Australian Politics
Monday, April 22, 2024
I own three properties and I'm sick of Aussies blaming landlords for the rental crisis. Here are the two things really driving our country into the ground
I can confirm that, by being careful with money, you can start off with nothing but still make money and own properties at a young age. I retired when I was 39 -- JR
A Gen-Z property investor who owns three properties has shut down claims landlords are at fault for Australia's current rental crisis.
Harley Giddings, 24, has worked hard since adolescence and in every job 'under the sun' to own a house and is now the proud owner of multiple investment properties.
The young investor posted a TikTok to his thousands of followers saying he often gets comments 'all the time' that blame investors for the housing shortage.
The savvy landlord said he can understand Aussies' frustrations but thinks this is 'misguided', firmly believing the sky-rocketing rents and housing shortage lie with high immigration and low building approvals.
'In 2022 and 2023 the government let in over a million migrants into the country,' he said.
'According the Australian Bureau of Statistics, this is the most amount of migrants Australia has ever let into the country since they started recording.
'These one million migrants were let in at a time when Australia already had a housing crisis.'
Mr Giddings said that when people arrive in Australia they are looking at renting and not buying, which is why so many people are at inspections for rental opens.
'Basic supply and demand,' he said.
The second reason the young property investor gave for the housing shortage in Australia was the low amount of homes being built.
'We are simply not building enough properties,' he said.
'In Victoria, my home state, we currently have the lowest amount of building approvals that we've had in the last decade.
'This issue is Australia-wide.'
The 24-year-old quoted research from the Institute of Public Affairs that by 2028 Australia's housing supply will be short by 252,800 homes.
Many Australians agreed with the young investor, also blaming the government.
'Absolute master stroke by the government,' one wrote.
'Not to mention all of Victoria's new tax laws on investments, landlords are getting rid of them,' one said.
'If you can't keep up with supply reduce the demand,' another wrote.
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The flat-earth economics of a future made in Australia
With the government peddling economic nostrums from the 1940s, it is bit rich of Anthony Albanese to call Gary Banks a “flat-earther”. Thursday’s labour market figures could have been better, a 2.6 per cent annual growth rate needs lifting, but they could have been way worse – key indicators were stable or improving. So why does the government want to chance the economy on a new version of an old and failed idea – a state-led strategy based on picking winners with public money?
The Prime Minister spent the past week selling what is less a plan and more a platform for the next election, “a future made in Australia”. The idea is that because governments of other nations are investing in hi-tech industries we should do the same – whether or not Australia has a comparative advantage, whether or not it takes resources away from the industries that produced Thursday’s growth statistics. “This is about how Australia supports industries, which will be able to stand on their own two feet,” Mr Albanese said on Thursday in an interview in Adelaide. Professor Banks, the inaugural head of the Productivity Commission, is not convinced. Neither are his successors, up to and including the government’s hand-picked appointment, Danielle Wood, who was quick to warn there was a risk to “a whole class of businesses whose livelihoods depend on ongoing support” to survive.
Professor Banks’s response to Mr Albanese’s proposal is that it looks like more of the same old protectionism. “Import displacement is at the heart of both. Seeking to obtain benefits to society through subsidies for particular firms or industries, including in the form of tax concessions, has proven a fool’s errand, particularly where the competitive fundamentals are lacking,” he said in a Wednesday speech. To which Mr Albanese replied, when asked why Professor Banks was incorrect: “The world is round, not flat. That is why he is wrong.” It was not a response to inspire confidence among voters familiar with the decay of the old Australian economy, based on import taxes and public subsidies, for four decades from the end of World War II, which prime ministers Bob Hawke, Paul Keating and John Howard worked so hard to deconstruct. And it is not a response likely to inspire Jim Chalmers, who knows more than a bit about Mr Keating’s work. “We want to incentivise more private investment, not just replace it … a lot of the heavy lifting will be done by the private sector,” the Treasurer said on Wednesday.
The problem so far with “a future made in Australia” is that the incentivising will be done with public money. On Wednesday Mr Albanese announced $400m in loans for an aluminium processing plant in Gladstone. Also on Wednesday, Health Minister Mark Butler and Industry and Science Minister Ed Husic released the government’s medical science co-investment plan, which it wants the National Reconstruction Fund to support with $1.5bn. This is not so much a plan as a list of potential products and services Australian researchers are good at that may or may not make money. As such, it appears the outcome of political-economy enthusiasm, which assumes Australian research expertise merits reward for effort regardless of what the international competition is up to. Or, as the Prime Minister put it in Gladstone, “if we have confidence, if we have optimism and move forward, we can make things here”.
Mr Albanese said last week his plan to respond to “strategic competition” around the world “is not old-fashioned protectionism or isolationism – it is the new competition”. Maybe, but if it reads like protectionism, and appeals to protectionists, it’s more than probably misplaced protectionism. As Professor Banks warns: “Australia is in danger of repeating the wrong history.”
