Category Archives: Housing

Australia news live: Tanya Plibersek announces audit of 1,000 environmental offset sites to check if they are delivering on promises

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Treasurer Jim Chalmers wants to maintain strong budget position while rolling out existing policies; federal government cancels satellite program. Follow the day’s news live

The treasurer, Jim Chalmers, denies Australia’s first budget surplus in more than a decade comes at the expense of under-pressure households as the cost of living rises, AAP reports.

Chalmers has confirmed there will be a larger surplus for the 2022/23 financial year than predicted in last month’s federal budget.

By getting the budget in much better nick by finding savings ... it actually makes it possible from that much stronger foundation to provide the $15bn of cost-of-living relief that we had in the budget.

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PMQs: Rishi Sunak faces questions from Keir Starmer over house building targets and mortgage support – UK politics live

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Labour leader presses prime minister to admit his party will not meet promised targets over house building

PMQs is coming up soon.

Here is the list of MPs down to ask a question.

We remain seriously concerned about the potential implications of the illegal migration bill on human rights and the safety of individuals.

Careful consideration should continue to be given to the impact of the bill on different groups with protected characteristics – including children, pregnant women, disabled people, torture survivors, and victims of trafficking.

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Banks stick to rate hike predictions – as it happened

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Historical societies say banning hate symbols could impact history preservation

Historical societies are also concerned about the proposal to ban Nazi and Islamic State symbols, AAP reports. They worry it will limit education and the preservation of history, and impact memorabilia value.

Modellers need to be able to purchase these items (and) symbols, let alone the basic right of Australian citizens to partake in the legitimate hobby of collecting modelling military items.

The words inscribed on the Islamic flag are sacred words and written by Muslims on a daily basis.

These words are taken directly from our scripture, the Holy Quran, and therefore cannot be subject to a ban.

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Inflation retreated in May to 5.6%, easing fears RBA will again raise interest rates

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Consumer price index fell in May from 6.5% in April showing further signs that the worst of inflation may be over

Australia’s monthly inflation rate retreated in May, easing fears the Reserve Bank will hoist its key interest rate again at next Tuesday’s board meeting.

The headline consumer price index increase last month was 5.6%, the lowest since April 2022, the Australian Bureau of Statistics said on Wednesday. Economists had expected the measure to drop from April’s 6.8% level to 6.1%.

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More Australian homeowners offloading properties at a loss as interest rate rises take a toll, new data shows

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Unit owners particularly vulnerable as profitable national housing sales sank to 92.3% in the three months to March 2023, according to CoreLogic data

Properties sold at a loss increased in the March quarter with almost one in six units offloaded for less than the owner paid, data group CoreLogic said.

As owners eyed the rising cost of servicing their debts, the national proportion of resales with a nominal profit sank to 92.3% in the January-March period, down from 93.2% in the preceding three months and marking the third quarter in a row of declines.

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Could rent controls ease Australia’s housing crisis?

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Advocates say caps or freezes may help reduce pressure on renters but experts warn they are not a simple fix

Renters are bearing the brunt of Australia’s housing crisis, with stories of extortionate rent increases for poor quality homes making headlines all too often.

One solution being flagged by advocates is to control rents, either through freezes or caps on how much landlords can increase the amount.

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PM launches byelection campaign – as it happened

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Birmingham tells RN he is ‘conflicted’ over voice to parliament

Shadow foreign minister, Simon Birmingham, avoids disclosing what he will vote in the voice referendum, dodging ABC RN’s Patricia Karvelas’ questions.

Do you support the voice?

I’ve been clear that I don’t intend to actively campaign in the referendum.

Why aren’t you taking a position? I mean, you’re making it clear that you want it to be private. If it’s private, that means you are actually sitting on the fence.

Patricia, I think you can hear from my answer there, that I am, in some ways conflicted and think this is a very difficult situation the country has been put in, that we have got a question before a proposed change.

We’re getting a situation where the government is not really directly responding to Ukraine’s requests for the Hawkei vehicles, or the Abrams tanks, nor the D mining equipment they’ve asked for.

