Spare me the patronizing. One poster clearly identified the problem. It is called Government. Because we have nine separate and ineffective State systems, all pulling in different ways, and no effective High Court in Australia ATM, the best efforts of Paul Keating to reform the system have been frustrated if not totally ignored.

PK was getting ready to totally reform Australia, and to that end had the Parliament of the Commonwealth pass amendments to the Trade Practices Act 1974 that if enforced, would eliminate loads of red tape. Shire Councils are a menace, and bound by the Trade Practices Act 1974 but still refuse to remove their illegal and destructive restrictions, largely based on State Legislation.

What PK did was make a National Competition Policy a law. However, he did not get round to abolishing the lawyers monopoly before he was replaced with a lawyers government. If local government was returned to its roots, and instead of a communist central planning scheme, that favors big developers a local scheme was implemented, and a Justice and jury made all local decisions, instead of an elected body, housing would not be a problem.

Without a few years to educate scoffers the system that we used to have to make crims pay for their illegal acts are probably incomprehensible to many. Until 1970, when the NSW Parliament declared unilateral independence from the Commonwealth, if the Commonwealth passed a law it was enforceable.

To spindoctor the electorate the Liberal Party created pretend Courts, and modified the High Court from a Federal Supreme Court to a play station for lawyers. KR needs to get rid of lawyer control of these Courts, and let the people have free and unfettered access to them or he is not going to be any different to his Liberal predecessor.

A court, is in reality a local church, erected by the State. If they remain as private churches, with a sign Lawyers Only Can Enter, and compulsory worship of the lawyer presiding, the Commonwealth is a mirage. Fix the courts and the housing crisis will be fixed too. Continued

PK in 1995, extended the Trade Practices Act 1974 to all Local Governments and State authorities, by s 2 he declared that the object was to enhance the welfare of Australians through the promotion of competition and fair trading and provision for consumer protection.

By S 2A he extended it to the Commonwealth and Commonwealth authorities. By 2B he extended it to States and Territories. By 2BA he extended it to Local Authorities. By s 45 as amended he made exclusive dealing illegal. Has it worked? NO. Why? Because lawyers control access to the courts, and the Parliament of the Commonwealth may as well be an expensive drinking club while courts refuse to compete.

Instead of the Constitution being the guiding light for Australia with its intrinsic Christian principles, the guiding lights for Australia are nine separate Court systems, with an ineffective and practically useless High Court. Each of these systems has written its equivalent of a bible, and called them Rules of Court.

The High Court is useless because it refuses to abide the Trade Practices Act 1974 and actively compete as a Federal Supreme Court with the State Supreme Courts as anyone who has tried to file in it knows. In another post I cited the sections that restrict its trade. On three occasions it has made feelgood decisions, about the “Kable Principle” but since any State or Territory Government has the same right to indict each and every member of the High Court in its Supreme Court, as the Commonwealth has, they are frightened little men and women, clinging to what they have.

The State Supreme Court will take your money in Sydney, but lawyers have found another way to make it useless. They have Rules that allow a lawyer to strike a matter out without trial, with costs of course. If Bushieannie or anyone else was guaranteed a jury trial, whether she filed in the High Court or a State Supreme Court, she would have a home. If KR wants to do something about homelessness, he should disallow the High Court Rules of 2004 and 1952

Bushannie:

The State Housing Commission ( in all states ) as it was known, must have made billions of dollars over the many years in which it had been in operation, but in recent years the number of homes available seems to have diminished substantially!

Having spent 20 odd years living in some pretty substandard "dogboxes", whilst a member of the Defence Forces, e.g: those prefabricated concrete slab monstrosities located in many of the lower socio-economic areas that dot the country, during which time we were subjected to many rigourous house inspections that simply established the general care and cleanliness of the rented house and surrounds, and which a report was compiled by the inspecting officer listing any damage or discrepancies that were noted and were subsequently repaired or rectified at a later date, at the expense of the tenant.

Many of these houses were initially built for around $1000, so the amount of money returned during the life-time of the house and the return for the final conversion and sale of the house to the private market would have been very very lucrative! I myself often queried where all this easy money created by the system had dissapeared to, but could never get an answer! All I did know that I thought that the system should have been able to build some "decent" houses for aa change instaed of perpetuating the existing social ghettos!

I am convinced that the system in place today is providing subsidized houses and unit rentals in much reduced quantities, consequently a lot of the tenants that finally are allocated one or the other of the available few, by this time are so frustrated and angry at having to wait so long and then having to battle to get any outstanding repairs carried out, that they themselves ultimately become another angry, uncaring, resentful and obnoxious tenant!

The whole problem of insufficient accomodation throughout the country rests with the greed of the developers, the petty local government laws and regulations and the obvious blind-sightedness of the politicians both State and Federal!

Sorry Peter the Believer, don’t understand any of your post. What has this to do with Bushyannie’s post? How does it help with the problem? It seems like some sort of “Legal babble” mixed with a pathological hatred of everything related to Government and Law?

Dallas, I did a contract for a company that sold “factory built homes” about five years ago. I was most impressed with the build quality and price, anything from a two bedroom to a five bedroom could be built and delivered complete, on-site in 3 months. The Australian Defense Force, Mining industry and many other industries use these. Once completed on-site there was no differece to a site built home. They even came complete with appliances, carpets and soft furnishing.

Perhaps these might offer a solution, not just on cost and time to build but the fact that environmental issues might be minimized?

To make this sound simple I will give an example. On the Mandurah Railway in WA a Union promoted a strike. The JWH Government initiated prosecutions in the Federal Court of Australia to fine these strikers $100,000 each for calling a meeting over safety issues. In a country with a rule of law this would have been impossible. No jury would impose such a fine on a working man.

The High Court comprised of seven Judges was asked to rule that advertising promoting Workchoices Legislation was illegal. Combet v the Commonwealth (2005). The applicant, was Greg Combet, a high profile Union Official, and Nicola Roxon, then Shadow Attorney General. and they thought they could go to the High Court and have the advertising budget quashed. Back in 1952 Menzies made that impossible. Two High Court judges thought it was illegal, but five did not. They did however hear it. Most never get a chance.

If you were on a jury, in a court, and asked if political advertising was a legal cost on the Budget, instead of spending it on housing, would you have ruled it illegal. New South Wales spends $100 million a year on such advertising.

Before 1952, you could have gone, yes you yourself, under s 15F Crimes Act 1914 ( Cth) and had standing in the Federal Supreme Court to prosecute the Minister responsible and the Commonwealth as a corporation for spending Federal Money on political advertising. Section 28 Crimes Act 1914 ( Cth) prohibits anyone from interfering with political liberty. Because the money was spent on partisan Liberal Party advertising, and a similar amount was not appropriated to the opposition, the minister and the Commonwealth were interfering with political liberty. The two dissenting Justices Kirby and McHugh were right, and the majority wrong. Your political right to freely access the Federal Supreme Court was taken away by Menzies and others since. Your reward for doing so, would have been $198,000. It could not then have been struck out and costs awarded against you, because you are a Commonwealth public official. This was the penal action

Thank you spindoc, The cost of building is a ancillary issue to site availability. State governments & their local councils control what will be built and where, even if large sites adjacent to all the prescribed infrastructure are available, this does not mean that the land can be developed to build houses. These vacant sites may contain trees as a prelude to developing what people want. But be warned. if you prepare you site by growing the trees first, you investment will be usurped by government and councils, as what looks good to the eye now becomes everyone's property. Councils and state governments are now selling off their parkland to build housing in their own right and have not learn't past lessons which continue to blight the urban landscape.