The socialist left are not exactly renowned for their original thinking, nor for learning from history. So, with Jacinda Ardern’s Kiwibuild a dismal failure, Anthony Albanese says, “Hold my shandy!”
Look anywhere in Australia and you’ll see a housing market under intense pressure.
It makes the federal government’s goal of a million homes under a new Housing Accord sound like welcome relief.
“Welcome relief” would be not importing nearly a quarter of a million foreigners who are all going to compete for the already-scarce housing, driving up prices and cutting availability even further.
But I digress.
Ardern only promised 100,000 new houses in ten years. Albo’s, let’s call it “KoalaBuild”, is going ten times bigger and better: one million new houses.
Sort of. Eventually. Maybe.
Even the budget documents call the 1 million dwellings an “aspirational” target, with the federal government itself only locked in for an extra 10,000 homes (and it won’t start until mid-2024).
They’ll spend $350 million over five years to do that, with the states and territories on the hook to support up to 10,000 more — that takes us to 20,000 under the deal.
So… $350m to build 10,000 houses. Now, I know Treasurer Jim “Zippy” Chalmers ain’t no economist (he’s a Poli Sci grad), in fact, neither is anyone with a financial portfolio in the Albanese government, and neither am I. I can still count, though.
$35,000 per dwelling. Does this sound even remotely feasible to anyone? It’s roughly 1/10 of the average build cost in Australia.
Show me a government that can do something 90% cheaper than anyone else and I’ll show you my magic dragon.
Because they’re not talking about kerosene-tin shacks in the back o’ Bourke.
We know the homes under the accord will have to be new, have at least 7-star energy efficiency and be “well located” — that’s near shops, transport, schools and other key infrastructure.
And where is the money coming from? Working people’s retirement savings.
Ok, so how could we get to 1 million homes?
That’s where private-sector stakeholders come in, mainly superannuation funds looking for investments, that would build other homes.
So, when the whole scheme goes tits-up, just like Kiwibuild, it’s retirement-age working people who are going to carry the can.
But the five-year rollout clock doesn’t start ticking until mid-2024, so why are we waiting almost two years to start it?
ABC Australia
So the Zippy’n’Albo show can roll out a few display homes right before the next election, cut a few ribbons, and try and pretend they’re “getting on with the job”.
And by the time it’s obvious to even an ABC viewer that the whole scheme is a disastrous failure, the clowns responsible will be out of office and sitting on their nice, fat pensions in their harbourside mansions and renovated inner-city terraces. Just as Julia Gillard isn’t around to be held accountable for the money-eating monster that is her NDIS.
Tell me this isn’t a Labor government operation.
