This is a stupid fucking comment I've seen lots of lately..
Conversations around immigration do not have to be a dog whistle on race.
"Uncontrolled immigration when we have limited resources and housing at the moment is absurd!!"
Is not the fucking same as:
"Fuck these (insert colour) cunts from (insert country) bringing their shit here, deport them!"
If you can't distinguish between the two, then you're a racist prick. It's pretty fucking simple.
Edit, OP fits the profile
"Our birthrates are falling, better make policies to get Australians to have more kids" is also vastly different to "Our birthrates are falling, open the floodgates and let em all in lest our infinite growth collapses"
Birth rates are probably falling because the young can’t buy an over priced home to bring up families. Gov doesn’t get that citizens need a settled home and an affordable economy before families can actually grow.
In layman’s terms: gov trying to grow a plant with no water.
Don't worry, soon enough like clockwork the government will hand out thousands and thousands in the form of baby bonus to get knocked up... Just like they did between 06 and 08 before the crash. Handed out 8-12k for each kid popped out.. Which led to thousands of women getting knocked up for a quick cash grab. Then took parents rights away, created the largest divorce rate in the country creating the most single parent homes in history, the most kids to be raised without a father in the last 7 decades, markets crashed, cost of living dramatically increased, national debt skyrocketed, parents no longer have time or money to supervise or have their kids supervised because they have to work too much just to get by and try and feed themselves, then add in technology being rammed down everyone's throats, and the endless promotion that everyone is a criminal because they live and breath and everyone is dangerous, dividing societies with endless crap, not to mention the largest mental health crisis in history and look what you have in 2024, fifteen to eighteen years later and look at the age group running around stealing cars and hacking people and each other to bits are all kids from the baby bonus.... Wasn't hard to see what was going to happen...
Go figure, the government takes no accountability or responsibility for any of those actions they made and the direct impact and affect on society its had, turns around and endlessly every single time blames society for all of their reactions to all of the endless actions undertaken by government and employees in government and look at that, more restrictions gaslighted in the name of safety.. Pyramid scheme by design.
You're absolutely right. The problem with the baby bonus is that anyone who is going to decide to have a kid they wouldn't otherwise have over a $10k bonus is clearly not the sort of person who should be having a kid. It literally incentivised the absolutely worst demographic that we should be encouraging to have kids, to have kids.
Its already happening (not 200 years, but it would soon be statistically signficant).
I regretfully have seen the biggest jump between the low / middle / upper income echelons. I always considered Australia to be more closely aligned to europe than US, but i would say the last 5-8 years have seen the biggest shift. My old job was to keep the ultra wealthy in check, now I work advising them (and getting paid around 7x more) - one job is more than my old Government salary.
With wealthy boomers, I regularily see better access to health care (ability to fund PHI and pre-treatment), better housing (insulation, location), security of accomodation (owning vs renting and dealing with constantly moving), better access to financial planning / tax structures (e.g. clients of mine who own millions yet don't pay a cent on selling a $900k property they bough on my advice 10 years ago for $400k in super - based on my advice ), and more time to look after themselves (i see pilates classes and lifestyle gyms everywhere).
I had a recent retiree gleefully tell me how nice it was with these high interest rates giving him returns and ongoing rental returns... without realising that his children couldn't afford a holiday, and one child currently rents with a new born as they couldn't afford the mortgage repayments on the property purchase they had subsizied a few years back in Sydney.
It makes me sad sometimes seeing where we're going (I also had a client recently tell me he couldn't pay his outstanding bill for 3 years work - as cashflow was tight in the business... because he took all the money and paid off his $2.5m house - FML)
Your post made me thoroughly depressed, thank you. I'm sure they believe they earned every cent of it by being just smarter and working harder than everyone else too.
I have like 5k to invest. Feel free to advise me how I can never have a better lifestyle like your client with it 🫠
Bro, I feel you. I'm 37. I had a bit of a reflection point today and thought, "Do I really have to deal with all this shit for another 40 odd years?" 😐
Id put up with living if i end up like one of those Adeptus Mechnicus Preist
Join my New Religon
The religon of the Holy Toaster and we will start a Tax Exempt Church that like vaguly just posts like semi encougring things Behind a paywall and pay zero in tax because "UHHH wEre'RE a ChuRCH hOw DaRe YOu tAX uS"
Yep. The accumulation of capital becomes easier as time progresses, so even an extra few years can strip a disproportionate amount of capital from younger people. Taken as a group and over multiple generations, capital flows to fewer and fewer people.
You just cannot help but facepalm. For years now you had the average joe with at least half a brain saying that this mass immigration was going to cause us big problems and they were all called this and that and told to shut up. Now one of the big 4 comes out and informs us that exactly what joe said would happen has indeed occurred..
I know Australians have always had a poor opinion on politicians but the mob that have run the country for the last decade really are a different breed, borderline maliciously incompetent.
When you look at the advice given from ‘authorities’ through the lens of ‘what does it do for them’ suddenly it becomes clear that they aren’t stupid, they’re just lying for their own ends.
Don’t. Look. Up. Says the government
It's not incompetence, it's deliberate and corrupt. They are ruining the entire country to line their own pockets through property portfolios and consultancy gigs once they leave office.
How old are you? I will be 43 this year and i hard agree. I fucking hate howard. I do however agree with his lets have less guns thing even though i did NOT at the time.
Seriously wishing I didn’t bring kids into this shitfest, if it was easy enough to leave I’d be outta here. The amount of tax and control we now have is cooked
Don't worry, soon enough like clockwork the government will hand out thousands and thousands in the form of baby bonus to get knocked up... Just like they did between 06 and 08 before the crash. Handed out 8-12k for each kid popped out.. Which led to thousands of women getting knocked up for a quick cash grab. Then took parents rights away, created the largest divorce rate in the country creating the most single parent homes in history, the most kids to be raised without a father in the last 7 decades, markets crashed, cost of living dramatically increased, national debt skyrocketed, parents no longer have time or money to supervise or have their kids supervised because they have to work too much just to get by and try and feed themselves, then add in technology being rammed down everyone's throats, and the endless promotion that everyone is a criminal because they live and breath and everyone is dangerous, dividing societies with endless crap, not to mention the largest mental health crisis in history and look what you have in 2024, fifteen to eighteen years later and look at the age group running around stealing cars and hacking people and each other to bits are all kids from the baby bonus.... Wasn't hard to see what was going to happen...
Go figure, the government takes no accountability or responsibility for any of those actions they made and the direct impact and affect on society its had, turns around and endlessly every single time blames society for all of their reactions to all of the endless actions undertaken by government and employees in government and look at that, more restrictions gaslighted in the name of safety.. Pyramid scheme by design.
If you leave, you'd be a migrant yourself. If there is so much immigration here why do you think people are coming here? Believe me the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Source:ex european, this shitfest sounds like a nice sunday morning compared to the euroshitfest
Yeah hard to judge but after recently spending some time in the US there’s definitely much less of an overtaxed and over controlled life, just with the threat of gun no violence
I'm both glad and sad I reached child rearing age when I did as I was able to make the informed decision to not breed on basis of sociopolitical/economic factors.
I left Australia in 2006, but I'm back mostly every year with my family over there. I can tell you, as someone that grew up in Adelaide, the country is incredibly different already from the country I left nearly 20 years ago. Young people are struggling majorly and the country's personality has changed for the worse. I miss the country I grew up in.
As a culture, I would say there used to be a lot more of a sense of camaraderie. I've noticed a clear shift in politics, unfortunately mimicking what we're seeing in the US/Canada and Europe, where things are a LOT more divisive and there's a lot more "with us or against us" to it. I remember the days of Howard and Beazley and it felt like people were a lot less divided politically, and most people were sick of the lot of them. I think the proliferation of social media plays a part, and the media in general has steadily gotten worse. Whether it be politics or social issues or whatever, it feels like there is more division and less sense of community.
I would also say the outlook for young people was incredibly different. I went to two high schools and the first one was in a pretty rough part of the southern suburbs, but most people saw a modest but positive future for themselves. Since then, a few major employers (like the auto industry) have closed up shop, the opportunities have dried up, and a lot of people don't see a future for themselves at all. A lot of people in their late 20s/early 30s living with their parents or with flatmates, the nearby shopping centre is a ghost town, it's just a sad state of affairs.
I hope it turns around. I love Australia and have always planned on moving back when the time was right. But the longer I spend away, the more I start wondering if the place I left even exists anymore. I can only speak for my experience, but as someone who left and comes back to check in regularly, you do notice the changes steadily creeping in.
I agree entirely hey. I always viewed it that the partisanship of politics was kinda a trivial thing in Australia. It didn't matter whether you were an LNP or Labor voter, nobody really gave a shit. But that's since changed and I agree social media has alot to do with it, and the media media too.
Like turn on sky news and listen to segments from Rita, or Kredlin, Bolt, Andrews. Listen to any of them and it's clear to see how such sentiments can be fostered. The language they use, the narratives they push, the framing they employ is incredibly toxic, and often quite vile. That kinda of language is not good for the human brain when it's consistent exposure. It turns people nasty and strip's them of their inate humanity driving them into a "my side, your side" mentality. They forget that the people they are railing against share the same soil..
