Australian Politics

Why population growth isn't to blame for rising property prices

This is a classic case of ignoring the old maxim that correlation is not causation. Omitted are any figures on the building activity in the areas where prices grew less.

The slower price growth in some places was almost certainly due to more building activity there -- which increased the supply and hence lowered the prices in those places. Controlling for building activity would undoubtedly see a STRONG correlation between population growth rates and property prices

Note for instance that the big price leaps have been in Sydney, where it is very difficut to build new housing due to land shortages etc

Housing is shaping up to be a major election battleground as the federal opposition vows to dramatically cut Australia's migration intake if it forms government, in a move it says will free up tens of thousands of homes.

But new analysis suggests population growth is not to blame for the worsening affordability crisis.

Rather, a 'perfect storm' of factors ranging from labour and material shortages to higher interest rates and increased investor selling has resulted in a housing supply shortage that will take years to fix.

"People think population growth is the most dominant factor influencing property market performance but it's actually a very small one," said Propertyology's head of research Simon Pressley.

Using data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics, Propertyology has ranked the population growth of 120 cities and municipalities with more than 20,000 residents over the 20 years to June 2023.

"When we lined up the population growth rates against real estate capital growth rates, this 20-year period is another major parcel of proof that there is no direct correlation between these two metrics," he said.

Take Sydney, for instance. Its property owners may have enjoyed significant capital gains over the last two decades, but they can't thank population growth. The Harbour City ranked just 43rd in a list of Australia's fastest-growing locales.

The top 10 growth spots were in the regions, eight in Western Australia and Victoria.

Top of the list was the WA coastal city of Mandurah, an hour south of Perth, which saw its population swell by 91%.

"For 14 years of that period it was Australia's fastest growing population yet the median house price was unchanged," Mr Pressley said.

Similarly, Victoria's Surf Coast saw 85% population growth, WA's Busselton 81%, Queensland's Sunshine Coast 70%, and Mount Barker in South Australia 68%. Yet all displayed "underwhelming" property price growth during the period, Mr Pressley added.

In contrast, Noosa and Byron Bay saw phenomenal property price growth yet were "well below average" in terms of population growth.

The total national population increased from 19.7 million to 26.6 million over the two decades, a growth rate of 35%.

Of the state capitals, Perth (53%) and Brisbane (52%) had the highest population growth rates, while Adelaide (23%) saw the lowest.

PropTrack senior economist Paul Ryan said it's easy to make the link between population growth and property growth, but noted the popularity of a place bears little to its population metrics.

"Where we build homes is where population growth is going to be highest so it's a chicken and egg scenario. It's the abstract concept of demand that pushes prices up, and population growth is only one part of that demand.

"And demand has waxed and waned across different parts of the country at different times."

Where have property prices grown the most?

Since PropTrack started tracking its Home Price Index in 2010, the 10 areas to log the steepest price hikes were all in Greater Sydney.

The Baulkham Hills and Hawkesbury region saw property price growth of 177%, the Southern Highlands and Shoalhaven 171%, Blacktown 160%, the Central Coast 158%, Sydney's outer west 150%, while the Illawarra, Sydney's Northern Beaches and Sydney's southwest all recorded growth of 148%.

"Sydney has the perennial appeal of being the biggest, most cosmopolitan part of Australia where wages are markedly higher than elsewhere and that has an impact on prices," Mr Ryan said.

"People want to live where things are affordable, but also where they have the most opportunities."

https://www.realestate.com.au/news/why-population-growth-isnt-to-blame-for-rising-property-prices/

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Would YOU like to see the picture below as a portrait of you?

Gina Rinehart has good reason to dislike that as a picture of her. It is clearly a deliberate insult

Australia’s richest person, Gina Rinehart, has demanded the National Gallery of Australia remove a portrait of her from an exhibition by Archibald Prize-winning Indigenous artist Vincent Namatjira.

The billionaire mining mogul directly approached NGA director Nick Mitzevich and NGA chair Ryan Stokes in April to press for its removal.

There have since been more than a dozen complaints to the gallery from associates of her company, Hancock Prospecting, which have accused the NGA of “doing the bidding of the Chinese Communist Party” by displaying her image in an unflattering way.

Rinehart recently praised the Chinese government for “doing a better job than our government”, and it is unclear what the “bidding” referred to.

