By Christopher Kennedy
So your children can’t afford a house? Who is to blame for this?
I blame the Greens. Here’s why:
As a party it cannot help itself shooting themselves in the foot; the reasons they argue about the immediate change of the Capital Gains Tax are ridiculous and frighteningly stupid. They argue they want more time to study changes to the NDIS.
What has the NDIS got to do with the price of housing? The Greens are trying, hopelessly, to make some kind of connection. Making themselves relevant could be more possible if they read the room, or just did not sound so lost and confused.
The NDIS is a mess, with a lot of people gaining access to unearned services (including to my knowledge professional criminals) while many others who deserve it miss out.
What have the Greens to do with this? They argue for longer consultation over it. They don’t sound like they know what they are doing in the Senate committees and their knowledge of either CGT or the NDIS seems unrealistic.
I have missed out on a house, but I want my Son to have one, one day. As it is it is unlikely unless the Baby Boomers are gotten of the teat feeding them free houses.
As for the Greens, well they lost a lot of votes when the Legalise Cannabis Party was got going – I was part of the Legalise Cannabis Party in the run up to the Western Australian elections when the first two members of a state parliament for the party were elected.
The party was set up by Jewish interests who wanted to cut the cannabis vote from underneath the Greens feet. Revenge? Israeli interests who were chopped out of the Green movements due to Palestine? I was a member of the Greens many years ago and for the sake of clarity, I am now a member of the Labor Party.
It’s hard being Green, I know. However the present state of affairs means that no matter what they do, backing the changes to the CGT changes without arguing would make them seem irrelevant. Arguing too much? My Son doesn’t get a house, the Greens will lose another chunk of their voter base (especially the youth vote they pride themselves on) and a lot of questions would have to be asked about their parliamentary representatives.
A friend of mine in the Greens once argued that they were the intellectual leaders in their relationship with Labor. The Greens seem to have lost that title now, the world is moving in a fast pace with the disastrous government of Trump. The Greens are going to have to catch up.
Instead of fighting the Labor Party on this matter they should be looking further afield to gain the light on the hill experience? I believe so.
Also by Christopher Kennedy:
The VOICE – by Aborigines for Aborigines
Concerns Over U.S. Military Loyalty and Australia’s Regional Strategy
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Some embrace ineffectiveness as if it is highclass activity. All those in some area of housing, whether in three levels of government, supply, finance, retail and wandering speculation , are uncertain, onanistic, barely organised rabblerot. This does not shine much light on a current serious but chronic problem. Many contribute to national ineffectiveness and it has worsened in my time. I bought our house with c. six annual salaries, but its estimated value now is eighteen salaries, thus, unaffordable, unattainable for youngies. Harness fairness and muzzle greed. The fair go is and always was highly desirable, decent.
Oh, fuck off. Honestly, this is ridiculous … “it’s not the fault of the government that unbalanced the housing market way back when and it’s not the fault of the governments that have allowed that imbalance to remain. No, it’s all the fault of those pesky Greens who won’t fall into line and pretend the ALP’s tinkering around the edges is all we need.”
I think this article raises an important issue, housing affordability, but it does not make a convincing case that the Greens are primarily responsible for the problem.
Young Australians have been struggling to buy a home for many years. House prices have risen far faster than wages, while tax concessions for investors, housing speculation, population growth, inadequate public housing, and decades of policy decisions by successive governments have all contributed to the crisis.
The article also jumps between housing, the NDIS, cannabis politics, Palestine, and internal Greens issues without clearly showing how these topics are connected. As a result, the argument feels more like a political opinion piece than an evidence-based analysis.
If we genuinely want our children and grandchildren to have a realistic chance of owning a home, we need an honest discussion about the structural causes of the housing crisis and the policies that have benefited investors and existing property owners over first-home buyers.
Housing affordability is far too important an issue to reduce to blaming a single political party.