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Queensland Introduces Bill to Set 75 Percent Emissions Reduction Target Into Law
Silly dream
Queensland Premier Steven Miles has introduced legislation into the state’s Parliament to cut climate change emissions by 75 percent.
The bill sets out emissions reduction targets in Queensland and also commits the minister to making 2040 and 2045 targets in the future.
The premier said he first became interested in climate change in 2007 when his wife Kim was expecting their son, Sam.
“Now, as the state’s premier, I think it is important to protect not just my children’s future but the future of all Queenslanders,” he said.
“Queensland is already the most disaster-affected state. We have experienced more than 100 disasters since 2011. They are the kinds of disasters that we know will be more regular and more intense as average temperatures increase.”
An explanatory note on the bill states the legislation aims to “support jobs and secure Queensland’s economic future by enshrining the state’s emission reduction commitments into law.”
The bill (pdf) sets out emissions reduction targets for Queensland of 75 percent below 2005 levels by June 30, 2035, as well as 30 percent below 2005 levels by June 30, 2030. In 2050, the law sets an emissions reduction target of zero.
“The Clean Economy Jobs Bill 2024 sets a clear emissions reduction target of 75 percent on 2005 levels by 2035—a responsible, credible, and critical target on the path to net zero emissions by 2050,” Mr. Miles said.
“The 75 by 35 emissions reduction target positions Queensland as a world leader on the pathway to net zero—a target that continues Queensland’s record of having reduced more tonnes of emissions than any other state or territory.”
In addition, the bill states that the minister must decide a target for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions in Queensland for 2040, along with a target for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions in Queensland for 2045.
“The minister must decide the 2040 interim target by Dec. 31, 2030, and the 2045 interim target by Dec. 31, 2035,” the bill says.
Reaction from Political Opponents
The Queensland opposition Liberal National Party has yet to announce an official position on the legislation, according to media reports, as leader David Crisafulli continues focussing on youth crime issues.
In response to the announcement, One Nation Australia, however, raised concerns the policy would drive up electricity prices.
“Don’t look now but Queensland Labor has just announced their new policy to drive up electricity prices, drive away industry, destroy jobs, and make the cost of living crisis worse,” the party said in a post to X.
James Ashby, One Nation’s candidate for Keppel at the state election, said, “Be upfront Miles, are you planning on ruining our beaches and reefs, our farmers, or both?”
Mr. Ashby drew on a Victorian Legislative Council report that said meeting net zero targets with renewables could result in 70 percent of Victoria’s agricultural land being repurposed for wind turbines and solar farms.
“So why don’t you tell the people how much of Queensland’s land and sea you are planning to deface for your climate alarmist agenda,” Mr. Ashby said on X.
A Queensland state election is due to be held on Oct. 26, 2024. By-elections will also be held in the seats of Ipswich West and Inala on March 16, 2024.
Demonstrating ‘Queensland’s environmental, social and governance credentials’: government
Explanatory notes on the Clean Economy jobs Bill 2024 state the legislation will help attract investment to Queensland and decarbonise the state’s existing industries.
The Queensland government said achieving the 75 percent emissions target is dependent on the state and federal governments working together.
The government said (pdf) legislating the state’s credible targets would “send an important signal to investors and demonstrate Queensland’s environmental, social and governance credentials.”
“Policy certainty will enable businesses and communities to make effective plans to secure their economic futures.
“It will enable industry to invest in innovation and new technologies in sectors like agriculture, resources, and manufacturing as well as leveraging Queensland’s world-leading solar and wind resources, new economy minerals, and proven workforce capability.”
The government said the bill will “protect Queensland communities” and “mitigate the impacts of climate change,” including for “Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islander peoples.”
“Coordinated and early climate action will support the creation of more job opportunities in Queensland’s emerging clean economy industries like hydrogen, critical metals and minerals, and advanced manufacturing, especially in Queensland’s regions. It will help to support jobs in existing industries by ensuring they remain competitive and meet market expectations in a decarbonising world.”
Australian Institute for Progress executive director, Graham Young, said, “As Anthony Albanese has just demonstrated, it’s easy to legislate, and it’s almost as easy to repeal. Which is just as well as they will never meet these targets in this time frame,” in a post to X.
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In maths, truth and knowledge can’t be mere matters of opinion
From an analytical philosophy viewpoint, mathematics is a set of conventions with useful properties. If you break those conventions, you destroy its usefulness
In universities across the world, humanities departments have, over time, come to reject the notion that there is such a thing as objective truth.
This nihilistic outlook was originally promoted by a small group of academics in the mid-20th century, but is now the dominant philosophy in a range of disciplines from literary criticism to gender and cultural studies. And while the doctrine has quietly swallowed the humanities, many thought it would never infiltrate the hard sciences. If one is engineering a bridge, for example, it would be reckless to reject the objective truth of gravity. If one is studying mathematics it would be foolish to deny that 2 + 2 = 4.