[The Albanese government’s] contribution in terms of humanitarian assistance is simply $10m compared with the $65m that had been provided previously. So this is a concern …

Status as the leading non-Nato contributor to Ukraine has slipped away and the type of support being offered now doesn’t seem to be either meeting Ukraine’s requests, providing the modern equipment that they want or need, nor the type of scale that would seem to keep Australia commensurate support of our other parts.

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Tyrone Mings describes ‘scary’ experience as he backs Prince William homelessness project

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England footballer recalls childhood emergency housing as royal launches five-year UK scheme

Homeless people are to be helped into permanent accommodation, regardless of their circumstances, as part of a five-year project to be run by Prince William’s foundation and supported by the England footballer Tyrone Mings.

The project, called Homewards, which emulates one run in Finland, will be launched initially in six areas around the UK and is aimed at preventing homelessness where possible and ensuring any incidence is “rare, brief and unrepeated”. The Prince of Wales’s charitable foundation is giving £3m of startup funding to the project.

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Deputy PM says Russia uprising ‘a crack in the edifice’ – as it happened

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O’Neil defends decision to keep Nauru offshore processing open

Home affairs and cyber security minister Clare O’Neil was asked about why the offshore processing site on Nauru is being kept open if the last refugee has been removed on ABC RN this morning.

It is an unmitigated good thing for the country that we’ve transitioned the last asylum seeker off Nauru. This has been a festering sore in Australian politics for more than a decade. And I’m very pleased that our government has taken that approach of making sure that we bring that to a close.

However, it is very important that we maintain our strength on the borders. Offshore processing is a part of our overall approach and that is why Nauru will remain open and on standby.

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Scandal-hit PwC announces new Australian boss – as it happened

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States will ‘do their own things’ on rent caps: Collins

Speers asks for what evidence Collins is referring to. The minister points to research by Graeme Samuel, former boss of the ACCC, which she referred to in parliament this week and again reiterates the talking point:

The overwhelming evidence suggests that it doesn’t work. States and territories will do their own things in terms of this. What we are being asked to do here is have eight different jurisdictions make these decisions at the same time and we have been told very clearly from those jurisdictions that they won’t be doing this. Some states have already ruled out both freezes and caps. What we’ve been asked to do is simply not achievable and we won’t commit to something that is not achievable, David.

When you look at the evidence that has been cited by others, the evidence shows that it reduces supply significantly by up to 15%. The other thing that it shows is the quality of the stock diminishes over time, so I will look at the data and the evidence and the data and the evidence says that it doesn’t work.

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Albanese says Russia should withdraw from Ukraine; Australia sanctions three MH17 culprits – as it happened

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Australian prime minister says ‘it is Russia and its involvement that keeps this war going’. This blog is now closed

Forced property sales on the rise in outer Sydney as interest rate hikes start to bite

My colleagues, Peter Hannam and Nick Evershed have this report on the rise in forced property sales as interest rate rises begin to bite.

Sydney’s outer suburbs are showing signs of rising numbers of distressed property sales with higher interest rates the likely cause, a trend that can be expected to spread to other capitals, according to property data group Domain.

Distressed listings as a share of the national market remain low, at about 2.8% across the capital cities, compared with a record 5.1% in late 2018.

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Forced property sales on the rise in outer Sydney as interest rate hikes start to bite

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Domain data shows distressed listings as a share of the national market remain low but there’s been an uptick in outer suburban pockets

Sydney’s outer suburbs are showing signs of rising numbers of distressed property sales with higher interest rates the likely cause, a trend that can be expected to spread to other capitals, according to property data group Domain.

Distressed listings as a share of the national market remain low, at about 2.8% across the capital cities, compared with a record 5.1% in late 2018.

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Australia news live: NSW premier refutes cover-up allegations over police Tasering of 95-year-old woman

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PwC should not be banned from government work but should face ‘significant sanction’, Dutton says

Following the damning interim Senate report into PwC, Dutton says he does not believe the consultancy firm should be cut from all government work, but says a penalty needs to be incurred for the breach of trust:

I think where people have breached a contract, they’ve breached trust, there’s a penalty and the price that should be paid. I don’t know whether that’s the company or whether there’s a solution that the government can provide to it but there’s there’s a significant sanction that’s that’s required – no doubt the government will be looking into that right now.

