Australian Politics

Property prices low in Victoria

Because so many landlords are selling out under state government pressures on them

Investors in Melbourne are selling up at the highest rate of any of our major capital cities to avoid hefty property taxes, which has led to falling prices across the city.

In what was once the nation’s second-most expensive city, prices have risen just 15.5 per cent since the start of the pandemic.

Greater listings and less competition is the leading factor, with analysis from PropTrack revealing the investors represent two in five sales in Melbourne, the largest proportion in any state capital.

While cities experiencing significant price growth like Perth and Brisbane continue to see tight conditions, Melbourne has the highest number of homes for sale since November 2018.

New properties coming to market is 31 per cent above the prior five-year average.

Buyers advocate Cate Bakos said land tax was the “straw that broke the camel’s back … Investors are completely disincentivised. We’ve had rental reforms that are more onerous than any other state.

“We also had the burden of the eviction moratorium during our lockdowns, we were locked down for a long time, and the government basically left it to investors to work it out, meaning they were already out of pocket.

“Now the most recent and difficult challenge has been the land tax, which is a bit of a joke.”

Land tax increases were introduced in the Victorian government’s 2023-24 state budget designed to recoup the losses of the Covid-19 pandemic. Investors were targeted as one of the groups “most able to pay”, which Real Estate Institute of Victoria president Jacob Caine said was a “fallacy”.

“There’s an implicit assumption … that investors are rich and unarguably, that’s a fallacy,” he said. “The data shows that 90 per cent of rental properties around the country are provided by these private investors … and sit about the median income.”

Separately, new minimum standards are expected to cost landlords at least $5000 in upgrades, which Mr Caine said would further compound the pressures and force investors out of the market.

In August, Melbourne prices slipped 0.18 per cent, culminating in 4.66 per cent falls since the highs of March 2022. Sydney prices inched up 0.32 per cent, while Perth recorded the largest gain, up 0.79 per cent.

Hobart grew 0.63 per cent, Adelaide (up 0.45 per cent), Brisbane (up 0.35 per cent), Darwin (up 0.37 per cent) and Canberra (0.04 per cent)

PropTrack senior economist Eleanor Creagh said investors were not only selling, they were also failing to buy into the market

“Price momentum is weaker in Melbourne as buyers have consistently enjoyed more choice over the past year relative to other markets,” Ms Creagh said.

“At the same time, construction rates relative to population growth in Victoria have been somewhat balanced compared to other parts of the country. Victoria is also not attracting the same uplift in investor activity as other states as a result.”

Melbourne started the year as Australia’s second-most expensive city. But continued strong price growth in the smaller markets of Brisbane, Adelaide and Perth has seen the nation’s second largest city drop down the rankings. It is the third most affordable now that prices have come back 4.6 per cent over the past year.

Ms Bakos said many investors were now looking to the sharemarket to park their cash, as it had fewer restrictions. She added that while first-home buyers were better positioned to enter now that prices had stabilised, they were competing to buy the homes investors were selling, with tree-changers returning to the city post-pandemic.

SQM research managing director Louis Christopher said he believed local investors would not be the only ones affected.

“While we have this rather adverse taxation regime for investors in Victoria, they’ll be an incentive for investors … to look in other states,” he said.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/property/victorian-tax-grab-sparks-melbourne-home-price-slide/news-story/b43b338d08db8c73106d72f008fa7ac1

****************************************

Sophie Galaise details sacking as Melbourne Symphony Orchestra managing director following Jayson Gillham decision

Hatred of Israel is an amazingly powerful thing. It seems to rot the brain

Sophie Galaise has revealed the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra board sacked her last week as managing director after it unilaterally overturned the unanimous decision of her executive team to sideline pianist Jayson Gillham following his onstage anti-Israel comments.

Sophie Galaise says she was sacked as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s managing director after the board overturned her executive team’s decision to sideline pianist Jayson Gillham. Picture: Arsineh Houspian
Sophie Galaise says she was sacked as the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra’s managing director after the board overturned her executive team’s decision to sideline pianist Jayson Gillham

The former managing director of the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra has hit out at her sacking over the sidelining of a pianist who attacked Israel’s conduct in Gaza, declaring that music concerts should be “safe havens” for all Australians and free from political protest.

