The true measure of a nation is how well it looks after its most disadvantaged citizens. Doing well is not everyone's life story, e.g., those coming from broken homes may lose out in the education advantage! And some may be reduced to living on welfare for the rest of their lives through no fault of their own.

I was one of those kids and lost count of the schools I attended and the different curriculums that prevailed. And lost out on most foundational learning. And for the most part am self taught. Even so, hold tertiary qualifications in science, law and medicine. The latter of lifelong interest and learning.

As our economy automates as it must, most occupations will very soon become automated. And means in a wealthy nation like ours, folk will need to be paid to consume via a universal income everyone is paid. And should mean some things remain in public ownership water, energy and most cash cow civil amenities so as to generate that universal income!

After all, we are one of the wealthiest nations on the planet and our Australian resources are universally owned by the population! Not our representatives in government! Throwing taxpayers funds around like confetti! And selling off the peoples' property at fire sale prices!
Alan B.

A.C. Some good ideas there mate and worthy of consideration!
Alan B.

I guess it is pretty easy for someone who has spent a large part of their life on an income of over half a million a year to suggest migrants are good for the country. They wouldn't miss the cost of picking 20% of the health care, housing, education & welfare of one or 2 of them.

It won't mean much to the 40% of people who pay no net tax either. But to the increasingly small percentage of middle class people who pick up most of these costs, plus our own increasing bludger mob, it is becoming too much to handle along with all other rapidly increasing housing & domestic costs they are experiencing.

Time to shut the immigration gates, especially on so called refugees.

Hasbeen

It’s the high immigration that is keeping the growth rate at 2.5% PA. It’s their stimulations magic wand.

Past that unimaginative theory, there is no vision.

Selling off everything not nailed down to foreign interests, is their GDP stimulator.

Both are catastrophic shortsighted lazy models of madness. Vision less!

Dan

Hey diver dan
- There's also another aspect to all this:
Institutional investors can borrow money at a much lower cost than retail investors or first home buyers, so they have an added ability to profit over and above the retail investor and also control supply.

They can afford to buy up properties and leave half of them empty, if by doing so it creates more demand for more loans to build more houses and scarcity increases the prices of them.

They build production lines for cars don't they?
- These days built mostly with robots?

Imagine if they put the kind of ingenuity into building a housing system straight off a production lines, where human labor requirements were minimalised?

Houses taking 24hrs to go through the production line.
All made completely perfect to spec, every single one.
Delivered to site within another 24hrs
Fully erected on site in another 24hrs
Connected to power, water, sewerage, internet and furnished, all from start to finish in under 7 days.

To make it more viable you not only use them as a social housing system, but you can also sell them directly to the public.

Don't have work for the dole people mowing and whipper-snipping
Let one sit there on an app all day and learn how to drive a dozer
Then put them in one and get them to clear some land, build small housing villages or something,
- like old school caravan parks only better, each home has it's own toilet and shower, (no dirty central amenity block).

Do a deal with Woolies or Coles to run small kiosks at these housing parks so people without cars have easy access to basic essentials.

Keep them for 5 -7 years max so they doesn't stagnate into unliveable communities, then move all the houses to a new location, give them a refresh / or resell them and sell the existing land at profit, to pay for the new land.

[Cont.]
Capitalism requires a pool of unemployed with which to prevent wage growth.
Put these people to use, 'The job you have when you don't have a job'

Airbnb figured out how to create 'the home you have when you don't have a home', how hard can it be?

Turn the liabilities into break-evens and everyone will get more bang for their buck.

You could take the worst of the worst kids and give them some purpose, direction and independence and skills half of them would choose another path, just for having the option to do so.

Create a system that prevents people from falling down and losing what they have in hard times, and you'll wipe out half of society's problems before they ever happen.