Foreign investors who snap up Australian homes to face higher taxes

Fees for foreign investors who leave properties vacant will double and taxes will triple for those who buy existing houses

Foreign investors in Australia will face higher fees and steeper penalties for buying existing homes and leaving them empty as the government aims to address housing affordability.

The federal government on Sunday announced new rules tripling taxes for foreigners who buy existing houses in Australia and a doubling in fees for those who leave dwellings vacant.

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Covid lockdowns had ‘catastrophic effect’ on UK’s social fabric, report claims

Research by centre-right thinktank says gap between the mainstream and poorest in society is widening

Covid lockdowns had a “catastrophic effect” on the UK’s social fabric and the most disadvantaged are no better off now than at the time of the financial crash, a new report claims.

The country is in danger of sliding back into the divisions of the Victorian era, marked by a widening gap between the mainstream and the poorest in society, according to an inquiry by the centre-right thinktank the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ).

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Australia news live: Daniel Andrews fires up over ‘Dictator Dan’ moniker; festival-goers warned about heatwave conditions

Former Victorian premier gives first interview after resignation, saying ‘the haters hate and the rest vote Labor’. Follow the day’s news live

James Ashby to stand for One Nation in Queensland seat

James Ashby, the chief of staff to One Nation leader Pauline Hanson, will stand for the party in the seat of Keppel at next year’s Queensland state election, AAP reports.

The Nationals are dead in Queensland’s parliament while the Liberals are lurching further left in their attempts to secure inner-Brisbane seats.

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Vacant property taxes, levies and caps on the table as NSW Labor reviews Airbnbs and short-term rentals

Exclusive: Minns government to place every aspect of housing ‘under the microscope’ as it confronts rental crisis

Vacant property taxes, levies and annual caps will be considered when the New South Wales government reviews regulation of short-term rentals including Airbnbs over the next six months.

The housing minister, Rose Jackson, who will lead the review, hoped to find ways to move some holiday rentals and unoccupied properties on to the longer-term rental market as the Minns government confronts the state’s chronic housing crisis.

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Thousands of refugees in England and Wales ‘face homeless Christmas’

Government push to clear asylum backlog is not giving people granted refugee status enough time to find new home, say councils

Tens of thousands of refugees are at risk of sleeping rough this Christmas after a Home Office drive to hit Rishi Sunak’s asylum case target, the umbrella body for local councils has said.

The Local Government Association said councils across England and Wales were facing a “perfect storm” as the government worked to clear 92,327 asylum cases by the end of the year.

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Victorian government strikes deal with Greens to pass vacant homes tax reforms

Legislation to expand taxes on vacant Victorian homes and undeveloped land set to pass parliament

A deal to strengthen taxes on empty homes has been struck between the Victorian government and the Greens.

An upper house vote on changes to Victoria’s vacant residential land tax was put on ice earlier this month when the Greens and the Coalition refused to back the legislation.

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‘De facto wages cap by stealth’: NSW Greens seek to change Labor’s workplace bill

New law would restore sweeping powers to the Industrial Relations Commission, including giving it the ability to act like a court

The New South Wales government has been accused of imposing a “de facto wages cap by stealth” as it seeks to rush through industrial relations legislation during parliament’s final sitting week of the year.

Labor’s plan would restore sweeping powers to the Industrial Relations Commission, including the ability to act like a court, which the former Coalition government removed in 2011.

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Man found dead after statewide search – as it happened

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Hostage release essential if truce to last, Paterson says

Rewinding to Liberal MP James Paterson’s appearance on RN Breakfast this morning, wheN he said more needs to be done to free the hostages Hamas is holding in Gaza.

We don’t know how many of them are still alive, and their continued release would be essential for any continuing ceasefire because otherwise Israel continues to have a legitimate military objective.

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Housing prices back at record levels, defying Australia’s interest rate rises

The 7.5% drop from the April 2022 peak has been recovered, but some cities are faring better than others, CoreLogic analysts say

Australian home prices are back at record levels, recovering all of the 7.5% dip from their previous peak in April 2022, according to the data group CoreLogic.

As of Wednesday, Corelogic’s home value index had climbed 8.1% higher than the recent nadir reached at the end of January this year, defying five additional interest rate rises by the Reserve Bank since then.

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Five things that could help fix Britain’s private rented sector

From building more homes to giving private renters a legal right to buy after longer tenancies

Demand far outstrips supply in private rented housing. More housing of any tenure should reduce excess demand, and with it rents. It could also increase competition among landlords, meaning higher standards, and restore the possibility that young renters could eventually afford to buy.

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Australia news live: school strike for climate protests draw huge crowds in Melbourne and Sydney; Albanese says Apec leaders ‘very interested’ in Tuvalu deal

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‘A ceasefire is where we need to get to,’ Zoe Daniel says

Asked by RN Breakfast host Patricia Karvelas if she supports calls for a ceasefire, Zoe Daniel says:

If you call for a ceasefire, you’re letting down the Jewish community, if you don’t you’re allowing death and destruction to happen in Gaza.

At the end of the day, if I say to you right now, yes, I support ceasefire, that will make zero difference to what is happening in in Gaza.

I’m a former foreign correspondent. I know the logistics of this, of course, a ceasefire is where we need to get to, but you have a terrorist organisation in the middle of this. If there’s just a ceasefire, and there’s no capacity there to try to dismantle Hamas, does that allow Hamas to regroup? What does that actually lead to? That said, I’ve said to you before, very clearly, and I still stick to the position that the Israeli government has to adhere to international law and the rules of war, and I think, in some ways, has not been.