Complaints have also come from athletes she sponsors, according to sources who are familiar with the correspondence but who asked not to be identified due to the sensitive nature of the issue.

Ben Quilty, a friend of Namatjira who collaborated on an artwork for the show, said Namatjira was one of the most important artists of our times.

“If Olympic swimmers think they have so much say over the National Gallery, maybe Vincent and I should spend more time in the swimming pool,” Quilty said.

The portrait is one of 21 painted by the Western Aranda artist of notable Australian figures including Ned Kelly, Lionel Rose and his friend, Adam Goodes.

It features in the first major survey at the NGA of Namatjira’s work, titled Vincent Namatjira: Australia in colour, which opened on March 2. Namatjira, a celebrated portraitist and a satirical chronicler of Australian identity, could not be reached for comment.

The gallery bills the show as one that takes a “wry look at the politics of history, power and leadership from a contemporary Aboriginal perspective”.

Rinehart’s request is understood to have been rejected by the gallery on the basis the cultural institution’s artistic vision should not be swayed by individual public opinion.

In response to a series of questions about Rinehart’s complaint, Mitzevich issued a carefully worded statement from the gallery.

“The National Gallery welcomes the public having a dialogue on our collection and displays,” the gallery said.

“Since 1973, when the National Gallery acquired Jackson Pollock’s Blue Poles, there has been a dynamic discussion on the artistic merits of works in the national collection, and/or on display at the gallery. We present works of art to the Australian public to inspire people to explore, experience and learn about art.”

The dispute follows a series of controversies for Rinehart. In March last year, she withdrew her $15 million sponsorship of Netball Australia after Indigenous player Donnell Wallam asked for her uniform not to include the Hancock Prospecting logo.

Wallam was protesting against comments made by Rinehart’s father and Hancock Prospecting founder, Lang Hancock, in 1984 that Indigenous Australians should be sterilised and “breed themselves out”.

Rinehart has refused to condemn her father’s comments and cancelled her funding for Netball Australia after players refused to wear her company’s logo.

In June, Rinehart claimed the West Australian government’s changes to Indigenous heritage laws, after Rio Tinto’s destruction of the ancient site at Juukan Gorge in 2020, would force home owners to get heritage approval to build granny flats in their backyards.

The 70-year-old has drawn praise from some Indigenous leaders for millions of dollars in funding given via the Roy Hill Community Foundation which provides scholarships, training, work experience and internships through the Madalah organisation.

https://www.smh.com.au/culture/art-and-design/portrait-gina-rinehart-doesn-t-want-you-to-see-mogul-demands-national-gallery-remove-her-image-20240513-p5jd59.html

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Far-Leftist university lecturer sacked over Nazi swastika incident loses bid to get reinstated

He got off the Hilton bombing by the skin of his teeth. At his appeal, a very skeptical judge (Gleeson) just did not believe some of the evidence

The University of Sydney has won its appeal against a court ruling that found a controversial lecturer was unlawfully sacked after he showed students a slide show that superimposed a Nazi swastika on the Israeli flag.

In October 2022, Federal Court Justice Thomas Thawley ruled Dr Tim Anderson was exercising his academic freedom. He accepted the lecturer’s argument the swastika graphic was created to encourage critical analysis.

The judge said that while he considered Anderson’s comments would be offensive to many people, he did not consider the context in which the swastika was used involved “harassment, vilification or intimidation”.

But on Friday, the Federal Court overturned the decision in a two to one majority, finding Anderson’s comments did not comply with the “highest ethical, professional and legal standards” required to be protected under the intellectual freedoms enshrined in the university’s enterprise agreement.

The political economy lecturer, who was supported by the National Tertiary Education Union through the case, was sacked from the university in February 2019, a few months after he had superimposed a swastika over an Israeli flag.

Friday’s judgment said that in July 2018, Anderson posted to his Facebook account a photograph taken at a lunch in Beijing where one of the people wears a shirt with antisemitic slogans in Arabic which translate into English to: “Death to Israel”, “Curse the Jews” and “Victory to all Islam”.

The university directed him to remove the photograph, which he did not do.

In October 2018, the university moved to sack Anderson after he showed a PowerPoint presentation in a lecture about civilian deaths in Gaza that featured the Nazi swastika imposed over the flag of Israel.

It came after two other warnings in 2017 and 2018 over statements made about a News Corp journalist and his labelling of US senator John McCain as a “key al-Qaeda supporter”.

