What you said about Mike O’Connor column on Labor failing to fix Aussie housing crisis
While net zero remains a focus there are bigger problems in Australia, sparking anger from both sides of the debate. HAVE YOUR SAY
Australia’s housing crisis is getting worse – and we are all looking around for the answers.
Courier-Mail columnist Mike O’Connor reignited the debate by highlighting just how big the problem has become – and just how little anyone is doing to fix it.
“There are two housing crises: the homeless who can’t afford the rents that keep rising and end up on the street, and those trying to save a deposit and who watch helplessly as they are continually outbid on the place that they could afford to buy last month but not this month, as prices ratchet remorselessly northward,” he wrote.
“All levels of government wring their hands and promise to do something.
“All that has happened to date is a poorly thought out scheme to allow people to borrow on 5 per cent deposits with government assistance which is driving prices higher and promises to build thousands of new homes of which to date perhaps half a dozen have been built.”
O’Connor then pointed out the wider problem.
“It angers me to see governments handing out billions of dollars in subsidies – here you go Twiggy, help yourself to another couple of hundred million that we’ll never see again to build a renewable fantasy project – while shelter and food, the two basic needs of the people government purports to represent become less affordable by the day,” he wrote.
“If these renewable schemes are so fantastic, how is it they are only feasible if they are subsidised?
“ … You can’t have an immigration policy that boosts the population by millions in a short period of time – with an increase of almost 500,000 in 2024 alone – and not fuel a housing crisis, yet there are those who would deny this obvious truth.”
O’Connor also claimed politicians are guilty of “looking the other way”.
“Watching the major parties convulse over net zero these past 12 months has been an unedifying spectacle,” he wrote.
“They have lost touch with the masses, with you and me, with the people you see on the bus and the people whom you pass in the street.”
Readers piled into the conversation, with many taking aim at Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Labor party.
Others, though, maintained there are wider issues to solve, while some said the future look bleak for everyone.
See what you had to say below and join the conversation >>>
WHAT YOU SAID
Wider issues
marlene
Albo, Bowen and Wong want to spend $2Billion on hosting COP 27 in Adelaide next year. How many aged care and hospital beds would that amount fund for Australians trapped in hospitals awaiting home care packages or a bed in a nursing home because their dementia cannot be managed state home.
AndrewT
COP 27, the climate love in where leaders make some big promises every year that they cannot deliver, but hey it’s all paid for by the tax payers so no worries at all.
Paul
I would like to hear the Federal Opposition leader roundly and constantly call for the federal government to scrap any idea of hosting the COP 27, which is nothing but an indulgent waste. If she can’t carry out that mission, then get a new opposition leader.
The Pub Judge
I see no evidence in my community of global warming. It’s 20 years now and nothing.
Remind me again, why this is necessary?
Wayne
All levels of government for at least the last 10 years have been contributing to the housing issue. It is multi faceted and there are no quick fixes.
Labor’s a joke
Graeme
We can thank Albo, Wong, Chalmers and the rest of the Labor party and the greens for this issue. Ironically, it’s the young Labor voters who are suffering at the hands of the parties they support ….
Ricky
Yep, a blatant bribe for votes and yet another total waste of tax payer $$$. The worst PM and government we’ll ever have.
Boswoz
Despite the mess we are in, lack of affordable houses, rising electricity costs and cost of living going through the roof, the most recent poll shows Labor further ahead than they were at the last election.
This does not say much about the intelligence of the Australian electorate.
Doc
As the saying goes ‘In life you get what you deserve’ I guess the young labor voters are getting what they deserve.
Keeping the Whigs Honest
Question:
What’s the words used to describe the worlds largest, most ineffective group of clowns?
Answer:
The ‘Albanese Government’
I fear for the future
James
I’ve been yelling that message for three years. Australians living standards have plummeted to actually the worst in the developed world under Labor, it’s Whitlam all over again.
Dauf
And yet people vote them back in … you get what you deserve
Michael
Well said Mike. Australia- you get what you voted for! No Sir John Kerr to save us this time!
Marc
Government subsidies, whatever they fund, simply become industries in themselves. The game becomes extracting taxpayer money, and the sheisters are pretty adept at it – but no deliverables.
Ross
No way Australia. This net zero insanity must stop. Australians are rapidly heading towards third world standards and Albanese and Bowen want to waste Billions of dollars hosting a ridiculous event.
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Originally published as What you said about Mike O’Connor column on Labor failing to fix Aussie housing crisis
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