I cannot for the life of me understand anyone who says “not enough” and thus justifies refusing to support “some”
It’s a start There would have been zero point in Labor dumping ALL negative gearing, and ANY CGT discounts That would NEVER have got through But a tiny bit? Better than nothing, and after that ,maybe they can bite off a bigger chunk next time
I am a boomer, but I resent the “baby boomers being fed free houses” comment We worked bloody hard, and built our own home – literally with our own hands All my children have homes, again from working hard and starting small Yes, it is harder now, and prices are insane Maybe these changes won’t make a difference overnight, but if they make any at all, that’s the argument for going further
Your children can’t afford a house? Who is to blame?
Well, I am or rather my generation are with the assistance of John Winston Howard.
When my wife and I paid of the mortgage on our sole family residence a friendly financial adviser at the bank told us to again borrow and buy another house and while I continued to work I could offset any deficits between the rental income and outgoings on the house against my taxable income by way of a lurk known as Negative Gearing and then when I retired I could sell the house and John Winston would halve the Capital Gains Tax I was otherwise obliged to pay.
At the time it was the most viable investment a boomer could take advantage of with minimal risk.
I didn’t follow through but many of my generation did and we successfully outbid the first home buyers, who had no such lurks, courtesy of John Winston, and many made a quid but added nothing to the national housing stock. And we soothed our consciences by saying that at least we had helped a young family into a rental.
Finally we have a government prepared to level the playing field and yet we have the coalition and One Nation screaming blue murder and promising to block this legislation in the Senate!
I have 5 descendants who have bought a house – two have a house in town and a house on a farm. None have been helped with pots of money from anywhere. What they all have in common is being part of a couple of steady workers. A nurse and gardener. AN Office worker and a truck driver. A nurse and an electrician. A young tradesman with his own business. A public servant and an accountant.
All have lived careful lives, no boats, overseas trips etc.
Divorce would probably be one event that would cost a house, or falling for the encouragement to use the equity in your existing home to invest unwisely.
Exactly Ieefe.
That remark was uncalled for leefe. You’re better than that.
No Roswell, I am not.
When I see a pile of badly reasoned garbage – a blatant political attack disguised as serious commentary – I say so. And that’s what this article is.
Sure, sometimes there’s a fair case to be made against the far too frequent Green tendency to push for perfect at the expense of good, but this?
“So your children can’t afford a house? Who is to blame for this?
I blame the Greens.”
Exactly what difference would it make today, next week, next month, even next year, if the Greens weren’t doing what they currently are? How much of an effect do they have, or have they had, on the current situation in comparison to those who actually set up and maintained the system as it stands?
Give a properly reasoned critique if you want to question the Greens’ tactics. No fair-minded person would object to that. This piece is anything but.
Whilst, the Greens did come out swinging at the CGT tax changes and I think they got that wrong, they are right to take it through the committee processes. Just as they are also right to take a look at the NDIS in these committees.
Firstly, people who object to the tax changes, such as those not wanting stocks taxed under the new changes, are able to make submissions to Treasury and these Senate committees. It is an important part of our democracy that Christopher seems to want to ridicule for some inane reason.
Secondly, what the Greens are questioning in the Senate committees is what they are calling the Henry VIII clause. It gives the treasurer the power to change the laws as he sees fit. The Greens made a point of this by asking whether Jim Chalmers was going to exempt all the ‘investors’ in his electorate.
That the treasurer would have powers to do such a thing is highly problematical in my view. It is reasonable and I would expect any Senator to question such power being in the act. What is “ridiculous and frighteningly stupid’ is to pretend that this important process is some fictional act of revenge.
To conflate questioning of the details of the tax changes with wanting more time to study changes to the NDIS shows an utter lack of genuine reasons for criticizing the Greens. Changes to both should be thoroughly studied by the Senate committees. Rushing the budget through and getting unseen consequences would be folly and a dereliction of the Senators responsibilities towards their constituents.
Christopher may be happy with Labor taking no notice of the Labor rank and file but I expect more from those voted into office, even the ones I didn’t vote for.
The rest of Christopher’s article is just nonsensical propaganda and I’d prefer not to dignify it with a response, but if you would like to debate the rest of your crap, Christopher, then this is a good forum to do so.
Christopher, you do even Labor a disservice with this absurd propaganda, something I didn’t think was possible until now.
There’s nothing wrong with your argument, leefe. You’re entitled to put it forward.
I was actually referring to the first three words directed to the author.
