If you have ever wondered why Australian politicians never provide genuine solutions to the nation’s housing crisis and instead provide self-defeating policies like home buyer subsidies, tax breaks, and other demand-side measures, look further than Housing Minister Clare O’Neil’s latest interview comments.
There you have it.
The Albanese government does not want housing prices to fall at all.
Source: https://t.co/EmndvZlkhg pic.twitter.com/ZDqYVsvU13
— Tarric Brooker aka Avid Commentator 🇦🇺 (@AvidCommentator) December 10, 2024
When asked to explain the goal of Labor’s Help-to-Buy and Build-to-Rent housing gimmicks, O’Neil responded with the following.
Interviewer:
What is the goal here in terms of these policies? Is it to bring down house prices?
Clare O’Neil:
We want to bring housen price growth into something sustainable. So we are not trying to bring down house prices.
But we don’t want to see some of the growth that we’ve seen in some parts of the country, where you are getting double-digit increases in house prices year-on-year.
Interviewer:
Why don’t you want to see house prices drop? Because if you’re a young person looking at what’s ahead of you, you definitely want to see house prices come down.
Clare O’Neil:
Well, that may be the view of young people. That’s not the view of our government. We want to see sustainable price growth…
Interviewer:
But minister, if house prices don’t come down. Doesn’t that this system is stacked against young people. And it is just not going to work for them?
Clare O’Neil:
Our government’s policies are not going to reduce house prices and we want house prices to grow sustainably.
There you go. Straight from the Housing Minister’s mouth.
The federal government doesn’t want to “solve” the housing affordability crisis because that would require prices to fall.
The number one solution to Australia’s housing crisis is to moderate demand by reducing net overseas migration to a level well below the nation’s capacity to build housing and infrastructure.
Doing so would lower prices and rents directly, making it much easier for first home buyers to save a deposit and enter the market.
Lower immigration would also mitigate the need to bulldoze Australia’s suburbs into high-density apartment towers.
Sadly, as the Minister for Home Affairs, Clare O’Neil drove immigration to record levels, fueling the housing crisis.
