Bartlett's Blog

Paul Syvret is one of the regular writers for the Courier-Mail. When he’s not writing pieces about politics and the economy – usually in a manner which tries to make economic news intelligible – he writes general opinion pieces. Maybe it’s the opportunity to sound off about something other than economics and politics, but from time to time he really lets fly. What is interesting is not that ...

A conference was held in Brisbane this week on the topic of Ending Homelessness.  I was part of a panel exploring migrants' interaction with homeless services. One of the main speeches was by Nan Roman, who is the CEO of the National Alliance to End Homelessness in the USA. I had the chance to interview Nan Roman today on my regular weekly radio shift.  I also spent last weekend ...

All of the attention on this weekend’s COAG meeting between federal and state governments has focused on funding agreements for health and education. The equally important area of housing seems to have fallen off the public radar.  Click here to read a piece I’ve written at Crikey on this matter.

There is certainly a very determined attempt being made around the globe by some of the more ideologically motivated commentators to create a mythology that the genesis of the financial crisis in the USA is somehow due to government measures promoting affordable housing for lower income earners (read: minority groups). The Australian has carried another article trying to make this link, this time by the Director of the Adam ...

The economic ramifications of the further fall in house prices in many parts of Australia are being widely debated. Hopefully, it will not cause any let-up in the pressure for further action to address the continuing crisis in housing affordability. Apart from anything else, these house price falls are unlikely to provide much relief for those in the private rental market, which is where the worst price pressures ...

I've written a few earlier posts about the Senate Inquiry into Housing Affordability that was set up earlier this year. The Committee brought down its report yesterday – you can access it by clicking here. Whilst both I and the Greens' Senator Rachel Siewert added some additional comments, the report has 32 recommendations which had the unanimous support of Liberal and Labor Senators. I think it's a very good ...

I was in Karratha, Western Australia today with the Senate Committee inquiring into housing affordability. I hadn't been to this town before, although I have previously been to Port Hedland, which is 'just up the road' (about 240 kilometres)

I’ve been at public hearings over the last three days for the Senate Committee inquiry into Housing Affordability. I won’t give running commentaries on all the evidence presented here. Anyone wanting to engage in some online discussion on some policy specifics might want to visit Possum Pollytics, which has a few posts on the topic. One of those pointed to a recent easy to read and fairly short speech on ...

Public hearings for the Senate Inquiry into housing affordability got underway in Canberra today. The Inquiry is due to report by June 16.  The first day of hearings included evidence from people such as the newly expanded Housing section in the Department of Families, the Master Builders' Association, the Planning Institute, the Urban Development Institute, Housing Industry Association, NATSEM, and Treasury. Submissions and the transcripts of hearings can be ...

The federal Parliament is now on a seven week break, and doesn’t sit again until May 13th, the day the Rudd government brings down its first Budget. In the case of the Senate, this will be just the eleventh sitting day for the year. However, there is a lot of work in the Senate that happens outside of sitting days, not least through Senate Committee inquiries. After spending most ...

In the midst of our nation's worst housing affordability crisis on record, the front page story on Saturday's Courier-Mail newspaper manages to make rocketing house prices into a good news story. The story contains a range of phrases portraying price hikes as positives – such as "solid gains", "healthy price growth", Brisbane "leading the way .. with consistent price growth" and "suburbs within 10km of the city performing especially well" ...

Today I’m releasing a package of measures aimed at the housing affordability crisis. It’s an issue I’ve been pushing on for years, and whilst it has finally started to get some political traction at federal level in recent months (mainly because the crisis has got so bad it can no longer be ignored, even by the federal government), there has been surprisingly little focus on it in the ...

I’ve been travelling for the last few days, visiting Mackay and Rockhampton in Central Queensland. Trying to cover the whole state of Queensland is a tall ask, but I try to squeeze in meetings with as many groups and people as possible when I do visit a place. The biggest issue on these visits has been housing affordability and availability. This is atrociously bad in this region, ...

Housing affordability is so bad, even Peter Costello is now having to give the impression that he might do something about it – announcing the Commonwealth “would conduct an audit of commonwealth-owned land to determine areas that could be released for new housing to ease the affordability crisis.” So during all those years the federal govenrment was beating up on the states for not releasing enough land, they never ...

There are signs federal Labor might be prepared to engage on the crucial, but politically tricky issue of housing affordability in the lead up to the election. Reports today say they are “considering introducing a superannuation-style savings account to help Australians buy their first home”

There has been another flurry of stories this week about the continuing deterioration in housing affordability. Ron Silberberg from the Housing Industry Association said “this is a national crisis that requires a national response if a whole generation is not to be shut out of home ownership.” I’ve been calling for this repeatedly for years, as have many others from across the spectrum who work in the ...

All the Budget handouts in the world will not help address one the key causes of growing inequality, poverty and disadvantage in Australia, which is the crisis in housing affordability. Indeed, initiatives relating directly to housing are not very common in recent Budgets. However, reports have suggested that this year may see some new housing specific spending in the area of Indigenous housing. This has ...

As noted in this comment from a reader, I had another go at pushing the issue of housing affordability in the Senate last week. This time I put up the following motion in what is known as a matter of urgency debate: The need for a national affordable housing strategy to be developed, involving all levels of government and all political parties, to address the serious and ongoing crisis ...

Following on from my previous post, there were some stories in the weekend papers about the housing affordability crisis – such as this one in The Courier Mail saying "housing affordability in southeast Queensland could be squeezed to crushing point", and this in The Australian saying "Sydney and the boom states of Queensland and West Australia facing crippling house and land shortages that could make it impossible for ...

I normally use this blog for my own views rather than other people's. However, occcasionally I feel that I've already said something many times before, and then I see someone else express the same concerns and think 'stuff it, no one gave a toss when I've been saying this, but maybe this person is saying it better'. In that spirit, following are some views from David Imber from ...