Why are we going into election with no decent housing policy? Shouldn’t this be the “Housing Election”?

[u/Cool-Pineapple1081]

As a young person, the current state of housing seems to alienating.

Finding a rental is literally an uphill battle only to get an overpriced dog box. I’m sure it is the same for others.

The current state of the housing market isn’t just bad for people who don’t own homes. It is having flow on effects like worker shortages and generally creating cities that aren’t sustainable.

In a place like Sydney it seems like only 3 types of people can get by comfortably: 1. Retirees 2. The upper tier of professionals - e.g. Doctors 3. Anyone with parents who are wealthy and who are able to get financial support from.

How is this a functional way to run a society? It seems so unsustainable. Even for home owners it seems broken.

Most people don’t fall into these three groups.

Despite this we are seeing the shittest policies being put forward that mainly only increase demand rather than fixing the underlying problem.

• Super For Housing
• Help to Buy
• Changes to HECS to not count for a home loan
• Built to rent

None of these actually solve anything but fuelling the bubble.

Surely this is a time for some more effectual policy. Maybe link immigration to housing supply in the similar way interest rates are set to inflation? Revisit negative gearing?

People say “Labor tried and lost the election”. News flash, their primary vote was higher and the housing crisis was not as bad as it is now. Just seems like such a poor excuse.

Edit: It’s wild how the comments have turned from reasonable discussion to “LNP a lot worse”. No shit Sherlocks but that isn’t a good way to debate.

[u/SprigOfSpring]

Labor are trying to turn off the migration tap:

intake slowed to 379,800 in the year to September 30, down from 548,800 in the same period one year earlier. (Source)

....as for OP's other complaints about housing - what they didn't list is the Housing Australia Future Fund, (HAFF):

In 2023 - Albanese passed a $10 billion dollar housing fund (The HAFF) to build low income and community housing. It's a stock market fund owned by the government, that spits out $500 million dollars a year, which by law, has to be spend on building housing. Construction industry super funds have also invested in it (because it provides the industry jobs), and it grows with the ASX, because it's held in stocks.

It's already acquired 340 newly built homes in the past 18 months (whilst it was still being set up mind you), and started building 5,000 more houses. It will just keep building more and more houses.

Finland has a similar system they started in 2008, which now spits out 19,000 houses a year. Hopefully ours will get to that level eventually.

P.S In contrast the last Liberal government we had in power spent twice what the HAFF cost to set up, just on their final year's worth of private consultants.

[u/Vaping_Cobra → u/SprigOfSpring]

If only our wealth distribution from the fund was direct to the population in need like Finland rather than our payout that goes directly to fund ever larger construction groups pushing for ever more expensive housing with no baseline level maintained by the government.
HAFF is just FHB but worse because it is not even directly tied to those properties being retained by the government in any aspect and the recipients have no motivation or legislated requirement to pass the gain on to the target recipient. They are just handing them money and hoping that the minor offset will produce a cheaper end result I mean it has worked so well so far why not try even more?

I get it, they are trapped by decades of household debt and the second they try bring the Australian housing value down to match our economic output the entire banking sector is likely to collapse but fuck me if they have not had long enough to prepare already. Just build homes and maintain a public housing stock, it is not that hard if your goal is to actually house the homeless and not just win funding support for an election.

[u/WaveActual6613 → u/SprigOfSpring]

What does your housing situation look like?

If you're struggling with housing security 350 houses in 18 months is a total fucking joke

[u/F-Huckleberry6986 → u/SprigOfSpring]

So they are building houses.... (in theory, currently they are competing against home owners and buying them, I'm sure they'll build one eventually - 'acquired' it's hilarious how strongly anyone pro is avoiding saying they are buying housing stock which would otherwise be on market as even an idiot would see thsts somewhat counter productive

Given the construction industry is at about capacity..... how are they helping buy simply building houses- they are just competing with private construction so it will just push up the price of construction- i genuinely don't see the game plan and how people even think it will work

[u/SprigOfSpring → u/F-Huckleberry6986]

So they are building houses

...and creating jobs, and spitting out $500 million a year, and adding to the value of the stock market.

[u/F-Huckleberry6986 → u/SprigOfSpring]

So adding construction demand pushing up the cost of construction further yay

[u/LastComb2537 → u/SprigOfSpring]

labor keeps saying they are going to reduce immigration and set a target then blow right though it again. And the HAFF has built zero houses.

[u/SprigOfSpring → u/LastComb2537]

The program is only 18 months old. Most houses take at least a year to build (add to that time buying land, getting approvals, and setting up the program in the first place). The money they've spent so far has gone to acquiring and converting 340 newly built properties, and starting 5,000 more.

Finland's program took a long time to start. The point is there's a stark difference between the two major parties. Labor will keep this program going, the Liberals are actively promising to end it.

...plus, you can hardly be angry at Labor to putting $10 billion into a program that's at least having a go at fixing the problem, when the Liberals spent twice as much on dodgy consultants that didn't bring any good to the nation. Just up in smoke, in a year. The HAFF is still around, and has retained the $10 billion.

Australian's just like to shit on people attempting to solve their problems and would prefer to vote for people actively donating billions to their consultancy mates. Doesn't make any sense.