Australian Politics
Thursday, January 19, 2023
Low-rent behaviour by greedy landlords is feeding the rental crisis
I guess I am wasting my time commenting on the screed by the Leftist Jenna Price below but I would like to point out a few things anyhow. The key to her plaint is in the very title of her article: "Low rent".
It is absolutely true that low rent properties are often of a poor standard. Landlords who keep their propetties at a high standard CANNOT AFFORD to charge low rents.
Let me give an example: In my days when I had 6 properties to rent out, I kept them all at a standard that I would myself be happy to live with. And I always brought them up to a high standard before I put them into the hands of agents
My reward for that? In one YEAR my income from one 5 bedroom house after all repairs and maintenance had been paid for was $500. And I had many thousands invested in that house. I sold it. It was an impossible investment.
It's an extreme example but costs are a big problem for a landlord and emptyheads like Jenna Price have no idea of them. So the idea that landlording is a lucrative racket is way off. Do I sound "greedy"? It's just Leftist hate-speech below.
So "you pays your money and you takes your choice". If you are ready or able to pay only low rent, you will get a property that the landlord cannot afford to keep up to a high standard. He would do his dough if he did. The rent is low BECAUSE the property is undesirable
"Forcing" the landlord to upgrade the property would almost certainly lead him to increase the rent he asks -- so he can get a return on his investment -- and that might be exactly what poor people do NOT want. It would REDUCE their options. Government "protection" can easily worsen rather than help the situation. But in her Leftist mental straitjacket, Jenna Price has not thought of that
My mother’s advice was that I should buy a house. That was 1983. That advice is no longer fine or even possible for most, Bank of Mum and Dad notwithstanding. Many mums and dads are now still paying off their own mortgages.
We were desperate to avoid increasingly rapacious landlords or their proxies, otherwise known as real estate agents. Toilets only flushed by bucket. Floorboards on the verge of perishing. Terrifyingly unpredictable electrical faults. Forty years on, stories from some renters are the same as my own.
I’ve watched generations deal with some rentals barely fit for human habitation. How long will it be before a renter sues a landlord for the harms caused by black mould or because the ceiling has fallen in because of unrelenting rain? Many landlords and agents have no interest in spending money to maintain the properties which generate their wealth. There is hardship for those who inhabit these cash castles and too many distressing cases for our collective good conscience.
Landlordism has gone wild in this country, enabled by real estate agents. The state government ignores the problem. It’s been in power since, what, 2011 and finally “outlawed” unsolicited rental bidding in November. That stops the agent from explicitly soliciting but doesn’t prevent accepting higher bids from prospective tenants.
What governments should do is ban “no grounds” evictions (code for we are getting rid of you because you can’t afford our rent increase). That’s at least a NSW Labor election promise (and one Victorian Labor has – more or less – legislated). Is the NSW government planning on anything at all after a decade? It’s like pulling teeth trying to get a commitment.
“These laws are currently under review and an announcement is expected shortly,” a spokesperson for Fair Trading tells me. Every time governments introduce the prospect of reform, vested interests go ballistic. “It will force landlords out of the market,” they may cry. “It will discourage property investors.” None of that’s happened.
We have a terrible rental crisis in this country, worsened by the slow rate of construction completions during COVID. But the real problem is this – owning investment property is a sure way to turn a profit. Landlords don’t recognise their responsibility in providing a basic human right – the right to have somewhere safe to live. Here’s the bigger problem. Most tenants only have relationships with real estate agents who rarely act in the tenants’ best interests. Their responsibility is to the landlord. No one has the best interests of tenants at heart.
An exaggeration? In August last year, one real estate agency bragged about its biggest rent increase of the week. It later apologised because it was sprung for bad behaviour. In October, another agency urged landlords to consider raising rents by more than 20 per cent.
Ask around for rental stories: homes which can’t be locked, gas leaks, water leaks from baths, showers, toilets, broken windows, mould, faulty wiring, ovens which never work, not even on day one, no insulation. Comedian Mark Humphries tweeted he was in his second-straight rental property where the owner refused to bear the cost of connecting to the NBN. A reminder that improvements to the property remain with the property, owned by the landlord.
