Its no secret that Australia is in the depths of a housing crises, with availability of affordable housing a severe problem for many seeking a home to buy or wanting to rent. Its good to see after months of negotiation Labor has now secured the support of the Greens, along with that of The Jacqui Lambie Network and independent David Pocock to pass the governments $10bn Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff) bill in the Senate. Once more the Coalition has been marginalised, left sitting on the "No" side with extreme Pauline Hanson's One Nation. Through negotiation the Greens have secured an extra $1 billion from Labor for direct public, social and affordable housing. I for one is glad that this modest undertaking by Labor has finally been agreed to. Just as they are irrelevant on so many issues, the Coalition once more see themselves locked out in the cold on this, where is Dutton's "Housing Policy"? Nowhere to be seen.

$10 billion plus another $3 billion curtesy of fiscally profligate Greens.

Wow $13 billion. That's a big number.

How many new social houses will that conjure out of thin air?
What's that you say....approx 38000 new houses over the next 5 years?
(that's if you believe government estimates and if you do I have this bridge for sale I want to talk to you about!)

So how many people will that house? Oh, about an extra 100,000.

How many new residents will the government allow to come to Australia in that period? oh, about an extra 1,500,000.

1,500,000 new people....100,000 new housing places. Great plan.

Still the point was to placate the usual whiners and in that it will be a massive success.

Dear Paul,

So good to see that the Greens will after all the
fuss, back the Housing Australia Future Fund after
drawn out negotiations. Good also that this means
the bill (a key election commitment for Labor) will
become law.

The deal includes additional funding for much needed
public and community housing. Hopefully this will
happen sooner than later - and projects will get
underway this year.

Good news all round.

Now all we need is to win the YES vote for the Voice.
Yay!

yeah.. nar...
Sorry Paul

I'm going to have to jump in the defend "extreme Pauline Hanson's One Nation" here.

Tweet from yesterday- Malcolm Roberts, One Nation
http://twitter.com/MRobertsQLD/status/1701762883787628823

"COWARD ALERT

Every Liberal and National Senator has failed to be in the Senate for a vote on my amendment to the $10 billion #Housing Future Fund Bill.

The amendment would have acknowledged that the 1 million arrivals to Australia in only 12 months is the major cause of the housing crisis.

The Liberal/Nationals would rather hide in their offices than state a position on Australia's unsustainable big #immigration intake.

Once again, the Coalition and Labor are two wings of the same bird when it comes to suppressing wages, keeping house prices high and destroying the rental market. Only One Nation stands for cutting immigration until our country catches up."

What's your say on this-
Is he a radical, or is he being sensible?

I don't know where the 1 million figure came from, curious about that, I thought it was only 400,000.

I don't know that he's right, but lets assume he is.
Maybe we should put it into perspective to where we are at right now.
1 million immigrants in a year...

Google how many indigenous in australia
http://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=how+many+indigenous+in+australia
"Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. At 30 June 2021, there were 983,700 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people, representing 3.8% of the total Australian population: One-third (33.1%) were under 15 years of age. The median age was 24.0 years."

Those ages are interesting.
More importantly though - 983 thousand.

We brought in more immigrants in a year than the entire population of indigenous Australians?

Dear Paul,

We can spend the money on housing for poor
people, the homeless, the old, single parents,
the old, people with disabilities and so on, or
we can spend it on giving politicians salary
increases, or spend it on the Commonwealth Games,
football stadiums, racing events, golf courses,
or royalty visits. The list is endless.

We can't address poverty unless we address the
lack of affordable housing in the cities.

As for migrants?

Migrants contribute far more economically and
culturally than they take. And always have.
They have supplied for decades the work force
that Australians needed and wanted. They have
supplied the workforce for more shops, schools,
hospitals, aged care, in factories, in transport,
and many other services.

Also it usually does not take long for most migrants
to work and buy their own homes. Many hold down more
than just one job. And owning a home for them is a
must.

" or
we can spend it on giving politicians salary
increases, or spend it on the Commonwealth Games,
football stadiums, racing events, golf courses,
or royalty visits. "

or, in a country with a $1 trillion debt, we could just not spend it.

We could just not spend it?

Certainly.

We don't need having social security, Medicare,
highway maintenance, housing - building construction,
research, education, hospitals, schools, or employment.
In other words - goods and services? What about welfare
and defence? Moving right along.