There’s a simple explanation, better health and increasing longevity of our high fertility generations the pre ’46 silent gens, ’46-’65 boomer ‘bomb’ and top end of GenX.
Not only have they been a population growth driver, but are at peak wealth and hold property longer, till now…..
Top end of 5.5 million boomer ‘bomb’ turns 80 years of age, median city house prices were stagnant 2014-24 and now hit a wall with some decline; Melbourne with ‘immigration’ is the most affordable.
However, the RW MSM avoids this news to keep focus on Victorian Labor government…… a big grotty RW MSM and ecosystem campaign is coming Victoria’s way soon.. …..
The Greens have a long standing policy to replace Labor as the ”left” of Parliament. To do this they have for too long held in both various state and feral Parliaments taken the ”my way or the highway”, refusing to negotiate for a middle road, wanting immediate satisfaction and all the glory for ”winning” that essential reform.
All the Greens get is the bad publicity associated with stopping working taxpayers benefiting from essentially good policy.
McKim has a political career long reputation for this approach, Bandt was worse, if that was possible, and he got kicked out.
Over 50 years ago we purchased a paddock with a boundary fence, a small dam and some small almost stock yards. It cost $6,000, about 1.5 times the then cost of a town block in a central location.
The house of about 216 m2 cost about $17,000 (about $80/m2) when built & sub-contracted by myself. It took too long to finish, but that happens when life gets in the road. My then teaching salary was about $4,000 per year.
Being a small farm, better described as ”a black hole where you throw an endless bags of money into it” over our 50 years we developed a fully working farm with fencing, shed, water supply, numerous dams, forest woodlot, cleared and stone picked the property etc, etc, etc. Grew cattle, sheep, pigs, goats, trout, strawberries, pumpkins, pasture and almost the full gamut of agriculture. Don’t think we made a profit overall, but we raised three kids to establish their successful careers and raise their own families.
Yes, we rode the Howard ”reforms” to the Hawke Keating CGT, the negative gearing (NG) benefits and the flow of benefits to farmers who were very good at claiming every possible government hand out (often twice or on magically inflated stock numbers) ….. until the Canberra desk jockeys dried up the stream.
This farm was effectively my superannuation scheme that was managed through the climatic and financial travails of those times.
Today the CGT and NG changes made by LABOR Treasurer Dr Jim Chalmers are too long overdue!! Had LABOR listened to the voters then Shorten as LABOR PM would have introduced them in 2019, but internal Labor politics got in the way (take note Retched Mediocrity!!) and Australia got stuck with an extra three years of incompetent, uncaring, self-serving maladministration and misgovernment ….. and the USUKA sub debacle gifting Scummo a job when nobody else with any sense would not employ him.
@ Phil Pryor, Denis Hay, keitha granville, Terry Mills, Lyndal, Thommo: Agreed!!
Hi NEC,
I’ve been trying to work out why it is that people disillusioned with the duopoly are not turning to the Greens whilst but are turning to One Nation. On scrolling through the comment sections of various videos involving the Greens there were two themes evident: they’re blockers and scuttling Rudd’s CPRS.
I believe neither of these are valid criticisms of the Greens but rather the result of Labor constantly spreading a false representation of what happened that the mainstream media is only too happy to run with as it shits all over the Greens, and that way too many people have swallowed this story.
Take the ‘blockers’ slur first up.
You say: “taken the ”my way or the highway”, refusing to negotiate for a middle road,” I think that calls day, night. I think you have that totally back to front.
If you’re referring to the “Build to Rent” and “Help to Buy” bills:
https://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/explained-the-governments-stalled-housing-agenda-and-why-the-greens-are-opposing-it/wnvzf1i2u
Please show me where it says the Greens had that attitude in the SBS reporting. Because what I see in it is ‘While they remain open to negotiations, Greens leader Adam Bandt accused the government of a “their way or the highway” approach.’ and ‘Albanese similarly challenged the Greens to “get on with it”.’
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-06-27/greens-liberals-team-up-on-labor-housing/104028794
Please show me where in this ABC article it says the Greens had an “its my way or the highway” attitude because what I’m seeing is ‘Labor insists it will not negotiate on that bill and wants to pass it in its proposed form.’