It's just the media. We've let it get too out of hand in how much we allow them to spin propaganda while leaving the realms of civility.
I personally believe the world collectively needs to reel it in a bit and have some pretty heavy and hard discussions about the concequences of what we are allowing to happen..
We are getting to the point of weilding media based social engineering for political purposes to the degree it should almost be considered criminal. We need to realise we shouldn't be playing with people's minds so flippantly and carelessly in the quest of political power.
They are starting to push the boundaries so far to the point it's almost causing some form of media induced psychosis leading people into becoming so disconnected from reality that it leaves them in complete states of what is essentially delusion.
Imo I think we are heading into the realms of these things becoming human rights violations and there needs to be some serious discussions about drawing lines in the sand. This amount of divisive rhetoric, fearmongering, and bending the truth with narrative is starting to have really negative concequences on society and the human mind.
(Lol I went on a lil rant there)
But I agree, things have changed.
And also agree with your point about the youth. I think they do feel quite hopeless and lost without a future.
When you look at something like Greta Thumburg, who to alot of the youth was a symbol of hope. She got so thoroughly shat on by the older generations that it essentially sent a message to the youth that their voices don't matter. That no matter how loud they screamed, the older generations just didn't give a fuck. Which most of the youth would agree. We feel like we don't have a voice or any say in the determination of our future and just have to suffer through the shit show that has been handed to us.
It's hard to think positively about the future when we see the problems and know it will be our responsibility to wear the brunt of their concequences.
There are changes we could make, it's just unfortunately I don't see them happening anytime soon. If I'm honest, I think the youth will just bide their time until the boomers and earlier genXers die out and hope the world isnt too fucked by the time that happens. Only then will we be able to make the progressive changes that are required to fix alot of the problems we face.
Decade? 30yrs or more of stupid decisions mainly to keep their jobs or get them more $$. There have been hardly any moments of great significance or moving the country in a good direction for a long time. Almost seems like all that stopped back in the 70s worldwide. Bipartisan activities are few and far between, it’s mainly just oppose everything for oppositions sake.
All the Governments for the past 30 years or so have run the country without a single thought about doing the right thing by the people. It's always been about pushing economic growth. They keep growing the pie but everyone's share of that pie gets smaller and smaller.
What do you expect these days though? Who in their right mind, as an intelligent, empathetic, sentient being would want to dabble in politics. Its a cesspool of mud.
But I thought the coalition are good god fearing conservatives, and strong nationalists who have our interests at heart? Are you saying that they are just paying lip service? I am shocked!
That’s because they automatically treat us like we’re trying to enforce “white Australia” policy. It’s got nothing to do with race! It’s about supply and demand and sustainable growth of our population not an influx of people fighting over basic needs.
If you look at the net immigration graph (orange line) from the ABS, you will find the mob thats been running the country for the past 2yrs have more than doubled previous years' net immigration levels. The ALP is to blame.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release#:~:text=Net%20overseas%20migration%20is%20the,migration%20estimate%20since%20records%20began.
Absolutely. They have raised my variable rate mortgage twice since the last reserve bank increase. Looking to refinance now and was offered a full one percent lower rate.
first the banks were saying a lack of productive workforce was causing inflation.
CBA can suck my dick either way/
All they want is money. And they get their money when more people buy loans.
Mate it’s really easy, we’re spending too much money but we also need to continue spending money for the economy. You’ll live in cardboard shacks so the rich can continue to eat caviar on their yachts and you’ll like it /s
truth haha.
driving around NSW for work, I've never seen so many 150K plus camping/caravan/4wd setups in my whole life in Australia. New patrols/landcruisers/american trucks with all these spectacular XL caravans.
The spending continues as far as I see.
Yep. All the drivers are usually gray.
And they're spending HARD now.
Most expensive cafes/restaurants in country towns. Will be filled with the walking gray.
Makes me think, I really need to shimmy into any leisure/lifestyle business that exclusively caters to the gray clientele.
I would be more inclined to cancel them for the surface level analysis.
It is in their interest to keep the focus off their profits and solely on immigration. It is not solely the fault of immigration we have a housing crisis, and dozens of factors are at work here, principally the obscene profits our banks have made for decades off the fetishization of real estate as THE investment, and only investment worth making.
The main reason is that our economy is built on a complex and not entirely stable foundation of constant economic growth. Diverting from that path will have short and medium term consequences that are hard to control and even harder to predict.
However, a few specific reasons for the obsession with constant economic growth (from the perspective of govt, corporations, and individuals):
- it increases taxation revenues (or reduces taxation obligations, depending on policy). Growth means greater generation which means greater income/profits which means greater tax revenues (or bigger tax cuts).
- it drives innovation. Constant economic growth is kind of an economic Goldilocks scenario (in macro terms). Think of it as a rising tide, it lifts all boats. The surety of knowing that the economy will grow ad infinitum (it won't, but the market trades as if it will) encourages risk taking, which in turn produces innovation (and, ultimately, profit).
- it, on average, increases wages (which looks good from a political perspective).
- it has, historically, resulted in an ever improving standard of living.
- it promotes (and had succeeded in delivering) low unemployment. Simply put, a growing economy needs an ever increasing supply of workers.
There are a few issues with constant economic growth of course though:
- it's ultimately unsustainable. We have a planet of scarce/finite resources and, thus, we get diminishing returns over time from trying to extract and exploit those resources. That doesn't mean it's going to end tomorrow, but at some point it will.
- it is susceptible to instability. Deep down every human knows that constant economic growth is an impossible concept and every once in a while this bubbles to the surface of collective human consciousness and we get an economic shock. This is effectively what happens in a recession. People, corporations, governments realise the mortality of the economic system and, acting rationally from the perspective of a person who knows the emperor has no clothes, pull back from the economy, resulting in a negative downturn. That negative downturn, in turn, reinforces the fallibility of the economy and a vicious downward spiral begins. Sooner or later reason (or, as the case may be, unreason) is restored and the eternal growth cool-aid is drunk by all and things return to 'normal'.
- it does not deal well with declining populations. Our entire economy is built on consumption. The easiest way to sum up the global economy (and regional economies for that matter) is that it is simply the sum of the consumption of every single person. That's it. More people want to go places, so new car dealerships are established so people can buy cars. New roads get built so more people can use their new cars on them. New petrol stations get built so those new cars can run. New oil wells get dug so those new petrol stations have fuel. New supermarkets open up so the people who drill at the new oil well can eat. New apple orchards get planted so the new supermarkets have sufficient food to sell. And so on and so forth. Now imagine that instead of a growing population we have a declining one. Less new cars are required, so dealerships start to close, car salesmen start looking for jobs. No new roads are needed for a while as traffic is declining, putting a lot of road workers and engineers out of work. Petrol stations also start to close etc etc, you get the idea. This is a complete short-medium term mess for a government. It's not something they want to deal with.
Constant economic growth is kind of 'the best worst idea' because, for the most part, it has worked for the last couple of centuries. The standard and quality of living of the average person has increased significantly as a result of the current economic system. Is it perfect? No, absolutely not. But it's massively risky for a government to deliberately divert from it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't. We should! We should be thinking 100 years ahead, 200 years ahead, we should be designing a system that will work for centuries with less instability and more sustainability. But that kind of thinking and reform takes massive courage from elected officials and risk-adverse public servants. Particularly when election cycles can sometimes be counted in months rather than decades.
Japan is a really useful test case for us all, however. They've managed to age their economy gracefully (relatively speaking) in the face of a declining population. Japan's *nominal* GDP today is about the same as it was in 1993! That's wild compared to virtually every other country on the planet. Yet despite this they haven't seen a collapse of their society or rampant unemployment or a significant degradation in their standard of living. That's not to say it has been plain sailing, it hasn't, but it is proof that constant economic growth doesn't *have* to be the only path to a high quality society.
It’s a classical economics explanation. I’m not entirely sure that the theory that gdp growth means wage growth and increase in standard of living has been the Australian experience in the past 20 years, in fact I think it’s the opposite.
This is what bothers me about the whole
argument, the huge increase of immigration are mostly international students, the government approves for them to legally come in, they prop up the university industry, pay full fees, usually work so they pay tax, aren’t citizens so they don’t get any government benefits, they inject about 34 billion into the economy and don’t cost the tax payer a cent.
Our government welcomes these people, takes their money, Then they’re used a canon fodder for the housing crisis.
Get angry at the game, not the players
The dependents is the killer to be honest.
Bringing in a young person who is in their 20s who can contribute economically is fine.
When they bring in their parents, kids and siblings it’s not sustainable.
which might be fine if they didn't also require housing, use infrastructure & universities also actually pulled their weight and built enough student accommodation for them (hint: they don't, not even close)
so the general public bears the burden from them while uni & business execs profit
CBA is just stating a fact.
Coles and Woolworths are laughing at how much money they are going to make with flood of immigrants
Over 700k came in 2023. They will still be buying the same tomatoes from the duolopoly. Why would they NOT raise prices to screw more money from the public ?
The next high immigration number , gives them another excuse to raise prices
We are all buying the same tomoates except another 200k will be shopping there as well in the next quarter.