By all means lets concentrate on more important things,
And allow a select few to pile it all away and live in comfort.

We're talking about an EXTRA $13 billion not the entire social welfare budget.

Get a grip.

You listed the things we shouldn't be spending it on and I broadly agree with that. Now you're listing the things you like to see the government spend money on, and I sorta agree with that.

But it seems you've decided the government should spend money where you want and not spend it on things you disapprove of. Perhaps we need a Voice for Foxy. Put it in the constitution? <grin!>

In answer

Hi mhaze getting it wrong again, this might be news to you, obviously you are not aware that Australia has a very active private home building sector, serviced by private building contractors and developers, there are even "owner builders" out there constructing their own homes, along with housing provisions by both State and Federal governments. The Labor governments 'Housing Future Fund' is only one part of the overall web of house construction.

Hi Foxy, I have been confident for a couple of weeks, that a breakthrough on this issue was at hand. I'm fortunate to have a couple of friends who have a direct bearing on things like this that matter, and I am able to communicate my view to them. I was strongly in favour of Labor's initiative, although I would have liked to see more in it, it is what it is. The fact the Greens were able to secure an additional billion dollars for social and affordable housing, is great. The next move is more assistance for low income renters, particularly long term renters, those who have been years in the one rented property, that's what the Greens will be fighting for in the next round of negotiations.

Hi AC, I support sustainable immigration, not everyone who comes through the door is a burden on society, some bring with them much needed skills which makes them productive and valuable very quickly. I think people like Roberts are strongly influenced by their own prejudices, and because of that, take a simplistic view of complex problems. Its always a problem with the extreme, they see everything as either black or white, never any grey. Roberts like Hanson and their buddies in the Noalition are irrelevant on this issue, they simply hate battling Australians. End of story.

Dear Paul,

I'm excited by Labor's Housing Future Fund and I
am pleased that the Greens support it.

Much will be achieved before this year finishes.
Our PM is good at building bridges. He's a
good negotiator and will achieve much.

Yes Paul, I'm aware that there are lots of other groups who involved in constructing housing. My point, which if you look up you'll see going over your head, was that the government's 'contribution' to this effort to offset the woes of mindless immigration policies, is miniscule and not at all worthy of the breathless adoration emanating from the likes of you and your vulpine sidekick.

The scheme lasts for 25 years and as such its a drop in the ocean with money that the nation can ill afford being thrown at a problem in order to satisfy the screams of a segment of the left movement. Given that it is primarily going to be a subsidy to business to do what it was already doing, the likelihood of fraud is high. But efficacy is not its aim, is it.

Who can forget Juliar's School Halls debacle where Labor pissed away $16bn on shoddy buildings for schools with minimal value to the schools upon which it was inflicted? Labor union mate got paid 2 to 3 times the market value for crap that was delivered well after they were needed.

The construction industry for housing is about $150bn p.a. with much of this money being wasted due to incompetent councils etc. Much more could be done by simply freeing up the consenting process than spending $10B further increasing Labor's $1 Trillion of debt to virtue signal.

I agree mhaze, its small beer when one looks at the overall picture of what's required, but anything is better than nothing, the Noalition had almost 10 years to come up with a housing policy, and like everything else, they failed to deliver! The immigration question is a difficult one, and there is no simple answer.

Labor responded with a modest stimulant package to the GFC, the benefits are still there, we are using one of those halls provided today. Unlike the Noalition clowns who panicked during the pandemic, and splashed billions around like drunken sailors, with nothing to show for it today, except a few richer billionaires, and a massive TRILLION DOLLARS OF LIBERAL PARTY DEBT!

p/s, On housing policy Dud Dutton says; "There's no problem, there's millions of trees in the parks for people to live under....besides when I sack half of them, they wont be in a position to pay rent, or buy a house, and the other half will be on such crappy wages they will be in the same position, they'll need those trees!"

"but anything is better than nothing"

The politicians false logic. My cat is a dog.

http://youtu.be/vidzkYnaf6Y

Doing nothing doesn't waste money. Doing anything does.

Village idiot,

Lying through your teeth again. Every cent the coalition spent on the pandemic Labor wanted to spend more and add more to the TRILLION DOLLARS OF LABOR GREEN PARTY DEBT!

You are a liar and a fraud.

Sounds just like the big-mouthing of Albanese's heroine, Jacinda Ardern and her 'promises' to build houses. That was a big flop. A joke.

