about freedom of speech online.
“Based on public statements and engagements with senators, it is clear that there is no pathway to legislate this proposal through the Senate,” Rowland said on Sunday.
As I discussed in previous shows, the mis- and disinformation bill would have put legal obligations on social media platforms to address false, misleading or deceptive content, or content reasonably likely to cause serious harm, as well as equip the Australian Communications and Media Authority to regulate such content. However it was strongly opposed by a wide range of bodies including human rights organisations, church groups and libertarian groups, as well as many of the non-government members of parliament. A first version of the legislation was redrafted in a bid to win wider support, but the second attempt also failed to garner parliamentary backing or assuage wider concerns from critics. The Coalition has long pledged to oppose the bill, while all other members of the Senate crossbench had said in recent days they would either vote it down or were not yet sufficiently convinced to vote for it.
The Australian Human Rights Commission said back in October that “although there have been improvements to the bill, freedom of expression is not sufficiently protected”.
That leaves the age of under 16 ban on access to social media still in play, and it looks like this legislation will pass this week despite major flaws in the bill, and concerns it could be a back door to wider social media access controls. As I discussed recently this bill is also deeply flawed, but Labour is after a win, any win politically speaking before the election.
The short time-frame and rushed consideration of the Bill means it is likely to be of poor quality. Given the importance of the issues contained in the legislation, a more detailed and longer path is required to ensure the best approach possible is developed.
Given the proximity of the next election is appears that political considerations are driving the time-frames, and for the reasons outlined above, the Bill in its current guise should not be passed into law.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
As expected, Australia’s communications minister Michelle Rowland has now introduced a world-first law into Parliament today that would ban children under 16 from social media, saying online safety was one of parents’ toughest challenges. She said TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Reddit, X and Instagram were among the platforms that would face fines of up to 50 million Australian dollars for systemic failures to prevent young children from holding accounts.
The bill has wide political support. After it becomes law, the platforms would have one year to work out how to implement the age restriction. But this bill is being rushed through with embarrassing haste, and the LNP appear to be supporting it in the main.
This created quite a stir among the cross benches In the Senate. You have just a 24 hour window to make a submission with the Senate trying to examine the bill in just 5 days.
So, this is another watershed moment in democratic freedom in Australia and the Uniparty appears to be running their own agenda, not ordinary Australians.
True these are steps which need to be taken to rein in the power of social medial platforms, and to ensure children have enough capability to navigate the digital age we are all part of. But a simplistic age related verification approach, which is impossible to implement well, and can we circumvented is not the best approach. Ramming this through now is more about political advantage than doing what’s right for Australia. The age Control Sledgehammer won’t Crack the Online Safety Nut, but it does lay another brick in the wall of digital control.
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Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
Age Control Sledgehammer To Crack Online Safety Nut?
This is an edited version of a live discussion with Robbie Barwick from the Australian Citizens Party, as we pick apart the latest developments across economics and banking.
We will explore the latest on cash availability, the postal bank, the misinformation bill as well as broader financial and economic reform. No doubt we will also touch on the latest international developments too, because that is also part of the picture.
You can ask a question live!
http://www.martinnorth.com/
Go to the Walk The World Universe at https://walktheworld.com.au/
https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/dfa-one-to-one/ for our One to One Service.
Find more at https://digitalfinanceanalytics.com/blog/ where you can subscribe to our research alerts
Digital Finance Analytics (DFA) Blog
DFA Live Q&A HD Replay: Time For A New Political And Economic Agenda: With Robbie Barwick
