Dagget, you appear to be following the incumbent governments’ philosophy, that anything repeated oft enough becomes truth. Also known as the "three men make a tiger" theory.

Ignoring your second point, as once again, you attempt to steer the debate (housing affordability) to an unrelated topic (anti-immigration) to suit your personal agenda.

To your first point - "demand for additional dwellings" does not necessitate higher house prices, as previously shown. The report makes this distinction, if you'd bother to read it. Elasticity of supply is key.

"Do you seriously expect us to believe that we can go on adding 140,000 per year to our population and not have the cost of housing go up?"

Yes I do. I believe we could add 200,000 per year to our population next year and house prices would still fall dramatically across much of the country. Impossible? No. Japan's population growth averaged ~250,000 pa as land prices fell for 14 years! The Economist says it's true (therefore possible) and I'd be more inclined to believe them than SPA... Furthermore, last year their population began falling, yet land prices rose!

"Clearly the REIQ believes it will as I have shown above. Tell me why you believe they are wrong."

Some realestate groups may simply promote this myth to give investors confidence in the market. Bowling slow, relying on ingrained beliefs and prejudice for easy pickings. Collecting, controlling and malnipulating the data to suit.

Dagget says "What you are trying to do is to use the fact that there are other factors to obfuscate on the question as to whether population growth, itself, is a major cause."

It's not a major cause.

P93 of the PC report says "overall population growth has not been a key driver of recent rapid increases in house prices"

"NOT BEEN A KEY DRIVER"

Secondly, these 'other factors' are the very cause of the crisis in housing affordability, as evidenced by the PC report, and various RATIONAL submissions. We SHOULD be discussing these, yet you accuse ME of obfuscation?

Pericles & Foundation,

Pericles' remarks make it impossible to believe that he has read Newman's thesis.

1. To solve the mystery of comparison Pericles claims exists, he needs to actually read Newman's first chapter for an explanation of the basis for comparison between the two countries. He should also consult the second literature review in the work under the heading "Systems of Land Development Planning", which reviews other inter-country comparisons of land-tenure/housing systems.
it http://www.citizensagainstsellingtelstra.com/downloads/housingImmigration-newman2002.pdf

2. Population density has almost nothing to do with the size of a country, so Pericles'statement about density is too silly and vague to counter. Newman's thesis is all about comparative population statistics; read and learn. There is a detailed analysis of comparability, reliability, definition, validity for all stats used in the statistical appendix (available at Swinburne Library). Newman's work was groundbreaking.

3.Foundation, I am keen to verify and understand the validity of your correlation test, so please provide the exact data (sources and figures, variables and definitions of indicators etc) you manipulated to make your statement applying Pearson's correlation. We do not have Newman's figures to hand; we assume that you do. Please include calculations.

4. With regard to Daggett's statement that the Productivity Commission had accepted the relationship between population growth and rising land prices, the source of their comparison graphs (p.5) was BIS Shrapnel (2002)and the relative terms of the enquiry were at pages 13-14. The item you quoted from the final report should be seen in its context. Clearly the Inquiry knew the effect of population growth/pressure/demand:

"Population pressures have not contributed greatly to the demand surge that has caused affordability in the capital cities to decline sharply over the last year or two (chapter 4).
While those encouraged to move to the regions may be able to purchase more affordable homes, as is already evident, the additional demand pressure is likely to reduce affordability for aspiring first home buyers already living in those areas."

5. Biased Foundation should apologise for the unfair attack he made on Daggett, as "pursuing a personal agenda on an unrelated topic"

“provide the exact data (sources and figures, variables and definitions of indicators etc) you manipulated to make your statement applying Pearson's correlation.”

Manipulated? The figures are right there in the report, at the reference I provided in my original quote:

P59. (reference)"Although there is a correlation, this does not prove causation [...] The Wrap Up - Immigration=Demand "

Here they are:
“State % Ownership % Foreign Born
US 68% 11%
DC 43% 13%
NY 54% 20%
HI 56% 18%
CA 58% 26%
RI 60% 11%
MA 61% 12%
TX 64% 14%
NV 65% 16%”

And yes, Pearson’s is –0.19, p-value is 0.62. Not statistically significant.

“Please include calculations”

Ma’am, if you can’t do the maths yourself, you’re not going to follow… Anybody else prepared to independently confirm?

“The item you quoted from the final report should be seen in its context. Clearly the Inquiry knew the effect of population growth/pressure/demand:”

Your addition of peripheral words does not change the context at all! Read it slowly!

“Population pressures HAVE NOT CONTRIBUTED GREATLY to the demand surge that has caused affordability in the capital cities to decline sharply over the last year or two.”

In fact, the following sentence (which was a separate dot-point in its original context), relates to buyers whom move to regional areas from the city, and their ability to outprice locals. Surprise, surprise, people from the city have more money than people from the country, AND we hicks didn’t have an equal elasticity in supply of buildings – why would builders take on country jobs when better money was available in the city?