Sophie Galaise has broken her silence over the controversy that has rocked the country’s oldest orchestra, insisting she and her management team were right to demand audience members be free to listen to music without being subjected to political lectures.

Ms Galaise has revealed that the MSO board sacked her last week after it unilaterally overturned the unanimous decision of her MSO executive team to sideline pianist Jayson Gillham after his onstage anti-Israel comments last month.

The MSO controversy is the latest involving pro-Palestinian activism on stage that has divided the artistic community and angered Jewish patrons and donors. It follows a backlash against the Sydney Theatre Company from patrons and donors last year after three actors wore pro-Palestinian keffiyeh scarfs during a curtain call.

Ms Galaise was the only person the MSO board sacked despite the fact her six-member management team agreed with her that Gillham should not play at a subsequent concert because of his anti-Israel comments, which breached the orchestra’s position of neutrality in the Gaza conflict.

“Why was I sacked? In my opinion it’s not fair,” Ms Galaise told The Australian in her first comments on the controversy.

“It was a disagreement (with the board) but it (my position) was not a mistake. I still believe the MSO should be a platform that is neutral and that focuses on doing good music. It is important to respect other people’s (political) opinion but the MSO should be a safe haven, a place where people can come and listen to great music and know they are going to be safe.”

Ms Galaise said she was exploring legal options after an extraordinary series of events that culminated in her taking the fall for the stunning split between the MSO’s board and its management team.

The 11-member MSO board, which is under pressure to explain its actions, includes chairman David Li, former Qantas chair Margaret Jackson, former Victorian government minister Martin Foley, investment managers Edgar Myer and Farrel Meltzer, former PwC executive Mary Waldron and former ANZ executive Shane Buggle.

The saga began on Sunday, August 11, when pianist Gillham took the stage to perform at Melbourne’s Iwaki Auditorium. He included in his performance a rendition of a piece called Witness which was composed by Connor d’Netto as a tribute to journalists working in Gaza during Israel’s attacks on Hamas in the enclave.

When introducing the piece, Gillham, who did not tell the MSO what he planned to say, alleged that of the reported 113 Palestinian journalists killed in Israeli air strikes during the conflict, “a number of these have been targeted assassinations”, a war crime that is denied by Israel.

Ms Galaise was at home when she was contacted by one of her management team about what Gillham had said. Several members of the 156 people in the audience had subsequently complained to the box office after the performance, while others had emailed their complaints to the MSO including to Ms Galaise herself. She said she could not remember exactly how many complaints the MSO received but described it as a “large number” for a “small audience”. She said they were received ‘by email, by phone calls to the box office, by people complaining at the box office right after the concert and I also received complaints (directly) by email”.

One Jewish audience member emailed the MSO after the performance stating: “I was angry and traumatised after listening to the (pianist’s) speech and the piece which followed. I felt humiliated. There were other Jewish members of the audience present and several of us approached a staff member to make a complaint after the concert. Music should be a refuge in these times for everyone. To alienate Jewish members of the audience to create a political platform during a performance is inappropriate and inexcusable … the MSO should issue a public apology to their subscribers.

“I have been a subscriber to MSO for a number of years and feel this incident will make me feel reluctant to come to further concerts in light of MSO allowing this attack on its patrons.”

On the morning after the concert, Ms Galaise called a full meeting of her management team to discuss what to do. The background to their decision, so far unreported, was that she said the MSO had publicly stated its neutrality on the Gaza conflict in December, and that position had been conveyed to the MSO’s musicians and in a newsletter before Christmas to MSO subscribers.

“We had worked with the board, the management, our musicians and our people to decide what we would be doing in regards to the geopolitical situation in Gaza and that was published last December,” she said.

“And we decided that we are a diverse organisation and that we would focus on doing music and that we would not take sides in the conflict … we would try to remain a safe haven for people who want to hear good music and not be subjected to different personal opinions.”