Anderson had previously told the court, in an affidavit: “While some may feel offended by Nazi-Zionist analogies, I say the inclusion of the analogy in that graphic was appropriate. The purpose of the slide was to encourage critical analysis ... No student raised any issue with the slide during the seminar.”

In his reasons, Judge Nye Perram said he accepted it may “in an appropriate case” be consistent with the standards in the university’s enterprise agreement for an academic to use a Nazi swastika.

“It was for Dr Anderson to engage in the forensic gymnastics of explaining how his at least incendiary conduct could be characterised as being consistent with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards. This he did not do,” he said.

The university submitted Anderson’s comments were “variously intemperate ad hominem attacks” and were not in pursuit of academic excellence.

Last year, the court dismissed Anderson’s claims for damages but found Anderson should be reinstated to his position, pending the outcome of the university’s appeal.

Friday’s ruling, which overturns that order, comes amid ongoing discussions about freedom of speech and antisemitism on campus. Vice chancellor Mark Scott has written to the attorney-general to seek legal advice from federal authorities on how to respond to protesters who call for an “intifada” against Israel.

“We’re pleased with this outcome, as we were confident of our actions,” a University of Sydney spokeswoman said.

“We strongly defend freedom of speech and the ability of our staff to express their expert opinion as outlined in our Charter of Freedom of Speech and Academic Freedom. The principle and practice of intellectual freedom must be upheld in accordance with the highest ethical, professional and legal standards.”

The swastika incident followed years of controversial statements and activities by Anderson, including several trips to North Korea and Syria and expressions of solidarity with their dictatorial regimes.

Anderson was also convicted in 1990 over the 1978 Hilton hotel bombing in Sydney. He was acquitted the following year.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/lecturer-sacked-over-nazi-swastika-incident-loses-bid-to-get-reinstated-20240517-p5jehi.html

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Huge complexities and costs behind the CO2 allergy

The global warming hoax has much to answer for

This week’s news that energy networks plan to charge households to export excess solar energy to the grid in the middle of the day will affect the two men in very different ways.

In a dynamic mirrored by the nation at large, Horsley is likely to benefit from the new order, while Seton is likely to lose out. Meanwhile, the distributors and the likes of St Vincent de Paul Society say the move protects renters and low-income households without solar.

Sydneysider Nic Seton has solar panels on his roof and is worried about Ausgrid’s new network charge.
Sydneysider Nic Seton has solar panels on his roof and is worried about Ausgrid’s new network charge.CREDIT:LOUIE DOUVIS

It was enabled by a national rule change in August 2021. Australian Energy Market Commission chair Anna Collyer, whose organisation made the decision, says it allows distributors to recoup the cost of paying for upgrades to the grid to remove bottlenecks and allow more solar to be exported.

“A ‘do nothing’ approach would have led to a worse outcome for all,” Collyer says. “There would have been increasing instances where customers are limited in their level of exports or not allowed to export at all.”

Australia leads the world in rooftop solar: the Clean Energy Council estimates it represents 11.2 per cent of the national energy supply.

It’s a great success story that opens up myriad opportunities for the transition to a decarbonised economy, but experts say it also brings challenges with managing grid stability and who should pay for that.

At the heart of the problem is a demand curve that looks like a duck, even if it doesn’t walk and quack like one. Figures from the Australian Energy Market Operator show energy demand starts off neutral in the early morning, plummets during the middle of the day when consumers are either not at home or using their own solar, and then peaks in the evening when people get home and turn on their devices and lights.

Grattan’s director of the energy program, Tony Wood, says: “The dramatic growth in solar PV is breaking the electricity duck’s back. Flattening the load is likely to restore it to good health.”

This is at the heart of the changes announced this week by the three NSW energy distributors – Ausgrid, Essential Energy and Endeavour Energy. The NSW pricing structure was approved by the Australian Energy Regulator last month, and all three companies said it was done after extensive consultation with customers.

Rob Amphlett Lewis, group executive distributed services at Sydney’s main distributor Ausgrid, says: “We want to move as much of our energy [usage] into the middle of the day when we’ve got all of this generation happening, and that effectively squashes the duck.”

The solar duck is a national problem, and NSW is merely at the vanguard of a shift that is likely to come to other states as well. SA Power Networks was one of the proponents of the national rule change in 2021 necessary to bring in the charges and will be able to introduce them in the next AER pricing review in 2025, along with Queensland. Victoria’s next AER cycle is in 2026.

