ABC finance expert Alan Kohler makes sad admission about owning a home in Australia

The dream is not dead but can be made real by enabling more convenient living a long way from the city centre. Working from home plus faster public transport would be major contribuors to that

Alan Kohler has admitted the Australian dream of owning a home with a backyard 'might be' over for aspiring homeowners as migration-fueled demand has put house prices beyond the reach of many.

The ABC finance expert made the bleak admission on Q+A on Monday night.

A young man named Samuel asked if the 'Australian dream of owning a house with a backyard in a city (is) over for all of my generation?'

Mr Kohler simply replied: 'It might be'.

'The backyard has become really expensive, particularly close to the city,' he said.

'We're in the situation now where if you want a backyard, you're going to have to move a fair way away from the city.'

Housing and Homelessness minister Clare O'Neil said the government is 'trying to do everything' for young home buyers, even as it presides over an unchecked real estate price spiral.

'Maybe if you want more space, you're going to have to move further away from the city, but what we really need is lots of options for young people like yourself,' she said.

'And right now you don't have enough, our government is trying to do everything we can to create more.'

Shadow Minister Michael Sukkar agreed new buyers cannot hope to get a 'traditional 800 square metre block' in a sought-after area and will need to either move to outer areas or sacrifice having a yard.

'It's the province of first home buyers because the construction costs aren't what they are elsewhere.

'No one would see the backyard as being dead, but the truth is it may not be in those absolutely inner-city suburbs as it's been in the past.'

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-13831385/ABC-Alan-Kohler-home-backyard.html

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NT plan to lower age of criminal responsibility to 10 could contribute to ‘child jail crisis’, advocate says

Behind this is the tremendous nuisance caused by Aboriginal boys. They do a lot of breakins and car stealings and make streets in some important NT cities -- such as Alice Springs -- unsafe at night

The Country Liberal party’s plan to lower the age of criminal responsibility back to 10 in the Northern Territory is “really concerning” and part of a “tragic shift” towards more punitive policies nationwide, the head of Indigenous legal services has said.

Karly Warner, chair of National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services, is warning that such policies will result in a “child jail crisis” and should be undone or at least accompanied by greater investment in proper prevention programs.

Warner, who is going to Canberra to lobby the Albanese government this week, said it was the responsibility of “all attorneys” to ensure that “really regressive law and order policies” that harm children do not get enacted.

After a landslide victory in the August Northern Territory election, Lia Finocchiaro has promised to overhaul justice policies with repeat and violent alleged offenders to be refused bail and the age of criminal responsibility lowered again to 10.

Warner told Guardian Australia: “Wherever we are around country, there are absolutely signs of a tragic shift back to these punitive policies that obviously lead to more children in jail and more dangerous communities.

“[But] the signal from the new NT government, particularly around abandoning what is set in legislation for the minimum age of criminal responsibility, is really concerning.”

She added: “Law and order posturing about punishment is absolutely not the thing that will create safer communities”.

“They can implement evidence-based policies that will actually make our communities safer … or they can implement policies, look tough in response and create an environment and Northern Territory where crime will thrive.”

Warner cited other examples including: the Queensland government suspending its Human Rights Act to imprison children in police watch houses for adults; the Victorian government backflipping on a commitment to raise the age of criminal responsibility to 14; and New South Wales bail laws.

Warner said the “dangerous” NSW bail laws would see “more children locked up in jails rather than getting the supports they need” and instead facing an “apprenticeship of crime in youth prisons”.

“We fear the worst when it comes to children in custody. We are already seeing an increase, and recent history tells us that the outcomes will be unimaginable and tragic.

“We are extremely concerned that the proven programs that actually work to prevent crime – which have never been properly supported or funded – will now be even further deprioritised.”

After national cabinet on Friday, the Albanese government announced a five-year $3.9bn national legal assistance partnership, which is $800m more than the previous agreement.

Warner said the funding announcement was “incredibly appealing” but argued it amounted to $500m, or just $100m a year more than its predecessor, once the $300m for indexation and pay parity was accounted for.

“There is no way [that] goes even close to hitting the sides of the phenomenal demands of the legal assistance sector.”

In question time on Monday the attorney general, Mark Dreyfus, said the package was “the biggest single investment by the commonwealth in the legal assistance sector, ever”.

“Community legal centres, including women’s legal centres, are currently turning away up to 1,000 people per day,” he said. “This investment in legal assistance will ensure that those services can help more Australians.”

Dreyfus said it was “very significant” that the package included “a commitment to ongoing funding”, arguing this would give “confidence for the future” after “the Liberals oversaw a decade of chronic underfunding”.

The independent senator Lidia Thorpe noted the commitment “falls short” of the independent Mundy review call for an additional $459ma year to be provided as a floor from 2025 onwards.

Thorpe said the announcement was “smoke and mirrors” and “mostly a rebrand of existing funding arrangements”.

“Labor’s ongoing failure to properly fund these services will see First Peoples women, children and other vulnerable groups without access to life-saving legal services.”

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/sep/10/nt-age-of-criminal-responsibility-lowered-10-impact#:~:text=After%20a%20landslide%20victory%20in,responsibility%20lowered%20again%20to%2010 .

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Australia’s current recession in perspective
John Humphreys

Australia is in a per-capita recession. This should be big news, but most of the mainstream media remains dedicated to the illusion that our 0.2 per cent growth in aggregate GDP is the more important statistic. This would be relevant if the topic was geopolitical power or war preparation, but if the topic is economic prosperity and wellbeing, then GDP/person (or perhaps even GDP/hour worked) is the relevant metric.