In fact, if you are supporting those 2 points, you are arguing that regional prices rose as a result of unnaffordable city housing that WAS NOT caused by IMMIGRATION. Therefore you are logically arguing AGAINST Ms Newman’s submission.

If you insist on supporting your arguments with those charts, please at least update them with the last 4 years data. The massive boom in France and regional Aus, vs static prices in ESB cities, blows a massive hole in your theory.

“apologise”

Sorry… but I decline!

July 31, 2003 Housing Debate Transcript from SBS Date Sat, 2 Aug 2003 03:33:29 +1000
Robert Mellor, director of building services for the global research and forecasting company BIS-Shrapnel:

"Well, I still think over the next few years in an environment of very strong economic growth, very strong population growth, that we're still going to see quite strong house price growth. (…) particularly in cities like Sydney and Brisbane, and that's going to be driven by that continued high population growth (…)."

"(…)I think the critical thing is we are seeing much higher population growth coming in from overseas than what we were, say, three or four years ago. At the moment we believe the latest estimates from the Bureau of Stats are showing that overseas migration into Australia is running at about 140,000 per annum. That compares to around about 100,000 per annum for the latter part of the 1990s. So that's a critical driver. Not all of those people are out into the housing market as owner-occupiers but certainly it's adding to demand particularly from a lot of students studying here in Australia from overseas and that's adding to rental demand in many markets. So, you know, whichever way you look at it, stronger population growth ultimately flows through for demand to housing whether we're talking owner-occupiers or renters."

"(…) Government policies are not going to change the outlook for the market in the next two or three years. Obviously, for many people in the market, over a long period of time, house prices are rising faster than wages. I mean that's the reality. I mean, if you look at the long-term figures going back even 20 and 30 years, you're looking at around about a 3 percentage point increase per annum above inflation."

"Well, you can argue in the short-term, basically, if you encourage more people into the marketplace they will bid up prices, particularly in a boom market. (…)I think one of the dangers is that any additional money that people have at their disposal will ultimately bid up prices further.

Foundation,

The problem I have with your last post is that while it appears authoratitative, it is difficult to comprehend. So, even if I felt convinced and wanted to argue your case, I wouldn't be able to on the basis of that post.

This leads me to suspect that rather than being aimed at clarifying the issues to curious critical enquiring minds, your post is intended to once again obfuscate the essential issues.

Presumably you hope that some readers will assume that their inability to comprehend your post is due to your being so much smarter than they are rather than what I believe to be the more likely explanation, that is, that what you have written is gibberish.

On your Pearson's Correlation argument, the figures provided were within a letter from Steve Kropper quoted in the submission. Steve Kropper is "Vice-President for Strategy at Primedia which owns RealEstate.com". The figures relate to the US and do not appear to have been critical to the case which Sheila Newman was trying to make about the correlation between population increases and real estate prices in Australia. The main purpose of including the letter seems to have been to illustrate how even property speculators, themselves knowing of the adverse consequences for the future of the United States caused by immigration, nevertheless advocate it in order to serve their own interests.

I would be interested to see what Pearson's correlation p-value figures you can come up with the graphs (also listed above):

http://www.candobetter.org/sheila/housingPriceRisesInCapitalCities.jpg
http://www.candobetter.org/sheila/housingPriceRisesInRegionalAreas.jpg
http://www.candobetter.org/sheila/housingPriceRisesInFrance.jpg

Kanga, I read the first chapter of Ms Newman's work with the sole intention of discovering the links that make France and Australia a relevant comparison. There is nothing there.

And I notice that neither you nor daggett can point to where she makes the link, nor indeed provide a quote from the document that would clarify matters.

The major point that is made, throughout the work, is that the systems in France and Australia are different. In fact, they are very different, according to Ms Newman:

>>Nationally co-ordinated Land Development Planning : This is France's system. It is a [sic] nationally based and co-ordinated and involves State direction of public land. Uses are planned a long time in advance.

...Statutory or Land Use Planning : This is Australia's system. Australia's planning system reflects that Australia is a market liberal and federal society. There is no national planning system as planning is the responsibility of the states and local government.<<

Clearly, if all - or even many - other features of the two countries were in some way similar, this would be an entirely valid basis for comparing outcomes. One system produces, this result, the other system produces another. The different results are the product of the different systems, QED.

But as I mentioned before, there are sufficient fundamental differences in population, population density, climate, concentration of industry, physical distance between population centres and a host of other factors that disqualify France as an effective comparator.

All you are left with is "the systems are different, and have different outcomes", without the essential connection of cause and effect. Groundbreaking?

>>Population density has almost nothing to do with the size of a country, so Pericles'statement about density is too silly and vague to counter.<<

What a weird statement to make. I merely indicated that population density is another variable in the cost-of-housing debate. To infer that I claim it is somehow related to the size of the country is absurd. But it gives an indication of how low you will stoop to grind out some kind of argument.