Albanese is proving his idiocy. He could stop the non-existent 'housing crisis' by stopping mass immigration, the real crisis.

Governments have no business interfering in the building industry, or any other industry. Their lunatic climate hysteria and net zero (which the other idiot, Dutton, has confirmed) is helping to put builders out of business. Perhaps Albanese intends to bring in Third World builders, scrambling around on bamboo scaffolding, to cut costs!

Dear Paul,

Oh dear!

Some people should simply raise their hand like they
did at school when they wanted to speak. But in this
case - they should not only raise their hand - they
should then put it over their mouth. Or sit on it.

It would be good for us all.

Hi Foxy,

The old blokes are frothing at the mouth; one tells us; "Governments have no business interfering in the building industry, or any other industry." Yep, this old fool would know, the education industry, the health industry, transport industry, defence industry, should all be in private hands.

As an insider ttbn, pray tell what is the bigots at ONE NATION, what is their housing policy? Labor has a policy, the Greens have a policy.

p/s Foxy, I sent a congrats text to a dear friend for voting to pass Labor's Housing Future Fund yesterday. ttbn should send a congrats text to the Lovely Pauline for voting NO!

Remember the old thread about visa overstayers? http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=8641

Paul started that thread with the assertion that One Nation didn't have a policy about visa overstayers which, he crowed, showed their hypocrisy as regards boat arrivals. Over the course of several posts I showed that not only did One Nation have a policy, but so did the Libs and Bernadi's party. Indeed the only group to not have a policy were the Greens. In doing so I showed that Paul had simply made up original claims, to the point where people were openly telling him he'd lost the argument big-time.

A reasonably sane person would have learned something from that embarrassment. But not Paul. Now he's claiming One Nation don't have a housing policy. But indeed they do have one, being to ban all foreign ownership of Australian housing stock thereby releasing more housing to Australians.

Paul won't like that as a policy since it doesn't involve the government spending taxpayer money to appease the usual whiners. But contra his original unresearched claims, it is a policy - one that NZ and Canada have recently adopted.

Well, mhaze defending ONE NATION, what's new, are you a party member? If not, why not. Desperate you trawl back to 2019 to defend your beloved Pauline and her racists party. I take it you're on AGED WELFARE? Most of the Forum's conservative old blokes are, I wouldn't like you to feel left out, do you receive a rent subsidy from the taxpayer with your fortnightly welfare?

Recently, mhaze was shown to be a reprehensible liar by SteeleRedux with his 'Biden Girl Diary' nonsense, he even manufactured a false entry to that very suspect little book, just to lend weight to your erroneous argument. how low can you go?

"Well, mhaze defending ONE NATION, what's new, are you a party member? "

Not a party member. I've said before I've never voted for them.

But I do have a certain fondness for the facts, and the fact is that you simply assumed One Nation didn't have a Housing policy and are now throwing a tantrum when found out.

"I take it you're on AGED WELFARE?"

Nup....self-funded semi-retired. What else can you get wrong?

"do you receive a rent subsidy from the taxpayer with your fortnightly welfare?"

What a berk! Be careful, Paul. Attacking welfare recipients will get you kicked out of the left's we're-so-virtuous club.

" he even manufactured a false entry"

Paul shows yet again that he can't follow the simplest of threads. Nothing was manufactured.

Mhaze,

Arguing with the village idiot who is a member of the racist Green party is a waste of time. I suspect that he is an indigent welfare recipient of unknown heritage sucking on the taxpayer's teat.

"Arguing with the village idiot who is a member of the racist Green party is a waste of time".

It sure is, but you keep on doing it.

ttbn,

Someone has to call out his BS and outright lies.

mhaze,

Unfortunately the truth often alludes you, as was the case with your manufactured evidence for the "Biden Girl Diary", your fraudulent action was clearly exposed by a diligent and truthful Forumite in SteeleRedux. What will you manufacture next? On another thread I clearly showed that ttbn was parroting a LIBERAL PARTY website, and presenting it as his own handiwork! SM, another who is well known for getting it wrong, take his claims in the 'Cry Baby' Porter case, $10 million plus in compensation for "Cry Baby', a groveling apology from the ABC, and 100 ABC staff sacked to pay for it all. How wrong was poor SM! And these guys are your backups! You gotta be kidding!

Village idiot,

Once again you are a LIAR AND A FRAUD. I never said that.