Yet the notion that postmodernism would stop at the walls of the hard sciences looks naive in retrospect. In recent years, efforts to “decolonise” the sciences have been successful in New Zealand with Maori “ways of knowing” to be taught alongside chemistry, physics and biology in science classrooms. Commenting on the New Zealand policy, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins has described it as “pernicious nonsense”.
To understand Dawkins’ ire, it’s worth digging a little deeper into what “decolonising science” actually means. It is an outgrowth of a larger push to “decolonise knowledge” inside the universities. Academics leading this movement explicitly reject the notion there are objective facts that can be discovered via rational or scientific inquiry.
And, rather than being a method to discover how the world works, such theorists argue Western science has been used as a tool to subjugate others. Efforts to “decolonise” science are therefore efforts to undo this subjugation, by bringing into the fold other “ways of knowing” that exist outside scientific methodology. These might include local knowledge about land management, religious knowledge about cosmology, or traditional ways of healing.
Writing in The Conversation, academic Alex Broadbent, of the University of Johannesburg, argues: “There is African belief, and European belief, and your belief, and mine – but none of us have the right to assert that something is true, is a fact, or works, contrary to anyone else’s belief.”
But if we are to treat this claim seriously it takes us to some interesting destinations. It would mean ignoring modern medicine in favour of traditional healing practices when treating cancer or heart disease. It would mean denying the laws of physics that allow planes to fly safely, based on myths about human flight. And it would mean disregarding engineering standards for building safe bridges, roads and buildings, because such standards derive from colonial methods.
Of course, this would be highly impractical. In the real world, we do not recognise the opinions of flat-earthers are equal to those of astronauts, or the knowledge of a psychic is equivalent to an oncologist. We recognise that while everyone is deserving of respect and dignity, not all opinions – or indeed “ways of knowing” – are equal in standing. But recognising the validity of science does not mean we cannot respect or study Indigenous culture. A deeper understanding of non-Western cultures is important – and we have an entire academic discipline devoted to just that. Anthropology exists to study the practices, cosmologies and knowledge systems of Indigenous populations.
Yet decolonial thinkers will argue that by isolating the study of Indigenous ways of knowing the anthropology department is itself a form of oppression.
From their perspective, knowledge grounded in spirituality and folklore should not be seen as mere cultural artefacts, but as being equal to physics, chemistry and biology. Decolonial activists reject the hierarchy that places scientific rationality above superstition and intuition.
Australia is not immune to this line of thinking, and neither are the hard sciences at our most prestigious institutions. The Australian National University’s Mathematical Sciences Institute this month released a press statement about a special topics course in Indigenous mathematics. Course convener Rowena Ball is quoted as saying “Indigenous and First Nations peoples around the world are standing up and saying: ‘Our knowledge is just as good as anybody else’s − why can’t we teach it to our children in our schools, and in our own way?’.” The press release also states that “Numbers and arithmetic and accounting often are of secondary importance in Indigenous mathematics”.
What are some forms of Indigenous mathematics? The example given by Ball is directions in smoke signalling. “One interesting example that we are currently investigating is the use of chiral symmetry to engineer a long-distance smoke signalling technology in real time,” she says. Theory and mathematics in Mithaka society were systematised and taught intergenerationally. You don’t just somehow pop up and suddenly start a chiral signalling technology. It has been taught and developed and practised by many people through the generations.”
Commenting on her assertion that smoke signalling is a sophisticated form of mathematics, Jerry Coyne, a professor of evolutionary biology at the University of Chicago, said bluntly: “I don’t find this at all convincing … patterns of smoke, like drumbeats, is a kind of language, and how to make the patterns and get them understood correctly is based on trial and error. Where does the math come in?”
In establishing a special topics course for Indigenous mathematics, the ANU is trying to serve two masters. On the one hand, universities such as ANU want to portray themselves as vanguards of social justice, in an attempt to attract students and placate activist staff. Yet on the other hand, these same institutions seek to justify collecting public funding and student fees on the premise that they provide a rigorous and substantive education.
But herein lies the irony – by indulging the decolonial activist agenda that rejects the existence of objective truths or a hierarchy of knowledge, universities undermine the very premise on which society deems them worthy of public funding. If we accept the decolonial notion that no form of knowledge can be deemed superior to any other, then what exactly are students paying for? What specialised skills or benefits do university graduates gain that non-graduates lack?
The contradiction is that the university as an institution exists solely because certain forms of systematised knowledge were historically elevated above others and deemed worthy of dedicated study, preservation and expansion. So why should the public continue to fund these multibillion-dollar organisations if the knowledge they offer is just as valid as any other “way of knowing”?
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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 conservative Australian political commentator
Margo Robbie -- a beautiful australian
My son Joe at ANU
One of the happiest pictures ever -- Cleo Smith, aged 4
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