The effect is that the distribution networks, which own the poles and wires but are separate entities from the electricity retailers, will allow a threshold of free exports during the day and charge a penalty beyond that while also providing a reward for energy exports in the evening. The distributors, which have geographic monopolies, have different pricing structures, and the retailers can choose how to package it to customers.

Solar households will still enjoy reduced bills from using their own energy and will still be paid feed-in tariffs from retailers based on wholesale electricity prices. The overall cost is expected to be low for the average customer.

Seton has a modest 4.5-kilowatt battery on the roof of his townhouse in the inner-city Sydney suburb of Newtown, where he lives with his partner and two children. About six years ago, the family paid about $6000 after rebates and has enjoyed large savings on their electricity bills.

He has no control over the fact that the solar panels only work when the sun is shining, cannot justify the cost of a home battery at upwards of $9000, and has already tried to shift his energy usage to the middle of the day as much as possible.

Meanwhile, at the seven-person Horsley household in leafy Wahroonga on the north shore, there is a possibility the family can make money from the situation.

Peter Horsley has spent tens of thousands of dollars on 17 kilowatts of solar panels and three batteries, not including the cost of two electric cars.

He can charge his batteries during the day from the solar panels and then sell electricity back at higher prices in the evening. With his set-up (Tesla battery and an app from his retailer Amber Electric), Horsley has set this up as a default and can also manually override it when needed, for example, if there is a blackout.

He can even charge his batteries from the grid rather than his solar panels. “The prices can go negative during the day as well, so there have even been cases where we’ve been paid to fill up our batteries and take energy off the grid,” Horsley says.

He has already participated in an Ausgrid trial for two-way pricing, which offered generous evening feed-in tariffs but is not sure what the net effect will be in the future. Despite this, he is confident he won’t be worse off and adds that he does not support the changes, mainly because he believes in solar as a climate change solution and is worried it will slow uptake.

Energy distributors, backed by advocates such as the St Vincent de Paul Society, the Australian Council of Social Service and the Public Interest Advocacy Centre, say that it is about equity: the networks need to find the money to upgrade the grid to absorb the new solar energy being generated, and they don’t want the poorer non-solar households to bear the entire cost.

Seton, who runs Parents for Climate, says it’s pitting homes without solar and their interests against homes with solar. The better way to address equity is to help low-income households and renters get solar and to help solar households buy batteries.

He is frustrated there is a mandatory levy, however small, on solar households who have tried to contribute to the renewable energy transition.

“At the end of the day for some people, it’s still one more brick in the wall in that cost-of-living crisis,” Seton says.

Campaign groups such as Solar Citizens have described the new charge as a “sun tax” and warned it could put people off buying solar panels, while Rewiring Australia says it’s about the large-scale incumbents “defending their turf” against households getting in on the game.

There are also market analysts, such as Tristan Edis, a green energy and carbon markets economist with Green Energy Markets, who say it is the wrong approach.

Edis says bluntly that “the rule change was bullshit” and the regulators were “snowed” by the energy distributors. “They’ve just given them the keys to a new revenue stream through this rule change, even though there’s not proper evidence here.”

He points to UNSW research from 2020 that suggests so-called solar traffic jams are largely the result of distributors failing to manage voltage, a problem that occurs during the evening peak as well as by day.

Distributors do not effectively measure voltage spikes from solar households anywhere except Victoria, Edis says, so they had not proven the case that solar households were causing the problem.

In Victoria, the government had regulated the distributors to lower voltage, and this had occurred despite high solar penetration. As a result, he predicts that Victorian distributors will not need to introduce two-way pricing in their next AER round in 2026.

But Amphlett Lewis says the UNSW research shows the various ways to manage voltage, and the extensive consultation that Ausgrid and the other distributors carried out, determined that two-way pricing was the best model.

Rewiring Australia chief executive Saul Griffith says there is a bigger picture being lost. “A lot of people are not at home during the day when their house is generating the most electricity,” Griffith says. “In the best of all worlds, the excess electricity they’re making will charge the electric vehicles that are going to be prolific in this country … and the biggest battery in Australia will be our cars.”

The networks are keen on the vehicle-to-grid charging that Griffith is advocating. Essential Energy chief operating officer Luke Jenner says the network “is optimistic about the opportunities electric vehicle charging and vehicle-to-grid charging can offer consumers” and, while it already offers two-way charging for electric vehicles, it is currently testing and developing infrastructure to develop it further.