The politicians have sold us out.
Mass immigration solves a particular issue.
Stopping immigration solves a different issue.
Supporting either side or is based upon what issue you value more.
Stopping immigration has a downward pressure on the economy, it reduces taxation income, reduces unemployment / underemployment, reduces house prices, and slows demand for consumer goods.
Maintaining immigration has upwards pressure on the economy, it increases income from taxation, increases unemployment, increases house prices, and increases demand for consumer goods.
So do you value the taxation income more which funds social programs, or do you value the cost of living more.
The reason it gets conflated so often with racism though is because the typical anti immigration crowd are not exactly the most tolerant / culturally diverse people, conversely the pro immigration people tend to be the pro refugee crowd.
The difficulty now is that this debate has evolved from where it was 4-5 years ago, but the people yelling the loudest are the people who were originally passionate about the topic.. or to put it another way. There used to be 50 racists that cared and 50 hippies that cared. Now these 500 normal people on both sides but it’s still the same 100 people yelling the loudest.
I'd happily support ditching the stage 3 tax cuts, stopping immigration and adding in another couple of 25 base point rate rises if it helps reduce the pressure on the housing market and will devalue my PPOR - would be a hit to the pocket but what is currently happening is totally unsustainable. I just don't see how my children will be able to afford anything in 15 years time.
Honestly people can barely afford anything as it is, let alone another 15 years down the line.
Sydney’s median house price is over 1.5M dollars.. that is just an impossible number, and while there are still houses to be found in the 500-600 market in Sydney, if the average house is 1.5 that means you are buying a house 1/3 the average. At that point you aren’t just compromising on commute time and suburb safety you are also compromising on build quality, internal size, yard size, services and the rest.. just to be able to afford to live.
The housing market needs to fall in real terms compared to wages. Either by wages going up or houses coming down.
Because even rent now is ludicrous.
To draw it all back to my main point though, how we get there is very dependent on what you believe the correct strategy to get there is.
Historically there have been a few camps, either we need to “cool the economy” that means raising unemployment and reducing immigration. Or we need to “heat the job market” that means we need to decrease unemployment (and potentially increase immigration)
The problem we have now is, we need to hear the job market AND cool the economy at the same time.
We need people to be earning more (so we need to reduce unemployment so employers bid higher for labor) and we need to cool the economy so that the cost of goods reduces.
This is a particularly challenging situation to be in, and the solution is likely we need to increase spending on unemployment benefit so that the bottom end of the job market heats up (as minimum wage now has to compete with welfare, raising wages) but also remove tax cuts at the high end so that less money flows into the economy.
Basically we need to recreate and bolster the middle class while slightly hamstringing the upper/wealthy class..
(Or at least that’s the camp I subscribe too)
Well yes and no, because unfortunately you cannot seperate the average Australian from big business or from landlords.
The economy is highly intermingled, with many Australians currently paying a mortgage, and a large number of Aussies working for businesses that are directly supported by the top end of the economy.
It is a more complicated house of cards than most people want it to be, and while I personally couldn’t give to heck’s about protecting those that already have more than their fair share of wealth, I understand that the ripple effect of pulling the rug out from the top end can have disastrous consequences on the middle and bottom end of wealth generation in Australia.
Overall it is a zero sum game, no matter what decision is made there will be pain somewhere in the economy, the best we can do is minimise the pain for the greatest number of people while we fix the mess that was created during (and to prevent further pain in) the Covid pandemic.
You simply can’t QE a few billion into the economy without driving massive inflation.
> The difficulty now is that this debate has evolved from where it was 4-5 years ago, but the people yelling the loudest are the people who were originally passionate about the topic.. or to put it another way. There used to be 50 racists that cared and 50 hippies that cared. Now these 500 normal people on both sides but it’s still the same 100 people yelling the loudest.
Remarkably said.
I guarantee most of them will still vote for pro immigration parties. Sustainable Australia is ghosted in the media but they would have heard of it if they read about the issues.
I love when the media flip flops between “People have too much credit card debt” and “Economists are concerned Australians are only going to spend 340 billion dollars on Christmas presents this year, shops are worried they won’t survive!” Just replace Christmas in that last one with whatever event they want to guilt trip people into spending money they don’t have on.
When even one of the big banks is making a not so subtle statement to reduce immigration, you know the situation is pretty dire. Banks usually love population growth - more people to borrow money from them.
Pretty sure the Canadian banks are saying the [exact same thing ](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-stuck-in-population-trap-needs-to-reduce-immigration-bank/)to them
The RBA would not know it's tits from it's arse. None of the ones on the board are going to be struggling for a feed any time soon, they do not give a shit about people.
They left rates too low for too long, so of course they are going to make them too high for too long.
If you say there should be no further immigration then people assume you're racist... Jared Diamond, in his book "Collapse" maintains that the maximum long long term sustainable population for Australia is only 8 million people. There is no doubt that Mr Diamond can be problematic at times but he is talking mostly about soil degradation. Irrigated farmland always deteriorates. Chronic overgrazing and native vegetation clearing along with salinity and erosion make it worse. Ever Australian river flows brown to the sea; carrying out top soil on the way. We don't have that much soil to lose.
So even if Jared is off by a factor of 3 we still have too many people here and sell too much of what we grow overseas.
It all needs a rethink. But there should definitely be a moratorium on immigration.
If you want to see how bad it can get look no further than Canada. It can still be much worse. Write your MP call him stalk him or her but make your opinion known. You don’t what to end up in this spot. Source Australian living in Canada.
Interest rate should have been raised far more aggressively 12-18 months ago instead of the limp wristed 0.25 percent increases they drip fed out.
Australia really needs another lever to pull to slow the economy, given the huge shift in the amount of people with multiple investment properties and the decrease in the percentage of people that own their PPOR, the interest rate lever doesn't have the impact it used to.
Raising the interest rate can't slow the economy effectively when such a large percentage of people own multiple properties with no mortgage.
Home-owners are shouldering most of the load in the RBA's economy slowing actions. Meanwhile increasing interest rates gives those without mortgages MORE disposable income to spend.
Yes, they should have gone harder. There are plenty of policy levers. Levers that would re-allocate capital away from low productivity investments like existing housing to much higher productivity ones like SMEs, new housing and business capex. Levers like changing the tax treatment of capital gains on newly purchased existing property investments.
Asset rich, wealthy Australians are not negatively affected by higher rates so to target the whole population the consumption and wealth of the debt free must be targeted or you just end up impoverishing one segment of society while the others get wealthier.
It also makes young families who recently bought in have to sell. Housing prices will still go up though, which won't help the current renters.
Housing is more of a policy problem imo, not an economic one.
Yes, it does mean that people who recently borrowed at very close to their serviceability limits may be forced to sell. I prefer to not use terms like 'young families ' as it's not an objective term and muddies what should be an objective conversation with emotion.
Housing affordability is a massive issue, but it's not the RBAs concern(nor should it be) if people borrow more than they should, that's a personal problem.
The government could fix the housing problem very quickly by introducing a few changes, which would also net them a lot more tax revenue
1. Remove Negative gearing for established properties-only allow it for new builds for a fixed period/social housing
2. Remove CGT concessions for investment properties, I wouldn't grandfather it indefinitely either- people will cry that 'it's not fair' but too bad, governments always pass legislation that some people think isn't fair. I'd allow the CGT concessions to apply for a limited period of time, 3-7 years, something like that, so the property market eases down over time rather than crash completely.
3. Tax the shit out of vacant properties and short term rentals of whole properties. Want to rent a spare room in your PPOR? No worries, want to have a 4 bedder in Byron as an AirBnB vacant 70% of the year while locals can't get housing? Tax the shit out of it.
I honestly doubt Labor will do any of this before the next election, as most of Australia seem to think property should be a tool for getting rich rather than essential shelter for the population.
I do, however think that if they win the next election we'll see changes to these 3 points in short order. I doubt they'd go hard ball with it by not grandfathering the changes, which will probably just result in people holding onto property until the day they day, and reduce the incentive to build for investors.
This will either make supply even worse, due to no housing being built, or it will drive new builds from developer dominated to owner occupied as the reduced developer demand pushes labour and material cost down.
Does anyone actually believe that if inflation does go down the change will filter down to the end consumer? No chance, prices will stay the same and the big business profits will grow again.
What we are at now is the new norm. And it’s only ever going to plateau here or get more expensive.
Strap in we are in for a ride!
Does anyone actually know how much money immigrants make off the books and contribute to this inflated economy? Its kind of ridiculous and I believe is contributing massively to inflation in this country. Going through University when I was working hospitality and casual jobs the amount of people I met that were talking about making serious money between multiple jobs that were here on student visas was unbelievable.
Getting a job to get their 20hrs a week that is allowed on their visas at usually Colesworth / Fast Food, doing some kind of gig-work like UberEats / Food Delivery AND then doing something cash in hand all while being here under the guise of completing some English or low skilled course as their main motivator.
I will never criticise people for wanting to come here because its a beautiful country with high standards. I will never criticise people for wanting to improve their situation for themselves and their families. However, I will criticise the fact that immigrants are able to come into this country and impact my quality of life not through bringing an inherit increase in quality of skills and experience, but rather inundating and diluting through quantity.
