Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinamiot.
Speaker 1: It's Thursday, October thirty one. The Prime Minister is denying
Speaker 1: having called Alan Joyce to request flight upgrades, as pressure
Speaker 1: mounts on Anthony Albanesi to refer himself to the National
Speaker 1: Anti Corruption Commission over allegations he benefited from a close
Speaker 1: relationship with the former Quantus boss. New South Wales's Aboriginal
Speaker 1: land councils have called for amendments to heritage laws that
Speaker 1: would enshrine their authority in legislation. It comes after a
Speaker 1: controversial decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plimasek to block a
Speaker 1: gold mine in Blaney on contested Indigenous heritage grounds. Those
Speaker 1: stories alive right now at the Australian dot Com dot
Speaker 1: a U. Australia is in the grips of a housing
Speaker 1: crisis and the major parties are struggling to come up
Speaker 1: with policy that gives first home buyers and renters a
Speaker 1: fair go. In today's episode, why a New Alliance is
Speaker 1: taking a grassroots approach to housing policy.
Speaker 2: This is the laundry, similar to what I've got now.
Speaker 1: A lot more stuff in it. This is me at
Speaker 1: one of the dozens of property inspections I've embarked upon
Speaker 1: over the last year. Yeah, a little study nook, Okay,
Speaker 1: you could make it into my office. I remember this
Speaker 1: apartment distinctly, one bedroom with a study nook and no parking.
Speaker 1: This bedom lots of storage in here, and they've got.
Speaker 2: A dresser.
Speaker 3: And then opens on to a really big balcoming.
Speaker 1: But it's not the floor plan that made it memorable. No,
Speaker 1: I remember this apartment because it's how I learned the
Speaker 1: hard way that you can't get emotionally invested if you
Speaker 1: don't want your little first home buy a heart to
Speaker 1: be broken.
Speaker 2: It is amazing. These opportunities are hard to find. So
Speaker 2: ladies and gentlemen, where do we open the bidding?
Speaker 1: That apartment, one bedroom with a windowless study nook and
Speaker 1: no parking sold at auction for about two hundred thousand
Speaker 1: dollars above the price guide, well out of my range
Speaker 1: and the reach of millions of Australians.
Speaker 2: Just like me. Hammer goes up, all silent, all done
Speaker 2: selling sold CIR Congratulations.
Speaker 1: But over the last year I've persevered queueing alongside couples
Speaker 1: with dual incomes and first home buyers backed by their
Speaker 1: parents to inspect smaller and smaller properties that ultimately sell
Speaker 1: for more and more over the price guides given by sellers.
Speaker 1: I've watched in horror as Sydney's median home price saws
Speaker 1: to astronomical levels while my borrowing capacity inexplicably declines. I've
Speaker 1: made concessions as a twenty percent deposit gets further and
Speaker 1: further out of reach. I've watched my credit ratings suffer
Speaker 1: as ninety day pre approval's lapse in the blink of
Speaker 1: an eye. I made some headway with a high interest
Speaker 1: to savings account, and then despaired as I handed almost
Speaker 1: every single cent of the bonus interest I'd earned over
Speaker 1: to the tax department. I've seriously considered stashing what's left
Speaker 1: under my mattress for the rest of this financial year
Speaker 1: in hopes my prospects will improve, though at this point
Speaker 1: I'm not confident, and I'm not the only one.
Speaker 3: In July and August, Amplify conducted polling of four thousand
Speaker 3: Australians and that revealed it ninety five percent of people
Speaker 3: rank housing availability and affordability among their top priority issues.
Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent.
Speaker 3: The polling also showed that trust in politicians and governments
Speaker 3: and their handling of housing policy has never been lower,
Speaker 3: and some of that could probably be linked to the
Speaker 3: COVID pandemic the rise of social media, but the polling
Speaker 3: clearly shows that Australians want to have a proper say
Speaker 3: in the development of housing policy.
Speaker 1: Housing policy is shaping up to be a key election
Speaker 1: issue and it could even decide who wins government in
Speaker 1: early twenty twenty five.
Speaker 3: So Anthony Albernezi and Peter Darton at a federal government
Speaker 3: level are at polar opposites when it comes to housing policy,
Speaker 3: and those spillover areas such as migration, superannuation for housing,
Speaker 3: associated infrastructure and taxes. This issue with housing has been
Speaker 3: a long time coming and it encompasses all three tiers
Speaker 3: of government, local, state and federal.
Speaker 2: It has never.
Speaker 3: Really traditionally been the domain of a federal government for
Speaker 3: the Commonwealth to take courage of housing policy at associated taxes,
Speaker 3: community infrastructure as such. But it has gotten so bad
Speaker 3: at a local government level in particular, and you've got
Speaker 3: different taxes, different approaches to stamp duty, different priorities, different
Speaker 3: first home buyer schemes that have just changed and morphed
Speaker 3: over the years. The other really big issue here, and
Speaker 3: particularly in recent years, has been this record surge in migration,
Speaker 3: and this is where the common Wealth does have a role.
Speaker 3: So there's a lot of flip sides when it comes
Speaker 3: to housing now. In terms of a federal response through
Speaker 3: national cabinets such, it hasn't worked both sides, but in
Speaker 3: particular the Albanezi government are putting up these tens of
Speaker 3: billion dollar programs talking about unlocking supply, but there's very
Speaker 3: little evidence or proof that's going to happen anytime soon.
