Now I’m all for politicians being held to account. I’m right behind journalists asking difficult questions to try and get at the truth.
HOWEVER!
I don’t want a politician to be asked the question that they can’t answer when the journalist knows they can’t answer and knows why they can’t answer but they ask it anyway in the hope that the politician will get flustered and somehow forget the one that was written in CAPITALS on the talking points for that day/week/month.
Most recently the question has been in the form of one of the following:
- “House prices have stalled. Does your government think that’s a good thing?”
- “Clearance rates are down. Is this what you intended?”
- “Are you hoping that the housing market crashes and is that part of your socialist agenda?”
- “Did you intend to destroy the property market?”
Whatever the form the question takes, if Jim Chalmers or any other Labor politician happened to say, “Yeah, look… we all know that houses have risen at a much faster rate than inflation for years now and it’s a really good thing that they’re slowing…”
They’d be interrupted and asked to clarify that this was actually part of the government’s changes to the tax system and if they did, well, you can picture the front page of the Murdoch Merde in your city:
YOUR HOUSE WILL BE WORTH HALF AS MUCH THANKS TO LABOR!
Of course, if we take a deep breath and think about it we can agree that there is a need for the acceleration in house prices to slow down and it would be a good thing if they rose at somewhere just below the inflation rated for a couple of years or so and this would enable some sanity to return…
When I say “we” I am presuming that you don’t have several investment properties. If you do, you’ll be one of the people telling us that this change to the Capital Gains tax means that the supermarket part-time worker who earns $5000 from a share investment will be forced to pay 30% in CGT even though he’s earning below the tax-free threshold… Personally, I’m not sure how he managed to make an investment in shares if he were earning less than $18200 a year, but maybe the fact that he couldn’t afford to rent anywhere meant that he could save enough for a modest share portfolio… Oh, this was an actually hypothetical put forward by someone on social media, so I’m not just making something up to make people who are opposed to the changes sound ridiculous. There are many of them doing it all by themselves.
Anyway, the point is that politicians can’t ever say that they’d like house prices to drop a bit because too many people have a house that’s worth significantly more than they paid for it and even though when they sell, the fact that what they pay will also be worth significantly more than they could have purchased it for ten years ago, most of us like the illusion that we’re much wealthier than we once were thanks to our house now being worth more than the piddly sum we paid for it back before its value tripled… and yes, we didn’t think it was a piddly sum when we had to convince the bank manager that we were prepared to put up our first born as collateral and grew surprised when we discovered that we’d still have to take him home and feed and clothe him and that the bank wouldn’t be keeping him there, so we weren’t even saving money there…
Whatever else, we need to concentrate on what’s real and what’s actually likely to happen. While nobody can predict the future with absolute certainty, it’s been said that two things are inevitable: Death and taxes. Personally, I’d like to add a few more:
- Some journalist will ask a silly question and the circumspect answer of some politician will be taken out of context and written up as “XXX refuses to rule out challenging for the leadership/joining in a coalition with some other party/being Pauline’s partner on “Dancing With The Stars”
- Donald Trump will eventually say, “Fucking hell, how many wars do I have to start before people stop talking about my buddy Jeffrey Epstein”, and his supporters will say, “Well, the Democrats are just jealous because they didn’t get to marry Melania…”
- Any rise in house prices, as well as any fall in house prices, as well no change at all will be reported as a failure of Labor’s changes.
- Chris Uhlmann will blame any extreme weather event on renewable energy.
- My most ridiculous predictions will be about as accurate as any serious political commentator.
welcome back Rossleigh! Some have missed you… conincidentally, have you noticed how a certain politician’s hair colour is oh so similar to Ronald McDonald’s?
I am looking forward to Pauline Hanson’s venture into that crucible of democracy that we know as the National Press Club.
As she presents her vision for the country, it will be a challenge for our fourth estate to demonstrate their tenacity and ask her the questions that, as an aspiring national leader, she needs to answer.
So far, Pauline has been carefully managed and protected to the extent that ABC reporters have been kept away from her and she has only been exposed to soft questioning from SKY and other commercial operators.
Will we, for instance, ever learn why dozens of ‘ordinary Australians’ would donate to One Nation something in the order of $2million in forty-eight hours, two years before an election – it just doesn’t make sense unless one of those ordinary Australians includes Gina Rinehart.