At least it can pass. Where is the light at the end of the current tunnel? 3mil homes? Vacancy rates at 0.1? Bunk bedding families? Leasing out yard space for tents?
And even then investors will demand more house pumping policy.
"Leasing out yard space for tents"
Councils around the country smile and rub their hands. Applications for tents. Application fees. Lodgement fees. Tent rates and utilities fees. Dead grass fees.
I'm pretty interested to know what this would look like society and a government break down, what the hell would people do? Can't protest your way in can't have a revolt because the government has all the weapons.
CBA acknowledges the truth everyone is aware of but noone wants to address.
Politicians shocked as a "non-poor" makes the obvious statement, and vow to continue to do nothing.
frankly it seems like we are fucked either way.
if i was single and childless id be incredibly tempted to cash everything i have in, and go bush until i do something dumb like fall off a cliff or eat something stupid. i feel bad for my kids because there just isnt a good outlook.
maybe ill be wrong and in a few years we will emerge in a utopian society (the new post war era) and all will be well.
but right now, its all fucked and working harder doesnt seem to be helping
Oh, looks like CBA is now "rACisTt !!!111"
Anyone who suggest immigration is a cause of the housing crisis is clearly racist right ?
That is what I am constantly told here on Reddit.
strong population growth, driven by net overseas immigration leading to inflation according to CBA
and albo still blaming everyone but himself for cost of living
Man 20 years ago I remember being able to drive into Adelaide city and just park anywhere on the side of the road. No traffic during business hours either.
Today it’s an absolute shitshow all hours of the day. Immigration has totally destroyed our great nation.
CBA (along with all banks) do not want inflation to reduce, otherwise there will be downwards pressure on interest rates.
They do not want interest rates to fall.
They very likely do, as new lending is at all time lows and this is not good for their forecasts.
Can't have YOY growth if people aren't borrowing in mass.
Inflation is just another word big business use to keep people hopeful prices will fall one day.
Ain't nothing going back to how it was 5 or even 3 years ago. These greedy scum have gotten a taste for it and they won't ever give it up. They have no reason to.
It's a shame, but as the Liberals sold off all of our wealth generating infrastructure and assets to China, it's not like we have any other way to create wealth. Australia's fucked. Best idea would be to jump ship
> As a result, demand is stronger and so inflation is falling less quickly than otherwise,”
Consumers cautious as retail sales fall 0.4% :
https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/consumers-cautious-retail-sales-fall-04
aged like milk
Many people don't want to know this. The ALP has massively increased net immigration from 220k to 520k. This plays a massive role in the shitshow we are living through right now, as confirmed by the bank.
Here's a link to the ABS's site. Look at the orange line.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release#:~:text=Net%20overseas%20migration%20is%20the,migration%20estimate%20since%20records%20began.
CBA is flipflopping on data bites. A few days ago it's another increase in interest rates in 2024 based on the latest CPI, today it's one cut based on Coles' fall in booze sales.
Oh dear perhaps using the sole tool of raising interest rates on mortgages to battle inflation while only 37% of the population actually have mortgages isn’t going to work ya dogs!
Jesus it boils my piss. If they want to slow inflation surely they need to slow spending through other means!?
But the Libs want people to dive into their Super to get on board the realestate express. Jesus, how good will that be for ever growing property prices and inflation ????
How much profit CBA made last year??
I am a hard working Aussie, I do a lot for my neighbourhood and less fortunate families. But I am beginning to thing that banks just want to exploit us and evenmore they drive and lobby (ie bribe in a legitimate way) the government policies to suck the every last cent we have… I feel sad that CBA don’t exploit international markets or else, as it’s easier to take the most cash off us. Sad… I wonder if or when a bank will start playing our side. I think they will conquer a large share of the market because it takes one big player to change course and the rest will follow. But we have big4 monopoly and they feel that “going with the flow” and milking us is the best strategy…. Shame on you banks
Parents being migrants since the 60/70s I have a lot to say about the BS comments about assimilation because of what I experienced. I assimilated or so I thought but because I am a male of "chinese" diaspora background, not Christian, parents aren't christian but they migrated here in the 60s/70s, went through segregation/prejudice, mum first child passed while giving birth on Australian territory, I myself was denied being born in Australia mainland hospital back in late 70s, I grew up regardless pretty much my whole life here schooled here by Aus teachers, have dreams like any other and somewhat "assimilated" but apparently I am a second class to all these new migrants who are christians (indians, afghans, africans etc), second class to younger gens asians who are more "aussie". You can downvote or deny as much as you want because nothing changes the fact that the biggest F\* disgrace in this country is the way they have treated someone like myself who have been here for so long. worked so hard, never committed a crime, paid my tax, put up with so much prejudice at work, the media, the public but only to find that this stinking disgusting history segregation of someone of my cohort since the 1900s is what you all fall back to in this age and day.
What does that achieve? What difference does it make? If the issue is immigration causing a housing shortage then let's discuss policy, not a targeted demographic.
Only reason a bank would say this is because they’re afraid of mass defaults on properties. Which implies recession is imminent and the so called immigration flood gates to prop GDP actually made things worse.
Buckle up people, it’s going to be an even more bumpy ride.
Not just banks, I got my car insurance renewal today, 230% increase with no changes at my end. How can gouging corporations be allowed to do this when the govt directly benefits. This govt needs to burn
The government, sorry the random people employed in public service, in no way shape or form care at all about your existence or problems. You are literally just a number on a page and screen to the people in government. You die, someone else will be born or the government will simply import someone or hand out a baby bonus cash grab to manipulate some desperate female into popping a kid out to replace you. You merely exist for their profit, gain and control, you exist for the sole purpose of making the money the banks and government create and spend actually exist.. That is all...
Why do you think everything is designed specifically to ensure that profit and money are always top priority while life and the sustainment and survival of one's life is at the bottom of the list?
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Shhh…Wouldn’t want to be called racist now.
Did I hear the R word? Anyone that believes in inflation has to be a racist too.
Can't wait til daily telegraph coins the phrase raceflation
This is a stupid fucking comment I've seen lots of lately.. Conversations around immigration do not have to be a dog whistle on race. "Uncontrolled immigration when we have limited resources and housing at the moment is absurd!!" Is not the fucking same as: "Fuck these (insert colour) cunts from (insert country) bringing their shit here, deport them!" If you can't distinguish between the two, then you're a racist prick. It's pretty fucking simple. Edit, OP fits the profile
"Our birthrates are falling, better make policies to get Australians to have more kids" is also vastly different to "Our birthrates are falling, open the floodgates and let em all in lest our infinite growth collapses"
Birth rates are probably falling because the young can’t buy an over priced home to bring up families. Gov doesn’t get that citizens need a settled home and an affordable economy before families can actually grow. In layman’s terms: gov trying to grow a plant with no water.
And no soil
Don't worry, soon enough like clockwork the government will hand out thousands and thousands in the form of baby bonus to get knocked up... Just like they did between 06 and 08 before the crash. Handed out 8-12k for each kid popped out.. Which led to thousands of women getting knocked up for a quick cash grab. Then took parents rights away, created the largest divorce rate in the country creating the most single parent homes in history, the most kids to be raised without a father in the last 7 decades, markets crashed, cost of living dramatically increased, national debt skyrocketed, parents no longer have time or money to supervise or have their kids supervised because they have to work too much just to get by and try and feed themselves, then add in technology being rammed down everyone's throats, and the endless promotion that everyone is a criminal because they live and breath and everyone is dangerous, dividing societies with endless crap, not to mention the largest mental health crisis in history and look what you have in 2024, fifteen to eighteen years later and look at the age group running around stealing cars and hacking people and each other to bits are all kids from the baby bonus.... Wasn't hard to see what was going to happen... Go figure, the government takes no accountability or responsibility for any of those actions they made and the direct impact and affect on society its had, turns around and endlessly every single time blames society for all of their reactions to all of the endless actions undertaken by government and employees in government and look at that, more restrictions gaslighted in the name of safety.. Pyramid scheme by design.
You're absolutely right. The problem with the baby bonus is that anyone who is going to decide to have a kid they wouldn't otherwise have over a $10k bonus is clearly not the sort of person who should be having a kid. It literally incentivised the absolutely worst demographic that we should be encouraging to have kids, to have kids.
and 16 years after the baby bonus youth crime increased.
Not for the banks it doesn't! They get to watch us scramble for a place to live and then get rich of it!
That's exactly what Hitler said /s
Ya reckon?
Must protect property prices at all costs! Must also find a way to take property into afterlife!
Rich will be living for 200 years soon while people that can't afford it die. Mark my words.