Then we’ve got the behaviour of the agents. Readers have supplied horrific examples of rudeness, of refusal to respond to urgent requests and, creepily, of agents wandering around the rental property taking photos willy-nilly. Contracts professor at the University of Melbourne Katy Barnett says renters have a right to be worried.
“I doubt agents are even considering privacy concerns,” she says. Sure, you can ask how the photos are stored and how long they’ll be kept for but if someone can’t get back to you about your broken toilet, doubt you’ll be getting a response on privacy breaches.
One in three Australians rent. The rules which surround renting are wafty as. It should be a scandal but states and territories are clearly beholden to Big Landlord (and federal governments are sadly cowed by the “negative gearing is my wealth right” crew).
Michael Fotheringham, managing director of the Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, says rental vacancies are the lowest they’ve been in 20 years. A three per cent vacancy rate is healthy. Right now, it’s about one and a bit. Queues at opens are right out the door.
Complaints to the NSW Tenants Union have doubled in 12 months. Complaints to Fair Trading have increased by 10 per cent in 12 months. But complaint numbers mean little – most tenants are too terrified to complain in case they get booted. As NSW Tenants Union CEO Leo Patterson Ross says, consumers can’t do the enforcement themselves. That should be an independent third party (also promised by NSW Labor but let’s see if it can stand up to Big Landlord).
Landlords are addicted to profits and not to a sustainable housing model. OK, #notalllandlords but too many to mention. They don’t get to face the heartbreak of the people who make their money for them. Landlords didn’t get into the business to provide a basic human right, they did it to make money. And that’s our problem right there.
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NSW loves coal
NSW will introduce a domestic coal reservation policy to keep the lights on and ease an energy crisis gripping the east coast, in a move expected to open a new battle with major coal miners.
The Australian understands NSW Treasurer Matt Kean will issue orders requiring the majority of the state’s thermal coal miners to reserve up to 10 per cent of their output for NSW power stations by the end of the month, under a new clampdown designed to head off potential supply shortfalls this year.
The orders represent an expansion of rules introduced in December requiring only some coal miners to reserve production for the domestic market, included alongside a $125-a-tonne cap on the price of coal sold to local power providers. They could draw in major producers such as BHP, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal.
The reservation scheme will aim to dodge a gas strike by energy producers and retailers, frustrated by a lack of clarity after the Prime Minister imposed a price cap and code of conduct on the industry. However, the move could split the NSW coal industry, with those companies already subject to domestic reservation orders likely to welcome the move. Those not affected by current orders are likely to be outraged by the decision.
“This coal cap scheme will see NSW doing our part at the request of the Albanese government to contribute to the national solution of this national problem,” Mr Kean said.
“I know those currently providing coal for the local market will appreciate that companies enjoying super profits on the back of the war in Ukraine will now do their part for the domestic market. Of course they should provide Australian production for Australian consumers.
“These new arrangements will help even the playing field among coal producers.”
The NSW government is consulting with the additional companies. The new orders are likely to require them to contribute about 7-10 per cent of their production to the domestic market. Coal still provides up to 60 per cent of generation needs in the state even as NSW looks to phase out the fossil fuel and replace it with renewable energy supplies.
The Australian understands NSW estimates its generators will need about 22 million tonnes of coal to keep operating through 2023. About 18 million tonnes of that total is already contracted in long-term supply contracts with a small group of miners, including Glencore, Peabody, New Hope Corporation and Centennial.
Under orders issued in late December those producers were required to offer at least 18.6 million tonnes of coal into the domestic market at a maximum price of $125 a tonne for coal with a calorific value of 5500 a kilogram. That is the equivalent of $136.40 for high-grade coal exported to international markets from NSW mines, which generally grades 6000 calories per kilogram.
Mr Kean, who is also the Energy Minister, has decided to widen the domestic reservation policy to meet a potential supply shortfall, after complaints the December orders put an unfair burden on a small group of producers.
The Australian understands Mr Kean now intends to require all NSW thermal coal producers to supply into the domestic market – effectively establishing a domestic coal reservation policy for the state.