She said this had been discussed in meetings with the musicians, via meetings with the artistic players’ committee which represents the musicians, so the musicians were aware of the MSO’s stated neutrality on the issue of Gaza.

The MSO’s decision to adopt a neutral position on Gaza was unusual but it reflected the uniquely divisive nature of the issue. The company has chosen to support various political positions in the past including support for the Yes vote in the voice referendum, support for gay marriage and even a concert dedicated to Ukraine immediately after Russia’s invasion of that country.

On the Monday morning after Gillham’s performance, Ms Galaise and her management team discussed how the MSO should respond, and also sought legal advice on the issue.

Gillham had breached the MSO’s publicly stated neutrality on Gaza so it was felt that the orchestra owed an apology to those audience members who were offended.

Ms Galaise said management’s thinking was informed in part by the damaging rift at the STC last year over pro-Palestinian activism on stage, leading to fears of a public backlash, including from Jewish donors. About $8m of the MSO’s roughly $40m budget comes from donations. And the MSO’s partners include Jewish organisations such as the Gandel Foundation and the Besen Family Foundation.

“We have donors that are Jewish and non-Jewish, so it’s a mix,” Ms Galaise said. “They are supportive of the work of the MSO and they did not come forward and request anything but the complaints were really made about the fact that, as an organisation, we had allowed this pianist to speak and take one side.

“In my opinion that was the perception of the people who were complaining. And that is where we said ‘no, it is not okay to have our platform used in such a way – we respect freedom of speech and he is quite entitled to think whatever he thinks – but taking our organisation as a platform to do so without discussing it with us was a challenge’,” she said.

On top of this Gillham was due to perform again on the Thursday night, three days later. Would he repeat the same comments, setting off more complaints, or could an audience member, knowing what he had said previously, disrupt the performance with a counter-political outburst?

Ms Galaise and her management team decided that the safest path was to apologise to the concert audience. The team agreed that the MSO would write to attendees, apologise for Gillham’s remarks and notify them that his subsequent concert appearance had been cancelled. A statement was drafted saying: “The MSO does not condone the use of our stage as a platform for expressing personal views.”

On that Monday evening, Ms Galaise with the backing of her management team sent the apology to Gillham’s audience.

Ms Galaise said she tried to contact two of the most senior board members on that Monday to inform them of the management’s decision but could not make contact.

At 6.41am the following day, she sent an email to all 11 MSO board members informing them of the decision. The MSO’s letter to Gillham’s audience quickly found its way into the public arena and the powerful forces of the pro-Palestinian movement immediately took aim at the organisation.

“We started being bombarded by keyboard warriors and people who have nothing to do with the MSO being quite aggressive with the organisation,” Ms Galaise said. “I received a lot of (pro-Palestinian) hate messages, some about being a woman CEO, about my hairstyle, my accent (Ms Galaise has a French-Canadian background) – they were calling me all sorts of names.”

The union representing the MSO’s musicians, the Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, said: “The response by the management of the MSO had been disproportionate and is offensive to the principles of artistic expression.”

With the MSO in the crosshairs of pro-Palestinian activists, the MSO board created an instant working committee, including some board members, Ms Galaise and some of her management team, to meet that Tuesday evening to discuss the situation.

The board also hired an external crisis management team to advise it. To Ms Galaise’s amazement, that crisis team suggested to the board that the MSO do an about-face and publicly state that its attempted cancellation of Gillham had been a mistake.

The argument was that if it did not do so, the MSO concert on the Thursday – and future MSO concerts – could be disrupted by pro-Palestinian protests. Ms Galaise said she argued against a reversal because she knew it would “piss off everyone” on all sides and make the MSO look weak and indecisive.

“In my opinion, we had already said ‘Jayson Gillham, you cannot take us hostage’ and now we are going to backflip and apologise?” she said.

The board initially tried to discuss with Gillham’s management whether he could be persuaded to take the stage for the concert on Thursday. But when it became clear that he would not play, the board cancelled the entire concert citing security grounds because audience members might have had to encounter pro-Palestinian protests.