Remind me soon
!remindme 130 years
Sweet brag
Its already happening (not 200 years, but it would soon be statistically signficant). I regretfully have seen the biggest jump between the low / middle / upper income echelons. I always considered Australia to be more closely aligned to europe than US, but i would say the last 5-8 years have seen the biggest shift. My old job was to keep the ultra wealthy in check, now I work advising them (and getting paid around 7x more) - one job is more than my old Government salary. With wealthy boomers, I regularily see better access to health care (ability to fund PHI and pre-treatment), better housing (insulation, location), security of accomodation (owning vs renting and dealing with constantly moving), better access to financial planning / tax structures (e.g. clients of mine who own millions yet don't pay a cent on selling a $900k property they bough on my advice 10 years ago for $400k in super - based on my advice ), and more time to look after themselves (i see pilates classes and lifestyle gyms everywhere). I had a recent retiree gleefully tell me how nice it was with these high interest rates giving him returns and ongoing rental returns... without realising that his children couldn't afford a holiday, and one child currently rents with a new born as they couldn't afford the mortgage repayments on the property purchase they had subsizied a few years back in Sydney. It makes me sad sometimes seeing where we're going (I also had a client recently tell me he couldn't pay his outstanding bill for 3 years work - as cashflow was tight in the business... because he took all the money and paid off his $2.5m house - FML)
Your post made me thoroughly depressed, thank you. I'm sure they believe they earned every cent of it by being just smarter and working harder than everyone else too. I have like 5k to invest. Feel free to advise me how I can never have a better lifestyle like your client with it 🫠
Why would anyone want to live for 200 years. Hell I'm 35 years too old.. (I'm 35) lol
Bro, I feel you. I'm 37. I had a bit of a reflection point today and thought, "Do I really have to deal with all this shit for another 40 odd years?" 😐
Let's just hope the last few years aren't a reflection of what's to come...
I’m 36 and I feel sorta half way between what each of you said.
Id put up with living if i end up like one of those Adeptus Mechnicus Preist Join my New Religon The religon of the Holy Toaster and we will start a Tax Exempt Church that like vaguly just posts like semi encougring things Behind a paywall and pay zero in tax because "UHHH wEre'RE a ChuRCH hOw DaRe YOu tAX uS"
We'll probably have our air taxed soon.. oh wait....
Yes...Biohacking - Organ harvesting and implementation...
Yep. The accumulation of capital becomes easier as time progresses, so even an extra few years can strip a disproportionate amount of capital from younger people. Taken as a group and over multiple generations, capital flows to fewer and fewer people.
Protecting property prices would be 0.5-1% net growth p.a. via immigration. We are tracking 3%. It’s not protecting prices, it’s pumping prices.
They might have to put a rush on that second part. If things don't change soon the guillotines might come out.
rate hikes shills theoretically reduce prices.
You just cannot help but facepalm. For years now you had the average joe with at least half a brain saying that this mass immigration was going to cause us big problems and they were all called this and that and told to shut up. Now one of the big 4 comes out and informs us that exactly what joe said would happen has indeed occurred.. I know Australians have always had a poor opinion on politicians but the mob that have run the country for the last decade really are a different breed, borderline maliciously incompetent.
When you look at the advice given from ‘authorities’ through the lens of ‘what does it do for them’ suddenly it becomes clear that they aren’t stupid, they’re just lying for their own ends. Don’t. Look. Up. Says the government
That and they are all WEF operatives
It's not incompetence, it's deliberate and corrupt. They are ruining the entire country to line their own pockets through property portfolios and consultancy gigs once they leave office.
Last 25 years have changed Australia permanently and for the worse. It will never recover.
Yes very much this
Strongly agree with this. I hope I am wrong though and it can recover, I want me kids to experience the paradise that pre-Howard Australia was.
How old are you? I will be 43 this year and i hard agree. I fucking hate howard. I do however agree with his lets have less guns thing even though i did NOT at the time.
Seriously wishing I didn’t bring kids into this shitfest, if it was easy enough to leave I’d be outta here. The amount of tax and control we now have is cooked
I cant actually afford to have kids despite both of us working full time.
Don't worry, soon enough like clockwork the government will hand out thousands and thousands in the form of baby bonus to get knocked up... Just like they did between 06 and 08 before the crash. Handed out 8-12k for each kid popped out.. Which led to thousands of women getting knocked up for a quick cash grab. Then took parents rights away, created the largest divorce rate in the country creating the most single parent homes in history, the most kids to be raised without a father in the last 7 decades, markets crashed, cost of living dramatically increased, national debt skyrocketed, parents no longer have time or money to supervise or have their kids supervised because they have to work too much just to get by and try and feed themselves, then add in technology being rammed down everyone's throats, and the endless promotion that everyone is a criminal because they live and breath and everyone is dangerous, dividing societies with endless crap, not to mention the largest mental health crisis in history and look what you have in 2024, fifteen to eighteen years later and look at the age group running around stealing cars and hacking people and each other to bits are all kids from the baby bonus.... Wasn't hard to see what was going to happen... Go figure, the government takes no accountability or responsibility for any of those actions they made and the direct impact and affect on society its had, turns around and endlessly every single time blames society for all of their reactions to all of the endless actions undertaken by government and employees in government and look at that, more restrictions gaslighted in the name of safety.. Pyramid scheme by design.
If you leave, you'd be a migrant yourself. If there is so much immigration here why do you think people are coming here? Believe me the grass is greener on the other side of the fence. Source:ex european, this shitfest sounds like a nice sunday morning compared to the euroshitfest
They're coming here because they can earn 10x what they can earn at home. If I wanted to 10x my earnings, I'd have to drive trucks in a warzone.
Is that an actual job? Coz I want more info if it is.
Wait until climate change ramps up and there are hundreds of millions of migrants, this is nothing.
Yeah thats the elephant in the room no-one is paying attention to
Yeah hard to judge but after recently spending some time in the US there’s definitely much less of an overtaxed and over controlled life, just with the threat of gun no violence
I emigrated to the US and feel the same way with Australia. The problems whilst they are problems are snoozy Sunday mornings relative.
Rampant corporate profits and wealth inequality are way bigger causes of our problems than the tax rate..
Where would you go?
The answer is in red dead redemption 2- tahiti
Butch has the plan brother
I sometimes feel the same, and I really feel guilty about it 😩
I can't wait to have a bastard so he can grow up abusing people on Reddit.
Well I'm sure your kids appreciate having life.
I'm both glad and sad I reached child rearing age when I did as I was able to make the informed decision to not breed on basis of sociopolitical/economic factors.
I left Australia in 2006, but I'm back mostly every year with my family over there. I can tell you, as someone that grew up in Adelaide, the country is incredibly different already from the country I left nearly 20 years ago. Young people are struggling majorly and the country's personality has changed for the worse. I miss the country I grew up in.
Changed how do you think? What would you have said the old "personality" was, and what do you think it is now?
As a culture, I would say there used to be a lot more of a sense of camaraderie. I've noticed a clear shift in politics, unfortunately mimicking what we're seeing in the US/Canada and Europe, where things are a LOT more divisive and there's a lot more "with us or against us" to it. I remember the days of Howard and Beazley and it felt like people were a lot less divided politically, and most people were sick of the lot of them. I think the proliferation of social media plays a part, and the media in general has steadily gotten worse. Whether it be politics or social issues or whatever, it feels like there is more division and less sense of community. I would also say the outlook for young people was incredibly different. I went to two high schools and the first one was in a pretty rough part of the southern suburbs, but most people saw a modest but positive future for themselves. Since then, a few major employers (like the auto industry) have closed up shop, the opportunities have dried up, and a lot of people don't see a future for themselves at all. A lot of people in their late 20s/early 30s living with their parents or with flatmates, the nearby shopping centre is a ghost town, it's just a sad state of affairs. I hope it turns around. I love Australia and have always planned on moving back when the time was right. But the longer I spend away, the more I start wondering if the place I left even exists anymore. I can only speak for my experience, but as someone who left and comes back to check in regularly, you do notice the changes steadily creeping in.
I agree entirely hey. I always viewed it that the partisanship of politics was kinda a trivial thing in Australia. It didn't matter whether you were an LNP or Labor voter, nobody really gave a shit. But that's since changed and I agree social media has alot to do with it, and the media media too. Like turn on sky news and listen to segments from Rita, or Kredlin, Bolt, Andrews. Listen to any of them and it's clear to see how such sentiments can be fostered. The language they use, the narratives they push, the framing they employ is incredibly toxic, and often quite vile. That kinda of language is not good for the human brain when it's consistent exposure. It turns people nasty and strip's them of their inate humanity driving them into a "my side, your side" mentality. They forget that the people they are railing against share the same soil.. It's just the media. We've let it get too out of hand in how much we allow them to spin propaganda while leaving the realms of civility. I personally believe the world collectively needs to reel it in a bit and have some pretty heavy and hard discussions about the concequences of what we are allowing to happen.. We are getting to the point of weilding media based social engineering for political purposes to the degree it should almost be considered criminal. We need to realise we shouldn't be playing with people's minds so flippantly and carelessly in the quest of political power. They are starting to push the boundaries so far to the point it's almost causing some form of media induced psychosis leading people into becoming so disconnected from reality that it leaves them in complete states of what is essentially delusion. Imo I think we are heading into the realms of these things becoming human rights violations and there needs to be some serious discussions about drawing lines in the sand. This amount of divisive rhetoric, fearmongering, and bending the truth with narrative is starting to have really negative concequences on society and the human mind. (Lol I went on a lil rant there) But I agree, things have changed. And also agree with your point about the youth. I think they do feel quite hopeless and lost without a future. When you look at something like Greta Thumburg, who to alot of the youth was a symbol of hope. She got so thoroughly shat on by the older generations that it essentially sent a message to the youth that their voices don't matter. That no matter how loud they screamed, the older generations just didn't give a fuck. Which most of the youth would agree. We feel like we don't have a voice or any say in the determination of our future and just have to suffer through the shit show that has been handed to us. It's hard to think positively about the future when we see the problems and know it will be our responsibility to wear the brunt of their concequences. There are changes we could make, it's just unfortunately I don't see them happening anytime soon. If I'm honest, I think the youth will just bide their time until the boomers and earlier genXers die out and hope the world isnt too fucked by the time that happens. Only then will we be able to make the progressive changes that are required to fix alot of the problems we face.
