Solutions needed, instead of ideological blame game

Detailed summary

Parnell offers no solutions, she just critiques those trying to fix the problems created by her ideological bedfellows. She needs to go back to her Utopian Nirvana, that only…

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Parnell Palme McGuinness says: “It was the wrong policy, introduced in the wrong way, at the wrong time, by the wrong people” (“The dog ate this trio’s homework”, November 8). The real estate affordability bubble was always going to burst, so better to try to deflate it carefully. It was the other mob who created the problem of unaffordable housing over the past 25 years, so they won’t or can’t fix it. The only time to do anything radical is the first budget after the very short three-year federal term. The last election result was a landslide rejecting the other mob, so the only people to do it are the current incumbents, no one else has the authority.

Parnell Palme McGuinness hits the nail on the head – it is the wrong policy at the wrong time. Despite vast criticism from economists and the numerous subsequent backflips and carve-outs introduced in an attempt to rectify the consequences of a lack of prior industry consultation, Albanese, Chalmers and Gallagher continue to spruik their ill-conceived May budget as a win for intergenerational fairness. Blind Freddy can see that it is failing. We don’t expect politicians to always get it right, but doubling down and hiding behind excuses shows a pathetic lack of fortitude.

It’s pretty clear that at the core of this is poor planning by governments, particularly planning for housing supply (“International students put off by fees, aggression”, November 8). The Coalition, when in power from 2013 to 2022, built no social housing and heavily promoted Australian universities to overseas students. The pressures on housing supply then really ramped up after COVID-19 when those international workers and students who Morrison had sent home started returning. So we ended up with a housing shortage, and now the international students and workers are blamed for it via the lightweights Pauline Hanson and Angus Taylor.

Opening of the article, excerpted from The Sydney Morning Herald. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.