Under the board’s instructions the MSO management team was forced to declare that the attempted cancellation of Gillham’s appearance had been an “error”.

“While the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra maintains that a concert platform is not an appropriate stage for political comment, we acknowledge Jayson’s concerns for those in the Middle East and elsewhere,’ an MSO spokesman said at that time.

Sure enough, the MSO board’s decision to reverse its position pleased pro-Palestinian activists but upset the Jewish community.

Executive Council of Australian Jewry co-chief executive Peter Wertheim said: “The MSO got it right the first time. People attend concerts to relax and appreciate the music, not to be drawn unexpectedly into a political rally. It is wrong for an artist like Mr Gillham to exploit the situation by forcing his audience to listen to his highly questionable political views on a subject about which he has no special knowledge or expertise.”

For Ms Galaise, the board’s decision to overrule the views of not just herself but her entire management team regarding Gillham deepened a rift that had begun to emerge over other issues.

Ms Galaise, who has been the MSO managing director for eight years after a successful career running major music organisations in Australia and Canada, had fallen out with Mr Li. Ms Galaise and Mr Li had differences over the handling of several internal issues. These included an investigation by Al Jazeera in which the network last month aired a piece alleging that Mr Li had hidden past links to the Chinese People’s Liberation Army and that China had undue influence over the MSO, allegations Mr Li denies.

It was clear, in hindsight, that the controversy over Gillham had further soured relations between the board and Ms Galaise. A week after the controversy, Ms Galaise took a work trip to Singapore for a long-planned and important series of meetings and functions to cement the MSO’s new strategic relationship with the Singapore Symphony Orchestra.

Contrary to reports, Ms Galaise said no-one at the board advised her against taking the trip so close to recent turmoil over the Gillham affair. Ms Galaise said she went to Singapore because it was important for the MSO and she stayed in daily contact with her management team in Melbourne during that time. But on the last night in Singapore, shortly before her flight she received a call from a senior board member asking her to come to a meeting when she returned to Melbourne the following morning.

Ms Galaise was told that the meeting was to further discuss the board’s recent decision to ask Midnight Oil frontman and former Labor minister Peter Garrett to review the MSO and evaluate its policies, procedures and processes, and cover protocols around freedom of speech and artistic expression on stage.

Instead, Ms Galaise said, when she turned up at the meeting she was sacked. “They said they had no faith in me and no trust and so I was terminated,” she said. “It’s been very difficult for me because my reputation is now in tatters. I love the world of music but who would now like to hire me?”

Ms Galaise said she knew that the board’s decision to reverse the cancellation of Gillham was damaging to the MSO’s reputation but she had no idea it would lead to her being sacked. She said it was simply a disagreement between her management team and the board over how the issue should be handled.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/sophie-galaise-details-sacking-as-melbourne-symphony-orchestra-managing-director-following-jayson-gillham-decision/news-story/235026f341c5eadbf18d3d4330970a6c

******************************************************

Student lifts lid on alleged anti-Semitism at ‘alternative learning’ school

It's anti-racist except when it isn't

A Jewish student has lifted the lid on alleged anti-Semitic behaviour at an “alternative learning” school on Sydney’s upmarket North Shore, with incidents including swastika graffiti, death threats and students calling for their Jewish counterparts to be “separated”.

The allegations were reported to NSW Education Minister and Deputy Premier Prue Car, whose department said it had “no tolerance” for religious discrimination and it had investigated each report of vilification.

Lindfield Learning Village is an unorthodox public school that discards uniforms and bells, gets students to call teachers by their first names, and bases learning on a child’s stage rather than their age.

It caused uproar in 2021 when students displayed posters including “stop killer cops, (get) pigs out of the country, and white lives matter too much”.

In June, one Jewish student wrote to the government seeking help about an “alarming rise in anti-Semitic incidents in North Shore high schools”.

“Anti-Semitism has spread and no matter how much we complain and ask for help, (schools) don’t do anything about it,” the letter reads.

“We are so tired and don’t know what to do anymore.”

