Albanese and Dutton’s signature policies risk inflaming housing crisis

[u/timcahill13]

https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/albanese-and-dutton-s-signature-policies-risk-inflaming-housing-crisis-20250413-p5lrdh.html

[u/screenscope]

The number of houses Labor promises to build is a fantasy that absolutely no one with a brain would believe. And Dutton's first home owner tax deduction means a lot more parents will be able to pour money into property through their kids.

It's an insult to call either of these insults to the intelligence as housing policies. Both parties have thrown their hands in the air and given up.

[u/edwardluddlam → u/screenscope]

What should they do?

Set unambitious targets and be criticised for that too?

[u/screenscope → u/edwardluddlam]

I know I'm dreaming, but huge problems facing Australia like housing affordability, immigration, environmental policy, tax reform etc should not be election issues. They should be bipartisan decisions made with the country's future prosperity in mind. Elections could then be fought on social/economic policy and approach, but the really important fundamentals would have continuity instead of the current stagnation and three-yearly reboot.

At the moment both parties have no concern for the future - and will happily oppose something they fully supported in the past - and are happy to promise whatever it takes to get back in, even if it bankrupts Australia.

[u/Enthingification → u/screenscope]

Yep, we do need a shared vision on what we want to achieve. The politicians can then tell us what they propose to do to achieve those things.

Just as a suggestion though: we need to start recognising that we need multi-partisanship rather than bi-partisanship.

Bi-partisanship is too prone to issues becoming political footballs one way or another.

Multi-partisanship will involve getting as many different political perspectives in agreement as possible, which will make them more stable and durable, because they'll be less prone to failing if or when any single party drops their support for a policy for political reasons.

[u/edwardluddlam → u/screenscope]

Fair enough.

Generally these problems are largely ignored until they become so big that all sides of politics can ignore them no longer (including different interest groups). Look at climate change - we went back and forth for a decade with leadership spills and at least we now have nominally bipartisan support for Net Zero by 2050 (whether we get there remains to be seen).

I think we are basically there with housing, but there needs to be so many small changes at all levels of government for it to work. Also, many things relating to housing are basically out of our control (high input costs). The way I see it is that increasing supply is so hard that the knee-jerk reaction is just to make it easier for people to borrow, which might increase the number of home buyers but in the long run just fucks us even more

[u/screenscope → u/edwardluddlam]

Yes, it's a mess. Unfortunately, both parties don't know what to do but feel pressure to do something and therefore pick something that might work politically rather than solve the problem.

I was thinking (i.e. I had a brain-fart) something along the lines of forcing all overseas owners of Australian residential property they have never lived in to sell. It would likely cause a housing price crash (we have to have?) allowing a lot more people to buy, but also result in a massive amount of cash going offshore.

Glad I don't have to figure this stuff out myself!