Home batteries cost from $9000 to $15,000 and the federal budget did not provide any funding to help households buy batteries. Some schemes exist in Victoria and Queensland, while the NSW government will have more to say on this in its consumer energy strategy due in the coming months.

Community batteries are another solution, often touted by the networks themselves, as they can build and own them, often with government subsidies. Ausgrid has five across Sydney and the Central Coast, Endeavour Energy has partnered with Origin Energy for community batteries in western Sydney and Shell Cove in the Illawarra, and Essential Energy says it owns and is developing several energy storage solutions.

Ausgrid’s Amphlett Lewis says both household and community batteries have their place, but “shared batteries will have a big role to play because they’re more cost-effective than behind-the-meter batteries”.

Tristan Edis disputes this, though, saying it’s better to support individual households in getting their own batteries because distributors have a profit motive and a monopoly business structure. That means they are wasteful and do not act in the best interests of consumers, while the locations of community batteries are often chosen “based on where politicians want to cut a ribbon.”

St Vincent de Paul Society’s executive manager of policy and research, Gavin Dufty, says batteries are expensive, but he advocates helping households to shift their usage of appliances, such as increased use of timers so loads of dishes and laundry can be done during the day even if no one is home.

He supports the policy: “It’s putting in the right foundations if we’re going to electrify everything and get to net zero, which we want.“

https://www.smh.com.au/environment/climate-change/the-tale-of-two-households-behind-the-new-grid-charges-for-excess-solar-20240516-p5je5v.html

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Major win for Aussie workers who refuse to get the Covid vaccine as 'unreasonable' mandate is scrapped

Mandates requiring health workers in NSW to receive two doses of a Covid vaccine will be scrapped this week.

In March, NSW Health said it was reviewing the rule and it has now been revealed that it will be removed for existing personnel and for new recruits from Thursday.

The rule was put in place in August 2021 and about six months later NSW Health said that 995 staff members had either resigned or been sacked over the policy.

Former paramedic and campaigner against the mandate John Larter received a letter from lawyers for NSW Health who had written to his legal team informing him of the change.

'This symbolises NSW Health have acknowledged they can no longer continue to maintain their position due to overwhelming evidence that mandatory vaccination was a misuse of power,' Mr Larter told 2GB's Ben Fordham Live.

'It was completely disproportionate and unreasonable to sack frontline workers which negatively impacted health workers, patient care and outcomes,' he said.

'Lets hope all of those sacked workers are reinstated and compensated.'

Queensland and Western Australia removed their Covid vaccine requirements for health workers in 2023.

Mr Larter had previously launched legal action against the mandates and taken NSW Health Minister Brad Hazzard to the Supreme Court in 2021.

The devout Catholic argued the laws were invalid and that they stopped residents from conscientously objecting to the vaccine based on religious grounds.

Mr Larter said he didn't receive the AstraZeneca vaccine because he believed it was sourced from the cells of aborted fetuses.

He lost his court battle after Justice Christine Adamson dismissed his case.

NSW chief health officer Dr Kerry Chant said NSW Health will continue to strongly recommend all its workers stay up to date with their vaccinations, in line with advice for the broader community.

'While the latest evidence shows most people have now developed protection from serious disease due to vaccination and/or previous infection, Covid remains a serious public health issue,' Dr Chant said.

'Covid vaccination continues to provide strong protection against severe illness, particularly for people at higher risk of serious illness and death from Covid, including older adults and those with underlying health conditions.'

The latest advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) recommends a Covid vaccination every six months for all adults aged 75 years and over.

A Covid vaccination every 12 months for adults aged 65 – 74 years is also reccommended, and adults aged 18 – 64 with severe immunocompromise should consider a vaccination every six months.

A yearly Covid vaccination should be considered for all other adults aged 18 – 64 years, and those aged 5 -18 years with severe immunocompromise.

Covid vaccines prevented almost 18,000 deaths among people over 50 in NSW as the Omicron strain hit, a study has found.

A Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology and Monash University joint research team looked at Australia's vaccination campaign to get an insight into what would have happened had NSW's rollout been different.

The team used computer simulations to find how vaccinations and boosters impacted the Omicron wave between August 2021 and July 2022.

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-13419117/Covid-mandate-NSW-health-scrapped.html