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Average UK house sale price suffers first annual fall for 11 years

ONS says average price dropped 0.1% year on year in September, with those in London decreasing 1.1%

The average price of a home in the UK dropped by 0.1% in the year to September, official figures show – the first annual fall for more than a decade.

The Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, which are based on completed sales, have shown annual price inflation slowing since July 2022, when the headline rate stood at 13.8%.

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Barton House: what happened and what is Bristol council doing about it?

After the building was evacuated, leaving hundreds temporarily homeless, we look at what happens next for residents and the council

What has happened at Barton House tower block in Bristol?

Barton House, a 65-year-old 15-storey tower block, was built in the late 1950s using reinforced concrete cross walls, pre-cast concrete floors and reinforced concrete external walls.

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David Cameron returns; Victoria Atkins promoted to health secretary; Suella Braverman and Thérèse Coffey out – UK reshuffle live

Former PM will take seat in House of Lords; former Treasury minister moves to health; Braverman replaced as home secretary by James Cleverly

ITV’s Paul Brand says he has had a text with the word “Rejoice” from a Tory MP celebrating the sacking of Suella Braverman.

James Cleverly, the foreign secretary, has been seen going into No 10, PA Media reports.

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Renters on jobseeker need at least 78% of income for one-bedroom apartment in capital cities, report finds

Index reveals rental affordability has plunged over year with situation particularly difficult in Sydney

Rental affordability has plunged in the past year with low-income Australians now completely priced out of living alone, a new report has revealed.

The ninth annual National Shelter-SGS Economics and Planning Rental Affordability Index has found affordability has worsened in the past year in every capital city except Hobart and Canberra.

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Optus confirms ‘network event’ behind outage – as it happened

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Rowland: ‘consumers were clearly frustrated with lack of information’ over outage

Rowland says the key issue of the Optus outage was “getting some more understanding of the nature of the problem”. She tells ABC TV:

I made it clear from the outset that consumers were clearly frustrated with the lack of information. Australians are reasonable people. They understand that things need to be resolved and that may take some time, but the key issue here was getting some understanding of the nature of the problem, how long it may take and what the impacts would be.

And I think it goes to the issue of how reliant we are on our digital devices and connectivity overall, including for consuming messages and news media. And, in this case, the broadcasting platforms were there to be utilised and I did encourage Optus to do that as well.

It’s important, I believe, to have a post-incident review that is both thorough in scope but also is completed expeditiously and goes to the precise issues of what has caused this, considering the considerable amount of disruption, the distress it has caused, but also the economic impact as well. And to understand what [can] be done in future by the sector as a whole to take the lesson and mitigate that going forward.

So this is important, because Australians expect that there will be follow-up, that there will be lessons learned. But, importantly for the sector as a whole, it’s important to understand how this can be certainly avoided in future.

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Greens threaten Brisbane landlords with huge rates rises if they increase rents

Greens unveil policy designed to freeze rents at January 2023 levels in battle for Brisbane city council

The Greens say they would introduce an effective rent freeze across Brisbane by enacting massive land rates increases for any property investors who increase the rent.

The announcement on Monday will be a centrepiece of the Greens’ campaign for the Brisbane city council, a city where nearly four in 10 homes are occupied by renters.

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Australia news live: treasurer denies he is interfering with RBA decisions ahead of tipped interest rate rise

RBA has left cash rate on hold for four months while warning it might need to keep pushing up interest rates if still-high inflation does not fall. Follow the day’s news updates live

Treasurer Jim Chalmers says the prime minister’s official visit to China is not without challenges but is critical to a “prosperous relationship” between the two countries.

It’s the first official visit by a prime minister into China since 2016 and I think it recognises that this - a stable relationship - is in the interests of both countries. Now, we are clear-eyed about the complexities and the challenges of managing this relationship. But we give ourselves the best chance of prospering together if we engage with one another.

And we’ve already seen some of the fruits of that effort - something like 95% of the trade restrictions by dollar value have been lifted. That’s good for our businesses, our exporters, and our workers. And that’s why it’s so important that this engagement has been happening for some time and why it’s so important that this official visit is taking place this week.

I think this is a sort of rapprochement based on realism. As [Katharine Murphy] was saying earlier, from China’s point of view, they haven’t changed their long-term strategic or economic goals. And neither have we changed our strategic allegiances. But it suits both sides for lots of reasons to get the trade relationship flowing again, to get the economic relationship flowing again, and to be talking again. And that’s what this visit is going to achieve.

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Labour promises rapid housing action after ‘years of Tory paper promises’

Angela Rayner says party’s housing recovery plan will enact reforms delayed by Tories since 2019 manifesto commitments

Labour will deliver more action on housing in the first six months of office than the Conservatives have delivered in the past six years, Angela Rayner has pledged.

Downing Street has confirmed the renters reform bill will be in the king’s speech, allowing it to continue its passage through parliament when the next session opens on Tuesday.

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Fury as Braverman depicts homelessness as a ‘lifestyle choice’

Senior Conservative says home secretary should not discuss complex issue in such terms and advised her to use ‘wiser’ language

Suella Braverman has been rebuked by a senior Tory campaigner on homelessness after the home secretary provoked outrage by describing rough sleeping as a “lifestyle choice.”

Bob Blackman MP, head of the all-party parliamentary group for ending homelessness, said Braverman was wrong to discuss a complex and serious issue in such terms and advised her to use “wiser” language.

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