Here we go again. A new federal inquiry into ‘housing supply problems’ will be launched by the Morrison Government to examine the contribution of property taxes and restrictive planning and zoning regulations [my emphasis]
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has approved a parliamentary committee inquiry into housing supply to be led by Liberal MP Jason Falinski, chairman of the House standing committee on tax and revenue…
Mr Falinksi said it was too easy to blame negative gearing and low interest rates for rising house prices when a lack of supply caused by over-regulation was the fundamental problem…
“In my view, this represents an urgent moral call for action by governments of all levels to restore the Australian dream for this generation and the ones that follow,” Mr Falinski said…
Restrictive regulations were a leading reason for the supply of new housing failing to keep pace with demand from high population growth and strong immigration levels before the pandemic…
Clearly, this inquiry is being driven by the Coalition’s property developer mates.
Any housing shortage pre-COVID was unambiguously caused by the federal government throwing open the immigration floodgates in 2005:
Australia’s immigration intake accelerated after 2005.
Australia’s net overseas migration (NOM) jumped from an average of 89,000 between 1991 and 2004 to an average of 215,000 between 2005 and 2020 – an annual average increase in immigration of 140%.
But now that immigration has collapsed, Australia’s ‘housing shortage’ has miraculously disappeared:
Big dwelling oversupply in the pipeline.
Thus, the first best solution to Australia’s housing supply problem is not to return immigration back to its pre-COVID turbo-charged level.
Regardless, Australia’s developers are sitting on a mountain of zoned residential land, totaling a decade-plus of supply:
Developers are sitting on masses of zoned land.
Therefore, it is hard to take the government’s supply claims seriously in light of the above evidence.
Sadly, our political leaders don’t care about these truths. After stimulating the construction of thousands of extra homes through HomeBuilder, the federal government has already stated that it will return to importing hundreds of thousands of migrants to fill them as soon as the pandemic subsides. This is how Australia’s Ponzi economy works, after all.
Australia is the housing equivalent of a narco state. And our governments dance to the tune of their property lobby paymasters.
