Australia must STOP immigration to 'help first-time buyers break into the housing market and not be reliant on their parents'

Australia's historically high level of immigration has been blamed for making housing ridiculously unaffordable.

With Sydney's median house price hovering above $1.1 million, a major report fears Australia will become a 'less equal society' if the nation continues to accept more than 200,000 immigrants a year.

The Grattan Institute think tank cites high immigration and foreign investment as key reasons why Australia has some of the world's least affordable housing.

It said people who worked hard were no longer able to afford a house in Sydney or Melbourne unless they had help from their parents.

'Owning a home increasingly depends on who your parents are, a big change from 35 years ago when home ownership rates were high for all levels of income,' report authors John Daley and Brendan Coates said.

'Housing is contributing to widening gaps in wealth between rich and poor, old and young. 'Lower income households are spending more of their income on housing, and are under more rental stress.'

Australian house prices have doubled in real terms, adjusted for inflation, during the past 20 years.

Wages have also stagnated with full-time workers on an average $81,600 salary struggling to save for a 20 per cent mortgage deposit.

However, the report said the situation was even worse in Australia's two biggest cities.

Since 2012, house prices have climbed by 50 per cent in Melbourne, and 70 per cent in Sydney, taking median house prices to $900,000 and $1.1 million respectively.

The steep climb in house prices has also coincided with Australia's net annual immigration rate soaring above 200,000 in 2012, when skilled migrants and refugees were factored in.

Under the Howard government in 2002, Australia's net annual immigration rate climbed above 100,000, which was significantly higher than the 20th century average of 70,000. 

'Strong population growth, both from natural increase and overseas migration, has increased demand for housing and contributed to the increase in dwelling prices, particularly in our major cities,' the report said.

'The population has grown particularly rapidly over the past decade, after immigration jumped in the mid-2000s.'

Australia's population rose by 3.8 million between 2006 and 2016, with immigration into New South Wales and Victoria at record levels since 2008.

During that time, Melbourne's population climbed from 3.6 million to 4.5 million while Sydney's population grew by 700,000 to 4.6 million.

The Australian Bureau of Statistics predicts the national population will jump from 24.8 million now to 38 million by 2050.

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'It's okay to break the law if it's unfair': Australia's most senior union leader likens illegal industrial strikes to opposing Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany

She's actually a nobody so not worth listening to

Australia's most senior union leader has likened illegal strikes to dissidents breaking the law in Nazi Germany.

A year after suggesting it was okay to disobey the law, Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus doubled down on her controversial comments - this time with a reference to Adolf Hitler.

'It is a fundamental part of democracy that if a law is unjust, or if it's unfair, it is okay in some circumstances to not follow it,' she told the ABC News channel on Sunday.

'It's a basic principle that people have taken throughout the world; in Nazi Germany in a whole lot of places.'

Ms McManus' likening of trade unionists to dissidents in Nazi Germany, during the 1930s and 1940s, comes three days after left-wing Labor senator Kim Carr compared a blond, Liberal senator James Paterson to the Hitler Youth.

In her latest ABC TV interview, the ACTU boss was asked about telling 7.30 host Leigh Sales in March 2017 'I don't think there's a problem' with breaking the law.

When the ABC's National Wrap host Patricia Karvelas pointed out 'we don't live in Nazi Germany', Ms McManus defended last year suggesting industrial law breaking was justified.

'We don't but it was a general question asked of me,' she said.  'And it was also asked in the context of industrial action.'

She said breaking the law to go on strike was a fundamental human right, even if the industrial action wasn't sanctioned by the Fair Work Ombudsman.

'Quite often we are accused of breaking laws because sometimes workers choose to withdraw their labour and we believe that's a fundamental human right,' Ms McManus said.

Her comments come a month after the militant Construction Forestry Mining and Energy Union was fined a record $1 million for engaging in an illegal secondary boycott of concrete supplier Boral at construction sites in Melbourne.

The CFMEU, which has close links in Victoria to federal Labor leader Bill Shorten, has a history of breaking the law.

In 2015, the Federal Court ordered Australia's largest building union to pay $400,000 in fines over acts of intimidation and coercion at a government housing project construction site in Brisbane.