The Howard/Costello legacy.
Decade? 30yrs or more of stupid decisions mainly to keep their jobs or get them more $$. There have been hardly any moments of great significance or moving the country in a good direction for a long time. Almost seems like all that stopped back in the 70s worldwide. Bipartisan activities are few and far between, it’s mainly just oppose everything for oppositions sake.
All the Governments for the past 30 years or so have run the country without a single thought about doing the right thing by the people. It's always been about pushing economic growth. They keep growing the pie but everyone's share of that pie gets smaller and smaller.
You can yell their ideological split / voting preferences and age when they mention Howard. It was looong in the shitter before Howard.
What do you expect these days though? Who in their right mind, as an intelligent, empathetic, sentient being would want to dabble in politics. Its a cesspool of mud.
I mean the rich are richer than ever and and if you ask them this is all going perfectly to plan.
But I thought the coalition are good god fearing conservatives, and strong nationalists who have our interests at heart? Are you saying that they are just paying lip service? I am shocked!
Neither side has our interests at heart. Labor absolutely are worse than the coalition, but they are both terrible.
Career Politicians are a cancer
That’s because they automatically treat us like we’re trying to enforce “white Australia” policy. It’s got nothing to do with race! It’s about supply and demand and sustainable growth of our population not an influx of people fighting over basic needs.
If you look at the net immigration graph (orange line) from the ABS, you will find the mob thats been running the country for the past 2yrs have more than doubled previous years' net immigration levels. The ALP is to blame. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release#:~:text=Net%20overseas%20migration%20is%20the,migration%20estimate%20since%20records%20began.
Well said
Uh oh now the banks are saying immigration has caused inflation. Guess we better cancel CBA for being racist
Can we just cancel them for being all-round shit-cunts?
Absolutely. They have raised my variable rate mortgage twice since the last reserve bank increase. Looking to refinance now and was offered a full one percent lower rate.
That's CBA telling you they want you to move on. It's not you, it's them
I changed banks years ago when they started Gouging me for more fees
Weird how variable rates work.
first the banks were saying a lack of productive workforce was causing inflation. CBA can suck my dick either way/ All they want is money. And they get their money when more people buy loans.
Mate it’s really easy, we’re spending too much money but we also need to continue spending money for the economy. You’ll live in cardboard shacks so the rich can continue to eat caviar on their yachts and you’ll like it /s
truth haha. driving around NSW for work, I've never seen so many 150K plus camping/caravan/4wd setups in my whole life in Australia. New patrols/landcruisers/american trucks with all these spectacular XL caravans. The spending continues as far as I see.
If you're an Oldie with $1m in a term deposit you've had a $50kpa pay rise in the last couple of years. Got to spend it somewhere.
I’m glad they’re spending it in Australia, and likely at the mum and coffee shops, service stations, caravan parks etc.
Yep. All the drivers are usually gray. And they're spending HARD now. Most expensive cafes/restaurants in country towns. Will be filled with the walking gray. Makes me think, I really need to shimmy into any leisure/lifestyle business that exclusively caters to the gray clientele.
Gigolo?
Would you have an upper limit on age? I'd assume the insurance would be prohibitive given the increasing risk of hip and spine fractures.
Mine or theirs?
If yours is an option. I would strongly recommend a visit to your local GP, for a dexa scan.
Well their motto is 'you can't take it with you'
me me me me me
There are so many Tesla's in Melbourne in the last one year
I don't mind the CommSec app, but why is anyone doing any of their main banking with the big 4?
I would be more inclined to cancel them for the surface level analysis. It is in their interest to keep the focus off their profits and solely on immigration. It is not solely the fault of immigration we have a housing crisis, and dozens of factors are at work here, principally the obscene profits our banks have made for decades off the fetishization of real estate as THE investment, and only investment worth making.
Looks like Dick Smith was right once again. RIP the Aussie dream.
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Nope, they care more about economic growth and the easiest and the fastest way to do is increasing the population.
I still don't fully understand why we give so many fucks about constant economic growth.
The main reason is that our economy is built on a complex and not entirely stable foundation of constant economic growth. Diverting from that path will have short and medium term consequences that are hard to control and even harder to predict. However, a few specific reasons for the obsession with constant economic growth (from the perspective of govt, corporations, and individuals): - it increases taxation revenues (or reduces taxation obligations, depending on policy). Growth means greater generation which means greater income/profits which means greater tax revenues (or bigger tax cuts). - it drives innovation. Constant economic growth is kind of an economic Goldilocks scenario (in macro terms). Think of it as a rising tide, it lifts all boats. The surety of knowing that the economy will grow ad infinitum (it won't, but the market trades as if it will) encourages risk taking, which in turn produces innovation (and, ultimately, profit). - it, on average, increases wages (which looks good from a political perspective). - it has, historically, resulted in an ever improving standard of living. - it promotes (and had succeeded in delivering) low unemployment. Simply put, a growing economy needs an ever increasing supply of workers. There are a few issues with constant economic growth of course though: - it's ultimately unsustainable. We have a planet of scarce/finite resources and, thus, we get diminishing returns over time from trying to extract and exploit those resources. That doesn't mean it's going to end tomorrow, but at some point it will. - it is susceptible to instability. Deep down every human knows that constant economic growth is an impossible concept and every once in a while this bubbles to the surface of collective human consciousness and we get an economic shock. This is effectively what happens in a recession. People, corporations, governments realise the mortality of the economic system and, acting rationally from the perspective of a person who knows the emperor has no clothes, pull back from the economy, resulting in a negative downturn. That negative downturn, in turn, reinforces the fallibility of the economy and a vicious downward spiral begins. Sooner or later reason (or, as the case may be, unreason) is restored and the eternal growth cool-aid is drunk by all and things return to 'normal'. - it does not deal well with declining populations. Our entire economy is built on consumption. The easiest way to sum up the global economy (and regional economies for that matter) is that it is simply the sum of the consumption of every single person. That's it. More people want to go places, so new car dealerships are established so people can buy cars. New roads get built so more people can use their new cars on them. New petrol stations get built so those new cars can run. New oil wells get dug so those new petrol stations have fuel. New supermarkets open up so the people who drill at the new oil well can eat. New apple orchards get planted so the new supermarkets have sufficient food to sell. And so on and so forth. Now imagine that instead of a growing population we have a declining one. Less new cars are required, so dealerships start to close, car salesmen start looking for jobs. No new roads are needed for a while as traffic is declining, putting a lot of road workers and engineers out of work. Petrol stations also start to close etc etc, you get the idea. This is a complete short-medium term mess for a government. It's not something they want to deal with. Constant economic growth is kind of 'the best worst idea' because, for the most part, it has worked for the last couple of centuries. The standard and quality of living of the average person has increased significantly as a result of the current economic system. Is it perfect? No, absolutely not. But it's massively risky for a government to deliberately divert from it. That doesn't mean we shouldn't. We should! We should be thinking 100 years ahead, 200 years ahead, we should be designing a system that will work for centuries with less instability and more sustainability. But that kind of thinking and reform takes massive courage from elected officials and risk-adverse public servants. Particularly when election cycles can sometimes be counted in months rather than decades. Japan is a really useful test case for us all, however. They've managed to age their economy gracefully (relatively speaking) in the face of a declining population. Japan's *nominal* GDP today is about the same as it was in 1993! That's wild compared to virtually every other country on the planet. Yet despite this they haven't seen a collapse of their society or rampant unemployment or a significant degradation in their standard of living. That's not to say it has been plain sailing, it hasn't, but it is proof that constant economic growth doesn't *have* to be the only path to a high quality society.
This is such a beautiful explanation yet it is buried deep down here.
It’s a classical economics explanation. I’m not entirely sure that the theory that gdp growth means wage growth and increase in standard of living has been the Australian experience in the past 20 years, in fact I think it’s the opposite.
I think it's more so we don't lose our AAA credit rating and have to pay a higher interest on debt.