My house is valued much more than what I paid for it. However if I sell it I will still need somewhere to live, so would be buying into the same market. No real issue – except for stamp duty, but that’s a state issue.
The big winner in my house value would be aged care homes if I ever needed to go into one. The privatised/not-for-profit (that still rake in money as they cherry pick people they accept) will be losers if house prices fall or stagnate.
Deliberately asking “nothing-burger” questions of politicians at doorstop interviews is simply cheap shot journalism designed to capture headlines and clicks. This attitude demonstrates the low order of “journalistic professionalism” that our media barons have encouraged and desire. It has nothing to do with rational, substantive, investigative enquiry. It is deliberately provocative and totally disrespectful not only to the defenceless politician but also to the gullible readership and watchers sitting on their sofas vainly in expectation of truthful news. They have been subconsciously trained to accept this parody as appropriate and normal. They enable this continuous travesty by not switching off, or averting their thoughtless gaze or offering some form of protest. In the end the wanted impression is planted . Then celebrity news, sport and weather get the clicks that bring in the revenue to the media barons. The system wins.
Where have you been Rossleigh?? I have missed you perceptive insights into the politics of every day living.
On the matter of Negative Gearing (NG) and CGT reform: These too long overdue changes were mooted but the in-fighting of Labor factions prevented Shorten from forming government in 2019, naturally with the generous unrelenting assistance of the editorial policies of the Murdocracy Median Manipulation Monopoly.
Now that Dr Jim has undone the financial bastardy of Little Johnnie Howard, seeking the votes of aspiring middle class family persons, by returning NG to new builds only and CGT to pre-Howard levels, the driving force behind residential investment housing has been cauterised for the benefit of my kids and grandkids.
@ Anon. E. Mouse: Before committing to any Aged Care Home or Over 55 Living village, check out the on-going ”rental costs” of living in a dedicated village. We are presently considering locations between Grafton and Canberra and find the rates vary enormously, with all of them making a huge profit for the developers. Get experienced legal advice!! Ensure that you check the type of title you receive because nothing beats a Torrens Title when you pay the necessary Stamp Duty.
Stamp Duty is a huge impost on all residential purchases at the moment, a legal seriously over-charging mechanism that in NSW no longer supports the Land Titles Office which the self-serving, inept abysmal COALition Premier Mike Beard sold off in return for two year multi-million ”Customer Services Person” post-politics job from the willing bankers consortium who purchased that office and are now making enormous profits.
@ Mediocrates: Agreed!! Journalism is by press release plagerised by later scribblers because they are too lazy, or cannot easily discover anything to provide suitable positive comment.
@ Mediocrates exactly! Far too many in journalism think they are clever with smart questions which are actually more related to non sequiturs.
When did a basic human right become a market asset? Ask little Johnny Howard and his happy band of property developers and maybe these stories suggests what many won’t admit….
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/12/six-great-failures-and-one-triumph/?
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/06/start-at-the-bottom-to-build-housing/
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jun/06/australia-housing-house-prices-supply-before-budget-after-cgt-capital-gains-tax-negative-gearing-changes
https://www.theage.com.au/property/news/how-property-investors-piled-into-australia-s-housing-market-20260227-p5o5z9.html
https://www.theage.com.au/property/news/how-much-debt-households-had-when-interest-rates-were-17-per-cent-compared-to-now-20260213-p5o258.html
When everyone ignores the underlying issues and prefers to listen to property sprukers and real estate pawn, you know there are many issues that add to reality.
Has nothing to do with immigrants and everything to do with flawed policy, regulation and greed and as usual it’s the little guy who pays the price.
https://www.theage.com.au/property/news/barely-half-of-victoria-s-rentals-are-meeting-minimum-standards-20260520-p5zyz3.html
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/federal/a-liberal-change-transformed-landlord-behaviour-switching-it-back-won-t-fix-the-housing-crisis-20260421-p5zpqx.html
https://michaelwest.com.au/hard-time-for-renters-as-landlords-squeeze-tight-market-2/
And for the Governments continued amoral disgrace with regards to a decent living pension, you will never be forgiven.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/06/ok-boomers-not-so-okay/