Keywords: Housing Affordability
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ECONOMICS
- Kate Galloway
- 28 April 2016
14 Comments
Historically, having a largely home-owning population has ensured both the social benefit of housing, and an economic benefit through enforced saving with long-term growth. In contrast, the negative gearing push splits the cultural and economic meaning of home ownership, because it focuses on investment. Negative gearing promotes property ownership but not home ownership. Thus the social benefits of home ownership that we have come to expect give way to bare economic indicators.
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ARTS AND CULTURE
- Kristin Natalier
- 27 April 2016
4 Comments
The federal government's new ad aims to 'stop violence from the start'. It sends a strong message that violence is never acceptable. But it firmly positions domestic violence as a problem of individual attitudes of perpetrators, not the social and economic vulnerability of victims. Envisaging an end of domestic violence achieved through 'starting conversations about respect with boys and girls' sidesteps the need for the material resources necessary to stop violence when it happens.
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AUSTRALIA
- Fatima Measham
- 18 April 2016
10 Comments
People are sensitised to government-enabled corporate excess and doubt elected officials are capable and willing to serve their interests. The lesson from the 2014 federal budget is that there are non-negotiables around the function of government: to provide the conditions that ensure the flourishing of all citizens. Yet in terms of future-proofing living standards, the Coalition has so far presided over an ideas bust rather than boom, unless boom is the sound of something spontaneously combusting.
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AUSTRALIA
The Budget does not signal an end to the 'age of entitlement', as there are still plenty of beneficiaries of government expenditure or foregone revenue. You don't need to be an economist to see that collectively the Budget measures will impact negatively on the income levels of the poor and disadvantaged. The discussion now must be who will pick up the pieces left behind by Government in developing a system with obvious gaps.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Falzon
- 27 March 2014
16 Comments
I reject the dystopian vision of an Australia where people experiencing poverty are made to endure expenditure cuts while the people who have the least need for assistance enjoy overly generous tax concessions. From time to time someone comes out of the woodwork and accuses me of being a communist but that's the least of my worries. What worries me is the myth that people living in poverty are to blame for their own situation.
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ECONOMICS
- David James
- 06 September 2013
4 Comments
Two of the most important issues to have been given scant attention in the election campaign are ageing and property. Even less noticed is the inter-relationship between the two. The effect of ageing on property prices will be arguably the most important financial challenge facing Australian governments over the coming decades.
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AUSTRALIA
Labor is struggling with a $12 billion write down in anticipated revenue for 2012-13 after Treasury bungled the forecasts. It could cut back on government assistance to those who can fend for themselves. But it has chosen to penalise the poor, with those on the parenting payment being switched to the lower Newstart.
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AUSTRALIA
Far from being demonised, people living rough on the streets should be respected and admired for their tenacity and inventiveness. This week a group of business and community leaders will seek to learn from the people who live in the guts of our greatest social problem.
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AUSTRALIA
- Frank Quinlan
- 12 May 2010
23 Comments
If a 'fiscally responsible Budget' can increase spending on Australia's representatives in elite sports by $237 million, it is hard to imagine that there is not room somewhere for our unemployed to eat a little better.
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AUSTRALIA
It is not just Joe and Jo Suburbia that have a lot riding on real
estate. Taking the heat out of house price
inflation is extremely difficult, because the whole system is based on
the expansion of credit and consumption that house price inflation
allows.
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AUSTRALIA
- John Warhurst
- 22 August 2007
6 Comments
While this election is still there to be won or lost, Labor is rightfully the hot favourite. But changes of government are rare in Australian politics, and there are four reasons why Labor might still lose.
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INTERNATIONAL
- Ben Fraser
- 08 August 2007
More than 300,000 Jakarta residents were displaced following the floods in January. Preparedness for the next flood is compromised by the river dwellers' unlawful status, and the government’s desire to clear these slum areas from the riverbank.
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