The move is likely to draw in major producers such as BHP, Whitehaven Coal and Yancoal, who are not currently required to supply NSW power stations beyond any existing contracts.
Mr Kean’s move is not necessarily a permanent impost on the state’s coal industry, as coal-supply requirements will slowly diminish over the next decade as the state phases out its reliance on coal-fired generation.
It is believed sections of the coal industry have argued that coal is ultimately a state-owned resource, and the burden of supplying NSW power stations should be shared more evenly among the state’s miners.
Most of the mines supplying into long-term contracts with NSW power stations do so as a requirement of deals to privatise state-owned operations in the 1980s and 2000s. Private companies that invested in greenfield operations did so with export markets in mind, and are unlikely to welcome any impost on the price they could receive on international markets.
BHP’s Mt Arthur mine is expected to produce 13 million to 15 million tonnes of coal in the current financial year. Yancoal’s NSW mines produced about 23 million tonnes of coal in 2021.
The Australian understands the new orders will not require miners to break existing export agreements if their mine production is fully contracted, and coking coal mines such as South32’s Illawarra operations and Sanjeev Gupta’s Tahmoor mine are not affected by the new rules. AGL Energy’s Liddell coal plant is due to close in April, with Origin Energy’s Eraring station to shut as early as August 2025.
The final NSW coal power plant will be shut by 2040 at the latest after EnergyAustralia’s decision to bring forward the closure date of its Mt Piper facility by at least two years in a bid to hit new green climate targets.
Coal facilities are increasingly having to switch off during daytime hours when high solar supplies undercut them on price.
Mr Kean has been warning the state’s coal plants will exit early as the fossil fuel struggles to compete.
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Fears as crackdown on regional alcohol sales rejected
"Regional" my foot! It's a ban on sales of booze to Aborigines that they are talking about. Bans have been tried before but simply lead to "sly grogging", which reduces money for food
A plea for severe alcohol restrictions across Australia’s northwest has been rejected by the West Australian liquor umpire, allowing the McGowan Labor government to persevere with a banned drinkers register that was independently assessed as a failure in September last year.
Former WA police commissioner Chris Dawson, who is now the state’s Governor, began pushing for an unprecedented crackdown on alcohol sales in the north in 2019.
To support his case, he supplied evidence about alcohol-fuelled violence and testimonials from frontline workers and an opinion from the state’s chief medical officer, Andy Robertson, who recommended the government consider either barring or restricting the sale of mid- and full-strength alcohol across the state’s north.
The decision by the new WA director of liquor licensing, Lanie Chopping, to allow bottle shops to continue to sell full-strength takeaway alcohol in far north Kimberley and Pilbara towns follows an almost four-year dispute over the best response to alarming rates of alcohol-related violence and dysfunction in those regions.
WA Liquor Minister Reece Whitby said Ms Chopping was independent and made her decision after “a very thorough process and consultation”.
“There is no easy fix. This is a longstanding, complex issue and the banned drinkers register trial is one of a number of initiatives the McGowan government is using to address alcohol abuse,” Mr Whitby said.
“We’ve listened to the feedback from all stakeholders – including licensees, police and community services – to help strike the right balance that will be accepted by the broader community.”
The McGowan government is now attempting to fix the banned drinkers register which it began trialling in 2020, possibly by making it more closely resemble the one in place in the Northern Territory.
In the NT, there is also a floor price on alcohol.
According to an interim assessment of the banned drinkers register by the University of WA published in September last year, there had been no discernible reduction in crime almost two years after the rollout began in the Pilbara. The report found there were too few people on the register. By last week, there were still just 90 people banned in the Kimberley, which has a population of 38,000, and just 92 people banned in the Pilbara, which has a population of 63,000.
The report found those who were banned could easily get friends to buy for them or go to a bottle shop that did not participate in the trial. Another problem was that bottle shops could decide if they wished to even check whether a customer was banned before serving them.
Kalgoorlie-Boulder Mayor John Bowler backed the banned drinkers register when the McGowan government began trialling it in the WA goldfields in March last year, but he has been disappointed with the outcome.