Speaker 3: So big money from all sides of politics, big promises,
Speaker 3: and then this sort of chasm. We're about five or
Speaker 3: six months out from the next federal election and really
Speaker 3: the politics around housing has never been so toxic and divisive.
Speaker 1: Now, a nonpartisan alliance of business, social and youth leaders
Speaker 1: are backing a grassroots approach to housing policy reform. The group,
Speaker 1: known as Amplify, is the brainchild of SEEKH co founder
Speaker 1: Paul Bassett and former Commonwealth public servant Georgina Harrison. On
Speaker 1: its board is former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perete
Speaker 1: Tab Corp Chief Executive Gillan McLaughlin and Bunning's managing director
Speaker 1: Michael Schneider, among others.
Speaker 3: It's not an aligned think tank or a politically linked group,
Speaker 3: and its purpose and the ambition of it is seeking
Speaker 3: to harness people power and draw on real life experiences
Speaker 3: of normal Australians to feed into policy development that is
Speaker 3: completely separate from the political process. And their idea is
Speaker 3: that they'll have online and in person forums across the
Speaker 3: country over the coming months and that process will culminate
Speaker 3: in February next year when they randomly select a diverse
Speaker 3: group of one hundred Australians to assemble in Sydney for
Speaker 3: the first Amplification event, and that will be solely focused
Speaker 3: on housing. Amplify will provide access to a range of
Speaker 3: independent experts and they'll help punters guide their ideas into
Speaker 3: policy development, and once they get to that endpoint where
Speaker 3: they land on a range of policy platforms, Amplify will
Speaker 3: then make those representations and publicly promote what Australians normal
Speaker 3: Australians want and believe that the government should be doing
Speaker 3: in relation to housing.
Speaker 1: Experts like Jeff are speculating that an election will be
Speaker 1: called for March or April of next year. So isn't
Speaker 1: that cutting things a bit fine?
Speaker 3: It is, but quite often you can maximize your effect
Speaker 3: if you're unveiling, announcing, launching, agitating in policy areas right
Speaker 3: in the thrust of a campaign. It's not to say
Speaker 3: that an incoming government or a political party who is
Speaker 3: interested in some of the ideas that are developed won't
Speaker 3: pick those up, maybe look at those post election, or
Speaker 3: potentially feed them into policies of their own that might
Speaker 3: align with what this process provides, and that all tiers
Speaker 3: of government and all politicians from every party will be
Speaker 3: able to very clearly see what the people are thinking
Speaker 3: and some of their ideas put forward.
Speaker 1: Coming up the major parties make their pitch for the
Speaker 1: roof over your head. Prime Minister Anthony Alberanzi has donned
Speaker 1: a whole lot of hard hats and high viz. Lately
Speaker 1: he's been out and about sprinking Labour's multi pronged solution
Speaker 1: to the housing crisis.
Speaker 2: This is a fantastic project, so close to amenity, so
Speaker 2: close to facilities. It's an example of what we want
Speaker 2: to achieve.
Speaker 1: One part is called the Housing Australia Future Fund, and
Speaker 1: it's worth ten billion dollars. It was passed into legislation
Speaker 1: at the end of last year. The goal there is
Speaker 1: to build twenty thousand new social homes and ten thousand
Speaker 1: new affordable homes across the country over five years. There's
Speaker 1: also a three billion dollar new home bonus, which funnels
Speaker 1: funding to states and territories that build more than their
Speaker 1: share of the government's one point two million new home goal. Plus,
Speaker 1: there are five hundred million dollar grants available to connect
Speaker 1: essential services to new housing developments, but The Australian's reporting
Speaker 1: shows a good chunk of those funds are tied up
Speaker 1: in bureaucracy, and that means the government is likely to
Speaker 1: fall short of its lofty housing goals. On the flip side,
Speaker 1: the Coalition says it will use a five billion dollar
Speaker 1: user it or Lose It infrastructure fund to build five
Speaker 1: hundred thousand new homes around the country. The cash would
Speaker 1: be granted to local councils and state and territory owned
Speaker 1: providers to build infrastructure like water, power, sewerage and access roads,
Speaker 1: but rescind it if the work doesn't make progress after
Speaker 1: twelve months, and if it wins the next election. The
Speaker 1: Opposition has promised to freeze changes to the National Construction
Speaker 1: Code for a decade to protect families from red tape
Speaker 1: and the growing costs of evolving energy efficiency standards.
Speaker 3: The other really big issues I think for both sides
Speaker 3: is getting those migration settings right, because a lot of
Speaker 3: migrants are filling jobs that Australians don't want to do
Speaker 3: and where we have shortages. And then on the flip
Speaker 3: side of that, the construction sector is suffering crippling skilled
Speaker 3: shortages as well, and costs for supplies that are a
Speaker 3: really high light and there's big delays on projects because
Speaker 3: you can't get trades people in and things are blowing out.
Speaker 3: And I think demand is one issue, but I do
Speaker 3: think we need to have enough houses and I think
Speaker 3: people need to be realistic about where they want to live,
Speaker 3: and so many people, including migrants, want to live in
Speaker 3: the cities, and I don't see either side really coming
Speaker 3: up with a clear solution on that at this point.
Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. You can
Speaker 1: read all his reporting on Australia's housing crisis right now
Speaker 1: at The Australian dot com dot au