A new satirical troupe of cookie-cut commentators is born at The Guardian.
The Useful Idiots write comedy daily at the former factual organ turned joke manual. Rumour has it that a live show is in the pipeline, thought to be a cabaret styled somewhere between the Three Amigos and RUPaul.
The giggling cavalcade is led off by Peter Lewis:
Weaponising housing has stark consequences. But progressives have the chance to lead a national risk mitigation effort based in genuine systemic reform
Of all the problems the Albanese government faces as it enters its second year, housing looms as the most wicked: both devilishly complex and capable of unleashing the nation’s darker angels.
The opposition leader, Peter Dutton, seemingly flagged in his budget-in-reply that he intends to exploit the systems failure that is our housing market to drive an immigration panic, just as Australia reopens its labour market in earnest after the pandemic pause.
Jingle, jangle. What is this exciting “progressive systemic reform” to prevent an “immigration panic”?
The Useful Idiots have the answer. Second in line is the aptly named Paul Karp:
At its core, Lowe’s diagnosis of skyrocketing rents was simple: “It’s a supply problem.”
That’s why it’s so disappointing to see that Labor and the Greens are still stuck in their standoff over the $10bn housing Australia future fund bill.
Max Chandler-Mather, the housing spokesperson for the Greens, enjoyed a good few months campaigning against the future fund model, with edgy rhetoric likening it to “gambling on the stock market”.
It’s long past time for the government to take this argument away from him by making basic concessions. In Senate estimates last week the future fund managers said it was reasonable to expect annual payouts of $500m. Great. If the government is confident, it can guarantee that amount as a floor, not a ceiling.
…Why not just increase the $10bn fund to $15bn, and payouts from $500m to $750m? That way the Greens can say they got more for housing and Labor can say the investment model is unchanged.
The HAFF’s target is to build 30k new social homes over five years. But it won’t deliver that many. The budget per new home is $83k. Are they cardboard boxes?
This 30k of new homes is to house immigration-driven population growth of 2.2m people.
That is, we must build a new Brisbane every five years or supply get will even more tight.
We could double, triple, or quadruple the HAFF and it would make no difference. Private dwelling approvals at 11-year lows. Mortgages for new builds are at the lowest on record. Developers are dropping like flies.
Running extreme immigration into this situation means an ever-growing housing deficit is certain.
And that is the point. This is not a bug in the system. It is a feature of it. It is designed to put permanent upwards pressure on rents and house prices to benefit vested interests such as landlord politicians, banks, land-banking developers, and retailers.
The Useful Idiots are their dancing monkeys.