The Lindfield student alleged “anti-Semitic harassment”, which had “gotten worse by the day”, and family members told that “Jews deserve to die” and they needed “to be gassed”.

The student alleged their peer was told “you (Jewish people) need to be separated from normal people like us”.

“My Jewish friends at a nearby school had students shouting ‘all the Jews get off the bus’,” the pupil said, adding that they didn’t “feel safe”.

“Kill the Jews” was scrawled in German on one of Lindfield’s walls, while pictures of swastikas were drawn onto others and carved into trees.

A department director apologised to the student for the “distress” caused, revealing that she had raised the allegations with Lindfield’s relieving principal, who had brought up the matter at whole staff meetings and with the school’s executive.

The school has an anti-racism officer, staff have completed the department’s anti-racism policy training and they have a multi-term plan to combat religious discrimination, particularly anti-Semitism, which it was taking extremely seriously.

A NSW Education spokesman said its schools had “no tolerance” for religious discrimination, and that reports of anti-Semitism were fully investigated, with students disciplined if they were found to have acted inappropriately.

It recently launched a religious intolerance helpline for students who had experienced or seen religious bullying, coming into effect in November.

Lindfield Learning Village has sought advice from the NSW Jewish Board of Deputies and police, and has been working with the area’s faith leaders.

NSW JBD president David Ossip said the allegations were “extremely serious” and he continued to liaise with the Deputy Premier and the department.

“It is essential that students are able to attend school in a safe and inclusive environment, free from hate and discrimination,” he said.

Cases of anti-Semitism, however, are not contained to Lindfield, with similar allegations raised at nearby Killara, Davidson and St Ives high schools.

The alleged incidents were put to Ms Car during a recent budget estimates hearing, and she said she remained “concerned” about anti-Semitism across the school system.

“I’m appalled (at the allegations) … I don’t think anyone can say that their response would be anything but ‘that is disgusting’,” she said, adding she “engaged constantly” with faith leaders.

NSW opposition education spokeswoman Sarah Mitchell said she was “horrified” and called for “tangible steps” to prevent it happening again.

NSW Davidson MP Matt Cross said it was “deeply concerning” that Jewish students didn’t feel safe at school.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/student-lifts-lid-on-alleged-antisemitism-at-alternative-learning-school/news-story/1f17c53586d92ef142e829f0d1c0c371

**************************************************

EV, go home – why I pulled the plug on my Tesla

Gemma Tognini

It’s not me, it’s you. Standing there, I whispered those words quietly under my breath as I shut the door and turned away, leaving the past behind me. Eighteen months together, the last six the most difficult if I was honest. What to do, though? When it’s not working, it’s not working and sometimes you’ve just got to call it. Just must accept when the music is over and move on.

So I did. I got rid of my Tesla. Gone are the days of charging anxiety. Being gaslit by an iPad on wheels that didn’t like the cold (it would lose charge when the temperature dropped) and took absolute liberty with the concept of fast charging.

Like I said, it wasn’t me, it was him. It. The car. The EV. The purveyor of emerald-coloured dreams that turned into a logistical nightmare and ultimately led me to re-embrace the world of sweet fossil fuel and its glorious reliability. Freedom, such sweet freedom.

For those of you joining this conversation for the first time, a quick recap. I have been, since early 2023, Australia’s least enthusiastic EV owner. I went down that road as a wide-eyed sweet child of summer. Literally. I picked up the car in February last year and initially was enamoured. It’s fast. Goes like a shower of the proverbial. Too clever by half. Seriously impressive.

And when the enthusiastic salesman said that, like me, he didn’t have the capacity to charge his car at home but reassured me it was no big deal, I ran head first into the mist.

He also said he’d driven his EV all the way from Sydney to Perth, blithely saying it just needed a little “planning ahead”. Who was I to argue? It was like he was straight from central casting, sent to lure me with honey-coated words about convenience and reliability and tax breaks.

I didn’t just drink the Kool-Aid. I bathed in it. Gargled it. Mainlined it into my veins. But it wasn’t long before I got mugged by reality; my traumatic search for a working charging station in the NSW Southern Highlands last May still haunts me. That was a brutal awakening. The relief I felt on that Saturday morning a few weeks back, charging my car in a shopping centre carpark for the last time? Palpable.