What I read into this is that Albanese played politics with these bills by refusing to even sit down with the Greens to negotiate. It was ‘just get on with it’. Well, as far as I’m concerned, the Greens weren’t elected to just rubber stamp whatever shit Labor put up – maybe you see that differently.
Were they good bills that should’ve been rubber stamped?
https://theconversation.com/build-to-rent-will-produce-more-homes-for-tenants-but-not-for-those-most-in-need-244655
To quote the headline: “Build to Rent will produce more homes for tenants, but not for those most in need”. It being a scheme that was handing property developers juicy tax concessions aside, the problem being, as argued and tried to negotiated on by the Greens is the definition of “affordable”.
According to the UNSW professor who wrote that piece “It has little or no relevance to headline concerns around home ownership affordability, low-income rental stress and homelessness.”
The “Help to Build” scheme raises house prices and exasperates the problem of affordibility for those who can’t access the scheme. I think the numbers are that this was claimed by Labor to see 10 000 accesses but has only delivered a little over 5 000; you might want to check that. Feel free to show me evidence that the Greens refused to negotiate on this bill.
If you’re referring to the HAFF, then the Greens negotiated successfully with Labor for an extra $3billion for immediate spending. How is that ‘my way or the highway’? I’m guessing that is where your ‘the glory for ”winning”’ comes into it.
Yes, the Greens crowed about that, the damaging part of that was not the Greens crowing but that Jim Chalmers, I think it was, claimed pre-negotiations that there wasn’t any money to add to immediate spending – how embarrassing.
What you leave out in that comment is the denigration of the Greens that Albanese in particular was throwing Adam Bandt and Max Chandler-Mathers way in public whilst negotiating. I guess that doesn’t count, right?
What Labor should have done, imo, was taken an attitude of let’s work together, respected the Greens throughout the process and then jointly announced a win-win. They didn’t, they denigrated the Greens at any opportunity.
Did the time it took for Labor to come to an agreement cost people houses?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PeQjfYf_LLk
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ivw9Ux95pSg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPUc5bBk47k
Labor was constantly pitching the HAFF as a “build” and their centerpiece – the bill doesn’t require anything to be built. The bill is actually about ‘availability’. Furthermore, the Housing Authority, contradictory to what the Housing Minister was saying, wasn’t ready to implement the ‘build’ even once it was passed. Labor was spreading the notion that the Greens had stopped thousands of ‘builds’ when the truth was the Housing Authority wasn’t in a position to ‘build’.
I believe that Labor should have had the Housing Authority getting all its ducks in a row whilst negotiating in good faith with the Greens.
The truth is the HAFF is rather inconsequential in solving the housing problem. Labor pledged the HAFF would build 30 000 social and affordable homes over the next 5 years, under its first round it ‘built’ 340, and they turned out to be renovated existing houses.
How many homes has it built, not bought an existing home and slapped a bit of paint on the toilet door and counted as a ‘build’?
Labor played politics with the delay in the HAFF as well, and the mainstream media were only too happy to oblige in smearing the Greens as having denied masses of people a new home.
The populist “politics of entitlement” simply divide the thinking of our electorates into 2 camps. The “haves” and the “have nots” who are constantly denied entitlement by the “haves”. This is simplistic, I know, but this is the principle of “othering” and doesn’t solve the social equity question. Rather than “outing” individual billionaires as being targets worthy of higher personal taxation it would be more profitable if our Parliament were to embark on a meaningful examination of corporate, particularly trans-national corporate, taxation as a means of distributing public revenue. Reviewing taxation (and royalties and energy subsidies) for corporate profiteering of extractive industries would be an indirect means of impinging upon individual billionaire’s incomes. We almost had this with Rudd’s proposed Resource Super Profits Tax (RSPT), subsequently watered down by Gillard and completely repealed by Abbott in 2014. What a missed opportunity for Australians to protect our sovereign wealth.
NEC, if you are referring to Kevin Rudd’s CPRS
Once again Labor put forward rubbish legislation and then blamed the Greens for scuttling it at every opportunity, which mainstream media was only too happy to run with.
