Opinion: Are these our elected officials or the Village People?

Staged press conferences make the government’s senior ministers look more like the 1970s disco group the Village People than representatives dealing with a serious reform challenge, writes Dan Petrie.

Premier Steven Miles with Housing Minister Meaghan Scanlon

Queensland’s housing minister Meagan Scanlon’s approach to solving the housing crisis is a smoke-and-mirrors exercise in wanting voters to believe the government has all the answers in its purchasing of retirement villages as a way of “fixing the problem”.

It is the private sector that accounts for more than 90 per cent of housing stock used in the national rental pool, and policies such as the horribly miscategorised “negative gearing” play a critical role in boosting supply as the tax treatment of investing in property as an asset class is a straightforward component of taxation systems globally.

For observers of the Australian housing market, government policy and declarations around supply tend not to be supported by the data.

Propertyology head of research Simon Pressley told News Corp Australia the combined eight state, territory and federal governments have added just 85,000 out of 3.6 million new homes over the last 20 years.

“In Queensland over the last 18 years, the population has increased by 1.67 million people.

“In that time, the state government (of which Labor has been in government for 15 of those 18 years) added just 9000 extra homes to the state rental pool.”

The state government which has had running skirmishes with economists and the Real Estate Institute of Queensland over housing policy maintains a government knows best view on housing with Minister Scanlon’s social media accounts broadcasting the acquisition of five vacant retirement villages as sort of a game changer.

Yes, five and for the record, the Pinkenba facility capable of housing 500 people is currently sitting idle.

Ms Scanlon, Labor’s rising star, after Shannon Fentiman committed the cardinal sin of having an independent thought about who should replace Annastacia Palaszczuk, managed to leave off the key points about a lack of capacity to construct new dwellings as well as the fact government contributes a tiny fraction to the nation’s housing stock.

Retirement villages now owned by the state are located Logan, Redlands, Toowoomba (for readers, Wellcamp airport’s accommodation facility is now temporarily closed), Clayfield and Rothwell are celebrated as “massive wins” worthy of an ensemble of state government ministers lining up to tell the Queenslanders everything is under control.

These staged press conferences make the government’s senior ministers look more like the 1970s disco group the Village People than representatives dealing with a serious reform challenge

Hard-hat-wearing Minister Scanlon as the construction worker, treasurer Cameron “Macho Man” Dick, and the premier as the policeman leading the band is the optic.

United Workers Union secretary, Gary ‘Blocker’ Bullock, the Leatherman and the CFMEU Queensland secretary, Michael Ravbar as the biker may appear later this year leading into the election.

The latter of course has effectively ghost-written the state’s Best Practice Industry Conditions, better known as the CFMEU tax, meaning construction costs for infrastructure projects have gone up significantly according to the Civil Contractors Federation Queensland.

It is very difficult to build anything (houses, especially) when input costs are so high with the only projects available being those enabled by an enlarged (bond-fuelled) state government balance sheet.

Raising input costs has clearly been an own goal for the government but that didn’t stop the premier or his macho man treasurer showing demonstrable idiocy by demanding the Reserve Bank of Australia lower the cash rate last week.

Notwithstanding the optics of ignoring the RBA’s independence, a long held bipartisan convention, moves to lower the official benchmark are discussed when inflation is within the central bank’s targeted band of 2-3 per cent.

While the headline inflation print released last week by the Australian Bureau of Statistics came in at 4.1 per cent on a year-on-year measure, the sub-component of housing was still 6.1 per cent higher than a year earlier and domestically influenced inflation in non-tradables (goods and services) still elevated.

Cutting interest rates in the absence of a full view of the economy may hurt would-be homeowners if hot money flows more strongly into the residential market.

Addressing the supply side and reining in the ‘CFMEU tax’ are obvious starting points noting it is the private sector that provides better bang for buck in terms of efficiency and boosting stock.

Visually, the housing crisis is sadly illustrated by the tarpaulin city on the south bank of the Brisbane River and unlike the gay icons that are the Village People, being camp as a row of tents is no laughing matter.

While the intent of Minister Scanlon’s announcements is noble, the social media team within this mega portfolio may want to put some realistic caveats about the challenge at hand.

Queenslanders will happily put their pride on the shelf when they are short on their dough but when it comes to a place where they can go, there is no YMCA.