<
https://www.theguardian.com/business/grogonomics/2025/apr/17/after-25-years-of-the-same-housing-policies-pushing-up-demand-australia-needs-a-new-approach>
"This week, the housing affordability crisis was solved when both the Labor and
Liberal parties discovered that the key was to give people more money so they
can bid a higher price for a home. Phew. Our long national nightmare is over.
Cripes. What a joke.
Here we are in 2025, and the major political parties continue to say that the
way to make homes cheaper is to increase the amount that people will be able to
pay to buy a home.
It’s not like we lack about 25 years’ worth of evidence that this approach has
failed.
In 2000, as a way of bribing people to think that they would be better off
after the introduction of the GST, John Howard increased the long-running first
homeowners’ grant to $7,000. A year later, with an election to win, he doubled
it to $14,000.
Since then, it has been the go-to policy by federal and state governments to
solve the crisis of housing affordability. Pick your state, pick your grant. In
New South Wales, for example, you can get $10,000 for newly built or
substantially renovated homes.
And that is why no one in Sydney has any problem buying a first home.
Am I too cynical?"
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
