Speaker 1: From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christian Amiot.
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, laundry similar to
Speaker 1: what I've got now a lot more stuff in it.
Speaker 1: This is me at one of the dozens of property
Speaker 1: inspections I've embarked upon over the last year. Yeah, a
Speaker 1: study nook, Okay, you could make into my office. I
Speaker 1: remember this apartment distinctly, one bedroom with a study nook
Speaker 1: and no parking, lots of.
Speaker 2: Storage in here.
Speaker 1: They've got a dress well.
Speaker 2: And then opens on to a really big backming.
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 3: It is amazing. These opportunities are hard to find. So
Speaker 3: 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 it 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 just like me.
Speaker 3: Hammer goes up, all silent, all done, 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 approvals 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 2: In July and August, Amplify conducted polling of four thousand
Speaker 2: Australians and that revealed it ninety five percent of people
Speaker 2: rank housing availability and affordability among their top priority issues.
Speaker 1: Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent.
Speaker 2: The polling also showed that trust in politicians and governments
Speaker 2: and the handling of housing policy has never been lower,
Speaker 2: and some of that could probably be linked to the
Speaker 2: COVID pandemic the rise of social media, but the polling
Speaker 2: clearly shows that Australians want to have a proper say
Speaker 2: 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 2: So Anthony Albernezi and Peter Dutton at a federal government
Speaker 2: level are at polar opposites when it comes to housing policy,
Speaker 2: and those spillover areas such as migration, superannuation for housing,
Speaker 2: associated infrastructure and taxes. This issue with housing has been
Speaker 2: a long time coming and it encompasses all three tiers
Speaker 2: of government, local, state and federal. It has never really
Speaker 2: traditionally been the domain of a federal government for the
Speaker 2: Commonwealth to take courage of housing policy, had associated taxes,
Speaker 2: community infrastructure as such. But it has gotten so bad
Speaker 2: at a local government level in particular, and you've got
Speaker 2: different taxes, different approaches to stamp duty, different priorities, different
Speaker 2: first home buyer schemes that have just changed and morphed
Speaker 2: over the years. The other really big issue here and
Speaker 2: particularly in recent years, has been this record surgeon migration,
Speaker 2: and this is where the common Wealth does have a role.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of flip sides when it comes
Speaker 2: to housing now. In terms of a federal response through
Speaker 2: national cabinets such, it hasn't worked both sides, but in
Speaker 2: particular the Albanezi government are putting up these tens of
Speaker 2: billion dollar programs talking about unlocking supply, but there's very
Speaker 2: little evidence or proof that's going to happen anytime soon.
Speaker 2: So big money from all sides of politics, big promises,
Speaker 2: and then this sort of chasm. We're about five or
Speaker 2: six months out from the next federal election and really
Speaker 2: 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 Perrete,
Speaker 1: Tab Corp Chief executive Gillan McLaughlin and Bunning's managing director
Speaker 1: Michael Schneider, among others.
Speaker 2: It's not an aligned think tank or a politically linked group,
Speaker 2: and its purpose and the ambition of it is seeking
Speaker 2: to harness people power and draw on real life experiences
Speaker 2: of normal Australians to feed into policy development that is
Speaker 2: completely separate from the political process. And their idea is
Speaker 2: that they'll have online and in person forums across the
Speaker 2: country over the coming months and that process will culminate
Speaker 2: in February next year when they randomly select a diverse
Speaker 2: group of one hundred Australians to assemble in Sydney for
Speaker 2: the first Amplification event, and that will be solely focused
Speaker 2: on housing. Amplify will provide access to a range of
Speaker 2: independent experts and they'll help punters guide their ideas into
Speaker 2: policy development, and once they get to that endpoint where
Speaker 2: they land on a range of policy platforms, Amplify will
Speaker 2: then make those representations and publicly promote what Australians, normal
Speaker 2: Australians want and believe that the government should be doing
Speaker 2: 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 2: It is, but quite often you can maximize your effect
Speaker 2: if you're unveiling, announcing, launching, agitating in policy areas right
Speaker 2: in the thrust of a campaign. It's not to say
Speaker 2: that an incoming government or a a political party who
Speaker 2: is interested in some of the ideas that are developed
Speaker 2: won't pick those up, maybe look at those post election,
Speaker 2: or potentially feed them into policies of their own that
Speaker 2: might align with what this process provides, and that all
Speaker 2: tiers of government and all politicians from every party will
Speaker 2: be able to very clearly see what the people are
Speaker 2: thinking 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 Albanesi 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 3: This is a fantastic project, so close to amenity, so
Speaker 3: close to facilities.
Speaker 1: It's an example of what we want to achieve. One
Speaker 1: part is called the Housing Australia Future Fund and it's
Speaker 1: worth ten billion dollars. It was passed into legislation at
Speaker 1: the end of last year. The goal there is to
Speaker 1: build twenty thousand new social homes and ten thousand new
Speaker 1: affordable homes across the country over five years. There's also
Speaker 1: a three billion dollar new home bonus, which funnels funding
Speaker 1: to states and territories that build more than their share
Speaker 1: 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 or Lose it infrastructure fund to build five hundred
Speaker 1: thousand new homes around the country. The cash would be
Speaker 1: granted to local councils and state and territory owned providers
Speaker 1: 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 2: The other really big issues I think for both sides
Speaker 2: is getting those migration settings right, because a lot of
Speaker 2: migrants are filling jobs that Australians don't want to do
Speaker 2: and where we have shortages. And then on the flip
Speaker 2: side of that, the construction sector is suffering crippling skilled
Speaker 2: shortages as well, and costs for supplies that are a
Speaker 2: really high left and there's big delays on projects because
Speaker 2: you can't get trades people in and things are blowing out.
Speaker 2: And I think demand is one issue, but I do
Speaker 2: think we need to have enough houses and I think
Speaker 2: people need to be realistic about where they want to live,
Speaker 2: and so many people, including migrants, want to live in
Speaker 2: the cities and I don't see either side really coming
Speaker 2: 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