The most recent economic data shows that our current recession has now extended to six consecutive quarters (18 months).

To put this recession into perspective, I went back through the ABS data to compare our current situation with the worst economic performance from the past, always using a period of 10 quarters.

The results weren’t pretty. We are now living through the longest per-capita recession on record (which goes back 50 years), though some of the earlier episodes saw a sharper downturn.

The most recent comparable period was the Global Financial Crisis (GFC) from 2007-09, which saw GDP/person dropping in and out of negative territory, but managed to avoid two consecutive quarters of decline (the most common definition of recession). The current recession is both longer and deeper than the GFC.

Before the GFC there was the infamous ‘recession that Australia had to have’ in 1989-91, which dropped into negative growth several times, including a particularly sharp decline in early 1991.

Going back another decade we had the 1981-83 recession, which was shorter than the current recession, but is the deepest on record, with GDP/person falling nearly 5 per cent in the 1982/83 financial year.

The earliest recession recorded was the 1974-75 downturn, which included a couple of sharp drops followed by quick recoveries.

The interesting thing to note about these last three examples is that they were all directly linked to a change of government. The 1970s recession preceded the fall of the Whitlam government, the 1980s recession saw the end of the Fraser government, and the 1990s recession marked the end of the Hawke government. It seems that people don’t enjoy getting poorer.

The exception to the rule was the GFC, though that occurred directly after a change of government, and never saw two consecutive quarters of decline.

Albanese should be worried.

https://www.spectator.com.au/2024/09/australias-current-recession-in-perspective/

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Labor’s $32bn housing pledge built on shaky foundations

Less than $3bn of the Albanese government’s claimed $32bn housing plan has been disbursed for the direct construction of new homes, with no new dwellings understood to have yet been completed after more than two years in office.

The Australian understands no disbursements have yet been made from the centrepiece $10bn Housing Australian Future Fund established for the construction of 40,000 new social and affordable houses.

Nor has the government been able to confirm whether any money has been provided under the $2bn on concessional loans available under the HAFF.

No data exists for how many homes state and territory governments may have commenced under the $2bn provided to those governments through the social housing accelerator.

Housing Minister Clare O’Neil’s claim that the Albanese government was presiding over a $32bn housing spend includes the almost $5bn in commonwealth rent assistance that is designed to alleviate rental price pressures rather than build new homes.

At least $6bn worth of spending under the programs has yet to be legislated, including the Help to Buy scheme, which is stalled in the Senate.

A $3bn new homes bonus doesn’t start until 2028 and while projects have been announced under the $2bn housing support program, it is understood no money has been provided as yet.

The government could not confirm whether $1bn under the Northern Territory housing scheme had yet been provided, or how much of the $1bn infrastructure facility had gone out the door.

The Australian put a series of questions to Ms O’Neil relating to the $32bn claim, namely how much had actually been spent and how many new homes had been completed.

It is estimated that around $8bn in funds have been provided, but the bulk of this relates to the commonwealth rent assistance scheme, with the remainder being payments to the states and the ­territories.

The opposition has seized on the claims by Ms O’Neil that Labor had claimed it was spending $32bn on housing, accusing the government of presiding over a “political fraud”.

“The Albanese government has dragged its heels for more than two years on addressing their housing crisis and misleading Australians with farcical ‘new’ funding announcements,” opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar told The Australian.

“Billions of promised dollars are tied to policies that have yet to even pass the parliament.

“The reality is, it’s no new money, no new ideas, no new homes, nothing for first-home buyers, no initiatives for renters – just the same Labor housing crisis.

“It’s now time for the Housing Minister to level with Australians and explain how many homes as of today that so-called $32bn has built under Labor.”

Anthony Albanese’s pledge of building 1.2 million homes by 2030 has been criticised by the sector, with new construction starts already at decade-low levels.

Mr Sukkar claims not a single new house has been completed under the Albanese government despite the pledge or through any of the facilities announced since the last election.

Housing Industry Association’s Mike Hermon outlines the “worst performers” of Australia’s housing planning system.
The government conceded that at least $5bn of the $32bn was in rental assistance, which was not a policy designed for the construction of new homes.

And the $6bn included in the overall number used by the Albanese government has yet to pass the parliament.

Ms O’Neil accused the ­Coalition of having presided over a lost period of action on housing and accused the Liberal Party of siding with the Greens to block the government’s housing agenda.

“The Albanese government invested more to build homes in our 2024 budget than the Coalition invested in their nine years in office,” Ms O’Neil told The Australian.

“We’ve delivered $2bn to states and territories to build 4000 more social houses, fast, and in addition we’ve invested $10bn into the Housing Australia Future Fund to establish a stable and consistent stream of funding for 40,000 new social and affordable homes,” Ms O’Neil said.

“We’ve delivered more than $150 million as part of our $1bn commitment to improve housing for Indigenous Australians living in remote areas.

“We have increased Commonwealth Rent Assistance by $4.6bn over the next five years, the largest increase in 30 years – because we know that renters need as much help as possible right now.

“We want to invest more in housing more quickly, but the Liberals and Greens are teaming up to stop us doing this.”

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/politics/labors-32bn-housing-pledge-built-on-shaky-foundations/news-story/b60c4b6fa42cd27f4263dde9933ab2af

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