All of the pollsters at the moment, and credible commentators, believe that it’s either going to fail in October or, best case scenario for the yes case, that gets up 51-49. And in that scenario, our nation is split down the middle.

I think there’s an opportunity to unite our country here instead of divide, and that is that we should proceed with constitutional recognition.

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Labor under pressure to freeze rents as Greens and Coalition back inquiry into housing crisis

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Greens urged to back government’s fund as advocates say housing is needed now and politicians need to ‘start taking action’

The Senate has set up an inquiry into the rental crisis, a process designed by the Greens to pressure the Albanese government to agree to freeze or cap rising rents.

On Monday the Greens voted with the Coalition to delay consideration of Labor’s $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff) until 16 October, despite pressure from housing groups to pass the bill after the government pledged $2bn of direct funding for social and affordable housing.

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Greens and Coalition unite to refer bill to its own inquiry

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Albanese takes swipes at the Greens

The Midwinter Ball was held overnight. It seems to have been a fairly staid affair but I am still ferreting out info.

Consulting firm PwC engaged in a “calculated” breach of trust by using confidential information to help its clients avoid tax and engaged in a “deliberate cover-up” over many years, a Senate committee has found.

PwC should be “open and honest” by promptly publishing the names and details of its partners and staff involved, the finance and public administration committee has recommended.

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House prices will keep rising into next year, says Domain, as immigration boosts demand

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Sydney to lead recovery with 6%-9% increase by next June while Melbourne, Adelaide, Perth and Brisbane will surpass or come close to record highs

The recovery of real estate prices will extend across Australia and well into 2024 as a swelling population overwhelms the headwinds of higher interest rates and reduced borrowing limits for some prospective buyers, according to data group Domain.

Sydney, which led the fall in home prices last year as the Reserve Bank began lifting its cash rate, will also power the rebound. By the end of June next year, the city’s houses are forecast to be 6% to 9% higher than at the end of last month, lifting the median price to a record of just over $1.6m.

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Who’s unhoused in California? Largest study in decades upends myths

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Most unhoused people are from in state and desire to find housing, while Black and older people are disproportionately affected

Nearly half of all unhoused adults in California are over the age of 50, with Black residents dramatically overrepresented, according to the largest study of the state’s homeless population in decades.

University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) research released on Tuesday also revealed that 90% of the population lost their housing in California, with 75% of them now living in the same county where they were last housed. The study further found that nearly nine out of 10 people reported that the cost of housing was the main barrier to leaving homelessness.

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Australia politics live: Don Farrell warns delaying housing bill could lead to double dissolution election

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Chalmers to herald record job growth

Treasurer Jim Chalmers will no doubt take a dixer on this today – the Albanese government has “had the strongest job growth in the first year of any new government on record”.

The number of Australians with a job is now more than 14 million for the very first time.

Australia’s participation rate is 66.9% – the highest on record, primarily driven by record high participation for women (62.7%).

The share of women in work is at a record high – with the employment to population ration for women at 60.5%.

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Greens and Coalition put Labor’s housing fund in a deep freeze as bill stalls in Senate

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Labor’s Don Farrell warns the government will regard the delay until October as a ‘failure to pass’ the bill

The $10bn Housing Australia future fund will not pass parliament this week, after the Greens and Coalition teamed up in the Senate to delay the bill until October.

The impasse prompted a blunt crossbench message that the Greens were “hurting people” while Labor’s Dan Farrell called the Greens and Coalition “the axis of evil”.

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Greens renew push for rent freeze as housing bodies say ‘time is of the essence’ to pass Labor bill

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Nick McKim to introduce private member’s bill in Senate to promote market intervention

The Greens will continue to push for a national freeze on rents and interest rate rises, declaring there is more the Albanese government can do to address Australia’s housing cost crisis.

Their call comes as the country’s peak housing bodies call for the debate deadlock to be broken and for Labor’s Housing Australia future fund to be passed this week.

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