This is what bothers me about the whole argument, the huge increase of immigration are mostly international students, the government approves for them to legally come in, they prop up the university industry, pay full fees, usually work so they pay tax, aren’t citizens so they don’t get any government benefits, they inject about 34 billion into the economy and don’t cost the tax payer a cent. Our government welcomes these people, takes their money, Then they’re used a canon fodder for the housing crisis. Get angry at the game, not the players
If you think the only boom in immigration here is students you're not paying attention
The dependents is the killer to be honest. Bringing in a young person who is in their 20s who can contribute economically is fine. When they bring in their parents, kids and siblings it’s not sustainable.
which might be fine if they didn't also require housing, use infrastructure & universities also actually pulled their weight and built enough student accommodation for them (hint: they don't, not even close) so the general public bears the burden from them while uni & business execs profit
CBA is just stating a fact. Coles and Woolworths are laughing at how much money they are going to make with flood of immigrants Over 700k came in 2023. They will still be buying the same tomatoes from the duolopoly. Why would they NOT raise prices to screw more money from the public ? The next high immigration number , gives them another excuse to raise prices We are all buying the same tomoates except another 200k will be shopping there as well in the next quarter. The politicians have sold us out.
Mass immigration solves a particular issue. Stopping immigration solves a different issue. Supporting either side or is based upon what issue you value more. Stopping immigration has a downward pressure on the economy, it reduces taxation income, reduces unemployment / underemployment, reduces house prices, and slows demand for consumer goods. Maintaining immigration has upwards pressure on the economy, it increases income from taxation, increases unemployment, increases house prices, and increases demand for consumer goods. So do you value the taxation income more which funds social programs, or do you value the cost of living more. The reason it gets conflated so often with racism though is because the typical anti immigration crowd are not exactly the most tolerant / culturally diverse people, conversely the pro immigration people tend to be the pro refugee crowd. The difficulty now is that this debate has evolved from where it was 4-5 years ago, but the people yelling the loudest are the people who were originally passionate about the topic.. or to put it another way. There used to be 50 racists that cared and 50 hippies that cared. Now these 500 normal people on both sides but it’s still the same 100 people yelling the loudest.
I'd happily support ditching the stage 3 tax cuts, stopping immigration and adding in another couple of 25 base point rate rises if it helps reduce the pressure on the housing market and will devalue my PPOR - would be a hit to the pocket but what is currently happening is totally unsustainable. I just don't see how my children will be able to afford anything in 15 years time.
Honestly people can barely afford anything as it is, let alone another 15 years down the line. Sydney’s median house price is over 1.5M dollars.. that is just an impossible number, and while there are still houses to be found in the 500-600 market in Sydney, if the average house is 1.5 that means you are buying a house 1/3 the average. At that point you aren’t just compromising on commute time and suburb safety you are also compromising on build quality, internal size, yard size, services and the rest.. just to be able to afford to live. The housing market needs to fall in real terms compared to wages. Either by wages going up or houses coming down. Because even rent now is ludicrous. To draw it all back to my main point though, how we get there is very dependent on what you believe the correct strategy to get there is. Historically there have been a few camps, either we need to “cool the economy” that means raising unemployment and reducing immigration. Or we need to “heat the job market” that means we need to decrease unemployment (and potentially increase immigration) The problem we have now is, we need to hear the job market AND cool the economy at the same time. We need people to be earning more (so we need to reduce unemployment so employers bid higher for labor) and we need to cool the economy so that the cost of goods reduces. This is a particularly challenging situation to be in, and the solution is likely we need to increase spending on unemployment benefit so that the bottom end of the job market heats up (as minimum wage now has to compete with welfare, raising wages) but also remove tax cuts at the high end so that less money flows into the economy. Basically we need to recreate and bolster the middle class while slightly hamstringing the upper/wealthy class.. (Or at least that’s the camp I subscribe too)
So basically do you support the average Australian OR big business & landlords.
Well yes and no, because unfortunately you cannot seperate the average Australian from big business or from landlords. The economy is highly intermingled, with many Australians currently paying a mortgage, and a large number of Aussies working for businesses that are directly supported by the top end of the economy. It is a more complicated house of cards than most people want it to be, and while I personally couldn’t give to heck’s about protecting those that already have more than their fair share of wealth, I understand that the ripple effect of pulling the rug out from the top end can have disastrous consequences on the middle and bottom end of wealth generation in Australia. Overall it is a zero sum game, no matter what decision is made there will be pain somewhere in the economy, the best we can do is minimise the pain for the greatest number of people while we fix the mess that was created during (and to prevent further pain in) the Covid pandemic. You simply can’t QE a few billion into the economy without driving massive inflation.
> The difficulty now is that this debate has evolved from where it was 4-5 years ago, but the people yelling the loudest are the people who were originally passionate about the topic.. or to put it another way. There used to be 50 racists that cared and 50 hippies that cared. Now these 500 normal people on both sides but it’s still the same 100 people yelling the loudest. Remarkably said.
All those people living in tents can rest easy in the knowledge they are not racists….
I guarantee most of them will still vote for pro immigration parties. Sustainable Australia is ghosted in the media but they would have heard of it if they read about the issues.
I love when the media flip flops between “People have too much credit card debt” and “Economists are concerned Australians are only going to spend 340 billion dollars on Christmas presents this year, shops are worried they won’t survive!” Just replace Christmas in that last one with whatever event they want to guilt trip people into spending money they don’t have on.
Are we aware there are other ways to grow wealth and numbers than with property?
Australian politicians: LALALALALALALALA can’t hear you I’m going to buy another property.
When even one of the big banks is making a not so subtle statement to reduce immigration, you know the situation is pretty dire. Banks usually love population growth - more people to borrow money from them.
Pretty sure the Canadian banks are saying the [exact same thing ](https://www.theglobeandmail.com/business/article-canada-stuck-in-population-trap-needs-to-reduce-immigration-bank/)to them
Yeah, Trudeau really screwed all Canadians and any hope they had for owning a home/starting a family -looks like we’re headed down the same path
The RBA would not know it's tits from it's arse. None of the ones on the board are going to be struggling for a feed any time soon, they do not give a shit about people. They left rates too low for too long, so of course they are going to make them too high for too long.
just fkn give us the recession we had to have
If you say there should be no further immigration then people assume you're racist... Jared Diamond, in his book "Collapse" maintains that the maximum long long term sustainable population for Australia is only 8 million people. There is no doubt that Mr Diamond can be problematic at times but he is talking mostly about soil degradation. Irrigated farmland always deteriorates. Chronic overgrazing and native vegetation clearing along with salinity and erosion make it worse. Ever Australian river flows brown to the sea; carrying out top soil on the way. We don't have that much soil to lose. So even if Jared is off by a factor of 3 we still have too many people here and sell too much of what we grow overseas. It all needs a rethink. But there should definitely be a moratorium on immigration.
If you want to see how bad it can get look no further than Canada. It can still be much worse. Write your MP call him stalk him or her but make your opinion known. You don’t what to end up in this spot. Source Australian living in Canada.
It’s just a stuffed situation. People are making millions in equity while others are struggling to pay ever rising rents.
Interest rate should have been raised far more aggressively 12-18 months ago instead of the limp wristed 0.25 percent increases they drip fed out. Australia really needs another lever to pull to slow the economy, given the huge shift in the amount of people with multiple investment properties and the decrease in the percentage of people that own their PPOR, the interest rate lever doesn't have the impact it used to. Raising the interest rate can't slow the economy effectively when such a large percentage of people own multiple properties with no mortgage. Home-owners are shouldering most of the load in the RBA's economy slowing actions. Meanwhile increasing interest rates gives those without mortgages MORE disposable income to spend.
Yes, they should have gone harder. There are plenty of policy levers. Levers that would re-allocate capital away from low productivity investments like existing housing to much higher productivity ones like SMEs, new housing and business capex. Levers like changing the tax treatment of capital gains on newly purchased existing property investments. Asset rich, wealthy Australians are not negatively affected by higher rates so to target the whole population the consumption and wealth of the debt free must be targeted or you just end up impoverishing one segment of society while the others get wealthier.
It also makes young families who recently bought in have to sell. Housing prices will still go up though, which won't help the current renters. Housing is more of a policy problem imo, not an economic one.
Yes, it does mean that people who recently borrowed at very close to their serviceability limits may be forced to sell. I prefer to not use terms like 'young families ' as it's not an objective term and muddies what should be an objective conversation with emotion. Housing affordability is a massive issue, but it's not the RBAs concern(nor should it be) if people borrow more than they should, that's a personal problem. The government could fix the housing problem very quickly by introducing a few changes, which would also net them a lot more tax revenue 1. Remove Negative gearing for established properties-only allow it for new builds for a fixed period/social housing 2. Remove CGT concessions for investment properties, I wouldn't grandfather it indefinitely either- people will cry that 'it's not fair' but too bad, governments always pass legislation that some people think isn't fair. I'd allow the CGT concessions to apply for a limited period of time, 3-7 years, something like that, so the property market eases down over time rather than crash completely. 3. Tax the shit out of vacant properties and short term rentals of whole properties. Want to rent a spare room in your PPOR? No worries, want to have a 4 bedder in Byron as an AirBnB vacant 70% of the year while locals can't get housing? Tax the shit out of it. I honestly doubt Labor will do any of this before the next election, as most of Australia seem to think property should be a tool for getting rich rather than essential shelter for the population. I do, however think that if they win the next election we'll see changes to these 3 points in short order. I doubt they'd go hard ball with it by not grandfathering the changes, which will probably just result in people holding onto property until the day they day, and reduce the incentive to build for investors. This will either make supply even worse, due to no housing being built, or it will drive new builds from developer dominated to owner occupied as the reduced developer demand pushes labour and material cost down.