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Mankind, guys, love and darling: The 'gender-inappropriate' words Qantas has banned its staff from using

Australian airline Qantas has told staff to use 'gender appropriate' terms and avoid saying 'husband and wife' because it may offend the LGBTI community.

Qantas' People and Culture group executive Lesley Grant issued an information booklet detailing how to make employees feel more comfortable at work in line with the airline's Spirit of Inclusion month, The Daily Telegraph reported.

It asks employees to stop using words such as 'honey, darling and love' because they have the capacity to offend.

It also advises staff to use 'partner' instead of husband and wife, and 'parents' instead of mum and dad because it could exclude LGBTI families.

The pack asks Qantas workers to not use gender-inappropriate terms such as mankind or fireman.

The information states: 'Language can make groups of people invisible. For example, the use of the term chairman can reinforce the idea that leaders are always men.'

'Words like love, honey or darling, even when used as terms of endearment, often offend. In the workplace, it is best to avoid these sorts of words.'

Ms Grant told staff she wants the work environment at Qantas to be a place 'everyone feels comfortable to bring their whole selves to work'.

The material was produced by the Diversity Council of Australia, Qantas told The Daily Telegraph.

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Labor signals plan to dump 'punitive' work for the dole program

Ed Husic has said that work for the dole is “punishing people for not being in work” rather than helping them find a job in a sign Labor is preparing to dump the program if elected.

Labor’s employment services spokesman has ramped up his rhetoric against work for the dole after evidence in Senate estimates that 73% of participants did not have a job three months after completing the work-readiness program.

Work for the dole employs job seekers for up to 25 hours a week for six months a year as a form of mutual obligation to continue receiving the dole. The program expanded under the Coalition from 47,000 places in 2014 to 111,000 in 2016.

On Sunday Husic told ABC’s Insiders the $600m program had “serious question marks over its performance and, in particular, whether or not it’s safe”.

“We need to ensure that we get young Australians working, not putting them through a program that clearly has either got an issue with its safety or an issue ultimately as to whether or not it’s putting people into work, skilling them up, getting them ready for jobs.”

Husic and the Australian Unemployed Workers Union have been campaigning for the release of a report into the death of work for the dole participant Joshua Park-Fing in Toowoomba in April 2016.

Husic cited that case and incidents of young people being exposed to asbestos, claiming that departmental audits had found work for the dole work sites were not safe.

The government maintains that the rates of injury incidents on the program are lower than across the economy as a whole.

Husic said that would be cold comfort to the families of children exposed to asbestos and argued young people feel they can’t make safety complaints for fear of losing their welfare payments.

Husic said that Labor is “absolutely committed to mutual obligation”. “We want to ensure that young people are not sitting on their hands. They don’t want to be sitting on their hands, they want to be put to work.”

Mutual obligations include training, developing a job plan, applying for jobs and attending meetings with employment service providers.

Signalling an intention to replace work for the dole, Husic said that a “future program” would retain mutual obligation so that job seekers are skilling themselves up and getting ready for work.

Husic said that 70% of work for the dole participants “don’t get themselves into jobs just months after being in it”. He said it “has been a useful program” in the past because Labor ran it “with a focus on skilling people up and in particular for those job seekers that haven’t had any work experience whatsoever”.

“The way it is being managed at the moment, the way it has been chopped and changed and the way it is not preparing people with skills that employers need demonstrate that the program being managed by the Coalition is becoming a dud.”

On Wednesday employment department officials told Senate estimates that between July 2016 and June 2017, 27.1% of work for the dole participants were employed three months after their participation in the program.

The Greens’ family and community services spokeswoman, Rachel Siewert, said that more than 70% of people “languish below the poverty line after working below the minimum wage just to receive income support”.

“Here we have a clear cut example of work for the dole not working for participants, yet the government persists with the program,” she said.

Siewert said the program forced people to do “basic tasks” that “don’t necessarily build skills”. She suggested it should be scrapped in favour of individualised support and mentoring for young people to help them find jobs.

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Posted by John J. Ray (M.A.; Ph.D.).    For a daily critique of Leftist activities,  see DISSECTING LEFTISM.  To keep up with attacks on free speech see Tongue Tied. Also, don't forget your daily roundup  of pro-environment but anti-Greenie  news and commentary at GREENIE WATCH .  Email me  here