“In its current form, it is totally ineffective,” he told The Australian on Tuesday. “The one thing that was working – the cashless debit card – they took away.”
In the Kimberley, Ms Chopping has endorsed pandemic-era purchase limits for all towns.
For example, a person can buy a maximum of three bottles of wine, one carton of full-strength beer or a bottle of spirits per day, or a combination such as a bottle of wine and half a carton of beer.
Police can still impose temporary bottle shop bans in response to a particular event or crisis, as they have done in the Kimberley.
Aboriginal elder Ian Trust, who runs the Wunan Foundation in Kununurra, said he initially backed blanket bottle shop bans in the Kimberley. “The biggest losers in towns and communities where alcohol is a problem are children and old people who come from families who are caught up in a cycle which they cannot get out of,” Mr Trust said.
“If blanket alcohol bans are not imposed, it makes sense to make sure the banned drinkers register does work – especially in cases where the safety of children is involved or the individual has been found guilty of multiple cases of domestic violence.
“If we want to get serious about addressing the social issues … alcohol management will need to be front and centre of our strategies along with housing and employment opportunities.”
Broome shire president Harold Tracey said a broader banned drinkers register and scanning to stop individuals from purchasing their daily limit at multiple bottle shops would help address the region’s alcohol issues. “The next thing is about getting funding into rehabilitation centres and sober-up centres,” he said.
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Bankstown MP Tania Mihailuk moves from Labor to One Nation
A NSW politician has blamed “woke” Labor for her decision to defect to One Nation just weeks out from the state election.
Former renegade NSW Labor MP Tania Mihailuk has announced she will defect to One Nation just weeks out from the NSW election.
Ms Mihailuk, the member for Bankstown, says the Labor Party has “lost its way to the left wing extremists and property developer mafia”.
“Chris Minns as Premier and a Labor Government will see NSW go both woke and broke,” Ms Mihailuk said.
“I know the true agenda of the people sitting currently sitting on Chris Minns’ front bench - they are from the extreme left. We simply cannot afford to have Labor controlling both Chambers of parliament.”
Ms Mihailuk has been sitting as an independent in parliament since quitting the Labor Party in last October.
On Tuesday, she announced she is seeking preselection in Mark Latham’s party for an upper house seat.
In a statement, former the Bankstown Mayor highlighted NSW Labor’s stance on a number of issues as the reason behind her shock move, including claims that some Labor MPs “want drug legalisation and gender fluidity teaching in schools”.
“I totally oppose these policies and will do everything that I can to stop their agenda from passing the Upper House,” she said.
In a speech in parliament when she resigned from the party, Ms Mihailuk accused the party of corruption, claiming Canterbury-Bankstown Mayor Khal Asfour was linked to corrupt former Minister Eddie Obeid.
A report by Canterbury-Bankstown Council found that Mr Asfour had no relevant relationship with Eddie Obeid or his son Paul.
Ms Mihailuk also said One Nation was the “only party” focused on the cost of living crisis and energy bills, claiming the major parties were creating an “unnecessary scare campaign against coal and nuclear energy”.
“NSW is rich in natural resources, but Labor wants to ban coal and forestry and this will send electricity prices and the cost of building materials to record highs.”
The self-described “proud Christian” said freedom of religion was another reason for her move to One Nation.
“South West Sydney communities like those in Bankstown have the highest observance in faith, be it Christianity, Buddhism or Islam, but freedom of religion is a toxic notion to the inner-west left wing hipsters that set Labor Party agenda on social policy.”
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Also see my other blogs. Main ones below:
http://dissectleft.blogspot.com (DISSECTING LEFTISM -- daily)
http://antigreen.blogspot.com (GREENIE WATCH)
http://pcwatch.blogspot.com (POLITICAL CORRECTNESS WATCH)
http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)
http://snorphty.blogspot.com/ (TONGUE-TIED)
http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs
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Evelyn Rae, a 
Sahara Ray is undoubtedly a good-looking woman. Since she is Australian-born there is even a possibility that we may be distantly related
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