And yes, I am taking the proverbial out of myself in a spectacular way here, but there are so many truths to unpack from my experience in the past 18 months and I know I am no Lone Ranger here. I know it because many of you have written to me, many I’ve spoken to, and because of car dealers who will quietly tell you the same thing.

Electric vehicles are not the answer. They may be one answer, for one cohort of people.

But they’re not THE answer, the global (in a metaphorical sense) answer, and they are not the automotive messiah many zealots would have you believe, that government policy would have you believe.

They are not the answer to every question. Dissecting this very thing a few months back with some Canberra-based friends of the political persuasion, I observed that EVs were the perfect car for people who had mainly an inner-city, urban-based existence who didn’t go into the country much and who had the luxury of being able to charge their cars at home. All the ducks needed to line up for it to work.

My friend responded dryly – who do you think is designing government policy in this space?

I’m happy to hold my own experience up for ridicule and mockery. It’s a small price to pay, unlike the price of an EV, and unlike the cost benefit of running one.

When I ended my relationship with my Tesla, I did one final check of my car stats to find out how much I had saved in fuel costs across the past 12 months. A grand total of 524 bucks, so $42 a month.

New research reveals EV enthusiasts outnumbered by skeptics
Apart from the fact these days that will buy me a pack of loo paper and a bag of Doritos, if you offset that against the cost of my time spent sitting in carparks waiting for it to charge? Let me promise you, it’s a net negative. A significant one.

This country has enough productivity issues without creating more by trying to force every single person to live the socialist utopian dream.

The thing that bothers me the most, I think, is the lack of honesty around the whole conversation when it comes to renewables. And before you say anything, I’m not against them. If you’re bored enough, you can go look at everything I’ve said or written in this space, and it is simple.

Renewables are part of the energy mix. One part. Like fossil fuels. Like nuclear must eventually be. There is an important place for renewables in some aspects of transport, in powering homes. My late dad and mum have had solar panels on their roof since forever and it makes perfect sense. Every new piece of residential built form should have solar panels on the roof feeding into local energy grids.

But it makes no sense that the biggest threat to koala habitat in NSW is from destruction of native forest by, wait for it, renewable projects. Clearing farmland to scar the countryside with solar and wind farms that render the landscape a shocking eyesore is not green energy and saying it is doesn’t change that. You will never convince me that clearing native terrain and destroying fauna habitat is green energy. It is not.

If this isn’t enough for you, please enjoy some more facts at your leisure.

EVs are the most expensive out of the spectrum of car options on a whole, life-of-asset basis. It’s a cost that most Australians can’t afford and most won’t want to.

A hybrid, though, needs only about 25 per cent of the battery metals of a full EV. Hybrids offer roughly 20 per cent emissions saving over internal combustion engine vehicles, with a fraction of the supporting infrastructure required for full electric vehicles, and without the range anxiety. Anyone wonder why the car of choice by Australia’s cabbies is a hybrid Toyota Camry?

Again, we need a mix of energy sources, and we are heading down a dangerous road because of policy that ignores pragmatic realities, environmental truths and financial impost. If it were just about reducing emissions, we’d be racing down the road to nuclear. Oh, but it’s going to take too long, they say. That’s just a nonsense argument. It’s like saying, oh a cure for cancer will take too long to reach so best we don’t keep going.

There are many people in my life with EVs who love them, for whom EVs work and meet their needs and circumstances. Fantastic. But they are not for everyone.

If we’re honest, the mad, singular push towards EVs is consistent with the all-or-nothing approach adopted by industry lobby groups, and carried, seemingly without being tested at all by energy-illiterate ministers who prefer ideology above all else. Again, if an EV works for you? Fantastic. You’ll find me at the servo, pumping gas and singing a merry tune along the way.

https://www.theaustralian.com.au/inquirer/ev-go-home-why-i-pulled-the-plug-on-my-tesla/news-story/65253b2747f8aaa634a59a5f31c77a33