u/americafreedom666

The place where the IDF shoots children for target practice? Or the place where Israeli settlers steal land from and commit other heinous crimes against the Indigenous people?

Well they grandfathered it for all landlords so the effect is almost nothing.

Larissa Waters passed everything Labor wanted the Greens to pass. If that's not enough for you, why pretend you want the greens to exist?

If the Greens support everything that Labor asks for, however bad or useless then there is no point to them existing as a party. Be intellectually honest and admit that you just want a Labor majority government

Well now you do

It's his portfolio

👁️ Surveillance State: I voted Vote Yea.

It's perfectly fine to not want to buy a house if you have money and can sustain your lifestyle. Buy when you know you want to stay somewhere for at least a decade

Why do we bake in 30% profit margins for developers as though it's necessary? It's insane that governments keep on subsidising an industry that has failed to supply housing instead of just buildimg themselves

It was subsidised by taxpayers

Totally agree but you won't be able to withstand the pushback from the banks and real estate lobby if you don't directly improve people's material conditions while construction is underway.

It will be very capital intensive initially and take a few years to bring largescale public housing construction capacity back online and if rents are increasing markedly then the people who were promised their lives would get better will grow impatient and you'll get kicked out. That's why rent controls are essential

Its a circuit breaker because it stops the worst of the rent increases and slows down the decline in living standards immediately.

Then you address the underlying cause which is the privatisation of housing in this country. Reduce incentives for property speculation and directly build public housing again. It's the only thing that has ever worked

That's the medium term solution but rent controls are good as a circuit breaker

True. This policy would only help workers who want to live in a house or apartment.

That's only a tiny proportion of Australian workers

Easy fix, make it apply to the house and build enough public homes

You are terrible at negotiating if you think you agree to a deal the first time the other side makes any concessions.

Why won't you answer my question? Do you actually want the housing crisis to get better?

You're so obtuse it's ridiculous. Yes, Pocock and Lambie rolled over once Labor conceded on that point but the Greens made thr point first. All I'm saying is that Labor introduced a bill, claimed it was perfect and then repeatedly made it less shit when the Greens (and for a small amount of time the crossbenchers) negotiated for more.

Do you actually want to fix the housing problem or do you just want to pretend Labor is perfect? Sometimes it really seems like loyalty to the Labor political party is the enemy of the good

Labor announced a haff that did not guarantee a cent for housing. They went around saying it was the only policy needed and should be passed immediately with no amendments

The greens pointed out that the haff might not provide any homes at all and even in the best case scenario there will be more homeless people and more housing stress than there is today (i.e. the HAFF wasn't even enough to stop things getting even worse)

Labor caved by changing the proposal so that the HAFF has to spend $500m a year as a minimum, not a cap

Greens continued to negotiate for enough funding to stop the housing crisis getting worse

Then during negotiations Labor announced funding for things the greens were asking for. This is after Labor said no additional funding was needed. They did this twice, first $1bn then $2bn

Albanese met with the Greens directly before announcing the final $2bn

The greens then agreed to pass the haff even though it was not enough to stop things getting worse.

You can pretend that Labor did all that on their own, but I don't think most people would buy it

Why didn't Labor agree to provide extra funding for housing then? They could have done that from day one of negotiations if they had wanted to

The Greens were asking for enough housing to be built to stop the housing crisis getting worse

Congratulations on making a scenario up in your head and getting mad at it

Labor supporters acknowledging the Gillard government's achievements challenge (impossible)

Mate do you want the inner city to just be for the rich and all the poor people to be sent out to the west? We should build enough public homes in all parts of Sydney and improve transport in the west

Yeah but in this case you have enough for 16 people but you've only invited 15

Mate net debt to gdp is around 18.8%

No serious economist would call that a problem, let alone horrifying.

Investment in education generates a return for the government through increased productivity. It's a virtuous cycle. Cutting education funding would actually put the budget in a worse position in the medium term because we would have increased skills shortages and lower economic growth

Having said that, if you want to run a surplus then taxing foreign multinational companies who currently get our resources for free would be a good way to start budget repair

I am happy to pay for others to get an education because an educated society is more prosperous which benefits the economy, without getting into the social benefits.

There are plenty of sources of income to pay for education including a tax on currently royalty free gas exports. Let the hugely profitable overseas gas corporations pay their fair share so Australians can get the best quality education in the world

Housing supply has outstripped immigration for the last 5 years. The problem is that housing is treated as an investment vehicle and not a right for all australians. Reducing immigration can't fix that problem. All it will do is slow down economic growth further