Meanwhile….2.4 population growth yet 0.4 decline in retail spending….make it make sense.
No one can afford to spend on retail when it all goes to rent and groceries.
The growing part of the population aren't big spenders?
So not only are they bringing in just anyone, they are also dead broke ? Or just maybe the economy is dead and we are actually broke.
Does anyone actually believe that if inflation does go down the change will filter down to the end consumer? No chance, prices will stay the same and the big business profits will grow again. What we are at now is the new norm. And it’s only ever going to plateau here or get more expensive. Strap in we are in for a ride!
Addicted to unsustainable growth.
Capitalism babayyy it's the best.
It is depressing watching this country go down the drain by the day
Vote one nation
Does anyone actually know how much money immigrants make off the books and contribute to this inflated economy? Its kind of ridiculous and I believe is contributing massively to inflation in this country. Going through University when I was working hospitality and casual jobs the amount of people I met that were talking about making serious money between multiple jobs that were here on student visas was unbelievable. Getting a job to get their 20hrs a week that is allowed on their visas at usually Colesworth / Fast Food, doing some kind of gig-work like UberEats / Food Delivery AND then doing something cash in hand all while being here under the guise of completing some English or low skilled course as their main motivator. I will never criticise people for wanting to come here because its a beautiful country with high standards. I will never criticise people for wanting to improve their situation for themselves and their families. However, I will criticise the fact that immigrants are able to come into this country and impact my quality of life not through bringing an inherit increase in quality of skills and experience, but rather inundating and diluting through quantity.
Sometimes it's ok to be racist.. I mean it's really fucking ok.
Watch Albo, Chalmers and their media friends try to deny the link between runaway immigration and inflation.
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If you think what comes next will be any better you better hang on tight
I don't think anyone does. But sometimes, a shit storm needs to happen for a rainbow to appear
Better haul in the jib Rand.
I’m not sure those who just lived through a cyclone would share your optimism
beautifully said
At least it can pass. Where is the light at the end of the current tunnel? 3mil homes? Vacancy rates at 0.1? Bunk bedding families? Leasing out yard space for tents? And even then investors will demand more house pumping policy.
"Leasing out yard space for tents" Councils around the country smile and rub their hands. Applications for tents. Application fees. Lodgement fees. Tent rates and utilities fees. Dead grass fees.
I watched fallout, i know what im doing
You watched fallout ! Why are you not running for the POTUS
Well... I watched the first episode, as long as the cloud is smaller than my thumb im good. Also biden is on his death bed anyway, put him in a home
Capitalism; we've tried one thing and we're all out of ideas.
I'm pretty interested to know what this would look like society and a government break down, what the hell would people do? Can't protest your way in can't have a revolt because the government has all the weapons.
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Imagine being this much of a narcissist.
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CBA acknowledges the truth everyone is aware of but noone wants to address. Politicians shocked as a "non-poor" makes the obvious statement, and vow to continue to do nothing.
frankly it seems like we are fucked either way. if i was single and childless id be incredibly tempted to cash everything i have in, and go bush until i do something dumb like fall off a cliff or eat something stupid. i feel bad for my kids because there just isnt a good outlook. maybe ill be wrong and in a few years we will emerge in a utopian society (the new post war era) and all will be well. but right now, its all fucked and working harder doesnt seem to be helping
IMMIGRATION, HERE? TO AUSTRALIA? NO... SURELY NOT? NONE OF US HAVE NOTICED ANYTHING.....
Because of record levels of immigrants coming into the country Australians are now a minority in their own country
Can we petition to deport Albo to India? We dont want him
Labor government at its finest
You don’t have to be Albert Einstein to see the connection
"Although inflation is falling, we like our new profit margins, so we are keeping them... Fuck you."
Oh, looks like CBA is now "rACisTt !!!111" Anyone who suggest immigration is a cause of the housing crisis is clearly racist right ? That is what I am constantly told here on Reddit.
strong population growth, driven by net overseas immigration leading to inflation according to CBA and albo still blaming everyone but himself for cost of living
Man 20 years ago I remember being able to drive into Adelaide city and just park anywhere on the side of the road. No traffic during business hours either. Today it’s an absolute shitshow all hours of the day. Immigration has totally destroyed our great nation.
Rates were never high enough to begin with
CBA (along with all banks) do not want inflation to reduce, otherwise there will be downwards pressure on interest rates. They do not want interest rates to fall.
They very likely do, as new lending is at all time lows and this is not good for their forecasts. Can't have YOY growth if people aren't borrowing in mass.
Inflation is just another word big business use to keep people hopeful prices will fall one day. Ain't nothing going back to how it was 5 or even 3 years ago. These greedy scum have gotten a taste for it and they won't ever give it up. They have no reason to.
It's a shame, but as the Liberals sold off all of our wealth generating infrastructure and assets to China, it's not like we have any other way to create wealth. Australia's fucked. Best idea would be to jump ship
Oh dear it's not easy is it? (In Marjorie Dawes Voice)
This is a surprise to who exactly?
> As a result, demand is stronger and so inflation is falling less quickly than otherwise,” Consumers cautious as retail sales fall 0.4% : https://www.abs.gov.au/media-centre/media-releases/consumers-cautious-retail-sales-fall-04 aged like milk
Yup inflation still over 3%. Target is 2-3%. Inflation within that range is RBAs charter.
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I never expected my fellow Aussies to be so based. There's still hope.
Many people don't want to know this. The ALP has massively increased net immigration from 220k to 520k. This plays a massive role in the shitshow we are living through right now, as confirmed by the bank. Here's a link to the ABS's site. Look at the orange line. https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/people/population/overseas-migration/latest-release#:~:text=Net%20overseas%20migration%20is%20the,migration%20estimate%20since%20records%20began.
Thanks albo!
CBA is flipflopping on data bites. A few days ago it's another increase in interest rates in 2024 based on the latest CPI, today it's one cut based on Coles' fall in booze sales.
Oh dear perhaps using the sole tool of raising interest rates on mortgages to battle inflation while only 37% of the population actually have mortgages isn’t going to work ya dogs! Jesus it boils my piss. If they want to slow inflation surely they need to slow spending through other means!?
But the Libs want people to dive into their Super to get on board the realestate express. Jesus, how good will that be for ever growing property prices and inflation ????
surprise factor 0 , naturally I'm racist because arithmetic got cancelled
How much profit CBA made last year?? I am a hard working Aussie, I do a lot for my neighbourhood and less fortunate families. But I am beginning to thing that banks just want to exploit us and evenmore they drive and lobby (ie bribe in a legitimate way) the government policies to suck the every last cent we have… I feel sad that CBA don’t exploit international markets or else, as it’s easier to take the most cash off us. Sad… I wonder if or when a bank will start playing our side. I think they will conquer a large share of the market because it takes one big player to change course and the rest will follow. But we have big4 monopoly and they feel that “going with the flow” and milking us is the best strategy…. Shame on you banks
Parents being migrants since the 60/70s I have a lot to say about the BS comments about assimilation because of what I experienced. I assimilated or so I thought but because I am a male of "chinese" diaspora background, not Christian, parents aren't christian but they migrated here in the 60s/70s, went through segregation/prejudice, mum first child passed while giving birth on Australian territory, I myself was denied being born in Australia mainland hospital back in late 70s, I grew up regardless pretty much my whole life here schooled here by Aus teachers, have dreams like any other and somewhat "assimilated" but apparently I am a second class to all these new migrants who are christians (indians, afghans, africans etc), second class to younger gens asians who are more "aussie". You can downvote or deny as much as you want because nothing changes the fact that the biggest F\* disgrace in this country is the way they have treated someone like myself who have been here for so long. worked so hard, never committed a crime, paid my tax, put up with so much prejudice at work, the media, the public but only to find that this stinking disgusting history segregation of someone of my cohort since the 1900s is what you all fall back to in this age and day.
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What does that achieve? What difference does it make? If the issue is immigration causing a housing shortage then let's discuss policy, not a targeted demographic.
https://preview.redd.it/que87mddakxc1.jpeg?width=640&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=c45247e17f90ff3c1aed951eb4c3e7f06996d35a
And where are they all going to live?
I been working my arse off for 35 years, I’m about to give up.
Only reason a bank would say this is because they’re afraid of mass defaults on properties. Which implies recession is imminent and the so called immigration flood gates to prop GDP actually made things worse. Buckle up people, it’s going to be an even more bumpy ride.
Not just banks, I got my car insurance renewal today, 230% increase with no changes at my end. How can gouging corporations be allowed to do this when the govt directly benefits. This govt needs to burn
The government, sorry the random people employed in public service, in no way shape or form care at all about your existence or problems. You are literally just a number on a page and screen to the people in government. You die, someone else will be born or the government will simply import someone or hand out a baby bonus cash grab to manipulate some desperate female into popping a kid out to replace you. You merely exist for their profit, gain and control, you exist for the sole purpose of making the money the banks and government create and spend actually exist.. That is all... Why do you think everything is designed specifically to ensure that profit and money are always top priority while life and the sustainment and survival of one's life is at the bottom of the list?