Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Melbourne faces a stark choice – liveability or alienation
Duncan Fine The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)I’m no architect. But neither was Winston Churchill who famously said, “we shape our buildings and afterwards our buildings shape us”. Architecture, unlike, say, painting or theatre, is unique; it’s the art form that every person has to walk through and live in every day. ... Ordinary citizens get fobbed off with the usual box-ticking community consultation when there should be deep engagement putting the needs of the community past, present and future equal to the short-term profit motive of developers. Because bad planning affects every part of our lives. It leads directly to greater rates of depression, whilst poor design of new suburbs leads to childhood obesity – no safe place to walk or cycle and no public transport means everyone simply has to drive.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/melbourne-faces-a-stark…
# Australia, Health, Planning and development.What needs to be done to fix the tax system?
Shane Wright and Jennifer Duke The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Some of Australia’s top economists and policy experts are calling for higher taxes on capital gains, the introduction of death duties and a hike in GST as part of a major reform to help the federal budget, strengthen the economy and cut taxes on ordinary workers. ... In the past month, both the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and the International Monetary Fund joined the chorus urging wide-ranging reform of the tax system. ... Ken Henry has a swathe of improvements he wants to see implemented quickly but near the top is a total overhaul of how tax is charged on returns from rent, interest and capital gains. He proposes a dual income tax system, also known as a Nordic tax system or Schedular system, which not only taxes earned income at progressive rates as it does currently but also levies a consistent tax on other earnings. This would help capture lightly taxed property gains and other forms of wealth currently contributing to rising inequality. “I think that there is considerable appetite [for] that now,” he says. ... [Saul Eslake says] “In addition ... our tax system is so riddled with loopholes that many people who should be paying the top tax rate don’t actually pay it,” he says. “And in my view, almost all these loopholes should be cut out.” This includes negative gearing, capital gains tax discounts, franking credits and what he considers to be the excessively generous tax treatment of superannuation assets, all of which can allow the legal minimisation of tax. You might also check Shane Wright's article at: [https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/it-s-time-to-have-another-conversation-about-tax-reform-or-the-goose-is-cooked-20211004-p58x4w.html]
https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/what-needs-to-be-done-to…
# Hot topic Australia, Landlords and agents, Tax.Sydney house rents hit record high and unit prices back on the rise: Domain Rent Report
Kate Burke Domain (No paywall)The cost of renting a house in Sydney has reached new heights, with asking rents increasing by at least $50 a week in three months in some regions, despite the city’s lockdown.
https://www.domain.com.au/news/sydney-house-rents-hit-record-hig…
# NSW, Rent, Housing market.A Place to Call Home
Melissa Fulton (No paywall)When COVID struck last year, more than 40,000 Australians were housed in emergency accommodation. Melissa Fulton asks, where are they now? (The Big Issue)
# Australia, Public and community housing, Coronavirus COVID-19, Homelessness.Housing needs a major reset, free from politics
Alan Kohler The New Daily (No paywall)The places we live in are worth $9.1 trillion, up from $8 trillion five months ago – more than commercial real estate, super and ASX companies combined.
https://thenewdaily.com.au/finance/property/2021/10/11/housing-d…
# Australia, Public and community housing, Federal Government, Home ownership, Housing affordability, Housing market, Landlords and agents, Planning and development, Tax.Mowbray renter struggles to afford winter energy bills without solar
Brinley Duggan (No paywall)The resident of a Mowbray community housing residence provided by the state government says more can be done to help reduce daunting electricity bills. Jean Crawford rents a two-bedroom unit in a complex at Mowbray and said she had been locked in a perpetual cycle of trying to keep herself healthy and abiding by her yearly budgeted cost for electricity. ... Ms Crawford recently overcame an ongoing battle to have rotted insulation in house replaced, and she said the simple energy saving solution had already been noticeable, but the installation of solar panels and subsequent reduction of her electricity bill, for example, would change her life. (The Examiner)
https://www.examiner.com.au/story/7461075/hard-to-buy-food-inves…
# Australia, Public and community housing.China's property sector stalked by Evergrande default fears as developer misses third deadline
ABC (No paywall)Debt-saddled Chinese property firms took heavy fire in bond markets on Tuesday, after the poster child of the sector's woes, Evergrande Group, missed its third round of bond payments in as many weeks and others warned of defaults.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-10-13/china-property-sector-sta…
# International, Housing market, Landlords and agents.Low deposit boost helps first-timers jump on property ladder
John Collett The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)New figures show almost 33,000 first home buyers – about 10 per cent of the category’s demographic – have been helped to get a foot on the property ladder with federal government deposit assistance over the past two years.
https://www.smh.com.au/money/investing/low-deposit-boost-helps-f…
# Australia, Federal Government, Home ownership.