Again, I believe you have a revisionist view of what happened.
There are a few things that were at play at the time: Tony Abbott was undermining Malcolm Turnbull as leader of the Liberals, the Carbon-lobby was all over Kevin Rudd, and Rudd was under pressure to get something passed.
There is a school of thought that Rudd stalled on his CPRS to screw Turnbull, as Turnbull was in favour of an ETS and Abbott opposed; but let’s put that aside as how do we prove that.
Was Rudd’s CPRS good legislation?
https://www.aph.gov.au/~/media/wopapub/senate/committee/climate_ctte/submissions/sub409a_pdf.ashx
Not according to Environment Victoria’s submission to the relevant Senate Committee:
“It’s difficult to know where to begin to outline the problems with the CPRS. The proposed targets of 5-15 per cent are unscientific, inadequate and destructive to international negotiations to secure a safe climate future. Furthermore carve-outs and loopholes for the big polluters mean that it is possible that under the CPRS, Australia’s emissions could actually rise. The CPRS also destroys all incentives for individuals, communities, businesses and governments to take voluntary action to reduce emissions and be more sustainable. The combined impact of these flaws will mean a low carbon price, and therefore an inadequate price signal to change behaviour. In its current form, Environment Victoria cannot support the
CPRS.”
https://socialalternatives.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/09/Verity-Burgmann-SA_42_2.pdf
At the time, “Treasury modelling showed that under the CPRS there would be no reductions in emissions for 25 years;”
“the Australian Labor Party government of Kevin Rudd attempted a neoliberal emissions trading scheme so badly designed it would have prevented emissions reductions and handed billions of dollars to fossil-fuel interests. The Labor government ignored objections raised by the Australian Greens, because it believed Greens would not affect the outcome given the numbers in the Senate. It negotiated instead with the Liberal Party, which extracted changes that further alienated the Greens”.
It seems that Rudd was influenced by the Carbon lobby and weakened his CPRS, then to get it passed went to the Liberal party, ignoring the Greens, who extracted even further weakening of his proposition.
The Liberals then double-crossed Rudd and he needed the Greens to get his final rendition of the CPRS passed. Only by that time it was going to initially increase emissions take a quarter of a century to start to work, all while being a slush fund for heavy polluters – nice work Kev.
The Greens rightly rejected it.
A few years later, in order to form a minority government, Julia Gillard worked with the Greens, unlike Rudd, and accepted the Greens push for a committee to establish an emissions reduction scheme. The result of the Greens and 3 Independents committee, that Gillard accepted, was the Carbon Pricing Mechanism.
You know, the one that actually worked.
I’ve blamed Abbott for removing the CPM ever since, but Rudd was going to ditch it as well.
https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/australia-to-scrap-carbon-tax-in-favour-of-emissions-trading-1.1325294
NEC,
if I have that wrong, by all means show us how, but none of this ‘off the cuff’ stuff please, nor any of the plethora of mainstream media unsubstantiated attacks on the Greens, of which there is a huge supply, let’s see real analysis that contradicts.
I’d be open to any, as this issue, which I see as Australians swallowing Labor lies because of Labor constantly pushing them and a willing mainstream media spreading them, is something I’m not prepared to let slip through to the keeper. I would want to feel I’m on solid ground.
What are these essentially good policies that are stopping working taxpayers from benefitting that you speak of?
The current Capital Gains Tax legislation review relating to the financing of Australian based innovative biomedical research raises an existential threat to the continued viability of this vital element of our abilities. Disregarding such matters will enable dominance by globalist financed biomedical research and the subsequent reliance on foreign sources for our medical therapies.
My former life, (devoid of taxation knowledge), moves me to raise this subject.
links attached:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-06-06/medical-tech-sector-raises-fresh-concerns-labor-tax-cgt/106764464?utm_source=braze&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20260605_newsam_newsletter&utm_id=6a233fdaafb0767aea0c60964f15cca8
https://michaelwest.com.au/tax-changes-push-biotech-and-health-sectors-offside/
Seems the writer has been infected with Albanese’s Green hating poison.Or maybe he’s just practising his sycophancy in hope of recognition or a promotion.