mhaze said "So, as I've said often, these problems are not caused by this government (or more exactly not primarily caused by this government) but, after 18 months in power, the electorate is starting to blame them for their woes. "

Answer- Progressive/ Woke/ Communist ideologies around the western world have been quick to lock down communities industrial engine probably hoping for materialist class conscious leadership churn that benefits themselves. Industrialist mindsets otoh understand that shutting down all the production lines leads to long term capacity and inflation. So business groups were generally against the curfews, travel bans, etc because of the flow on effects sadly some can't even see the noses on their own faces let alone what is coming down the track.

Sadly we can't avoid "idiots in power" all we can do is work together at our level to help our family and extended family and local communities and methodically working to improve the mess that idiots create in our communities. Idiots divide communities and families and extended families for their own purposes- we need to stop them

" As I stated earlier, basic housing should be a public housing responsibility, not private enterprise. "

Well you've said it without offering any evidence. Why should housing be a public responsibility?

You more than anyone in the group rail against bloated bureaucracy, yet here you are calling for a whole new bureaucracy for a favoured project. This is exactly how governments become bloated.

BTW, which negative gearing to you want to ban. Just on land and houses? What about negatively geared shares? What about negatively geared family businesses? Do you want to ban them all (ie disallow interest costs as an expense) or just land/house and if so how do you propose to differentiate between them?

For example, back in the 1980s when Hawke banned negative gearing (I note that you decided to ignore that) I had clients who simply set up a company that owned houses and then negatively geared the business thus avoiding the problem. I suspect the savings from banning negative gearing will be sweet FA of nothing but the cost to renters will be huge. Still the warm inner glow is worth it, n'est pas?

It seems to me that governments no longer want the responsibility of housing. Certainly in SA, they no longer build public housing. The Housing Trust handed over the running of public housing to contractors/charities years ago. There is no new building.

Proponents of public housing might be caught up in the 'right-to-housing myth. Given that there is a growing number of homeless people, there is clearly no such right. A right is something that you can actually get, must get. Most "rights" are just words put about by virtue-signallers who don't have any responsibility to provide them.

Governments have proved to be Casanovas in everything they touch outside of their limited core duties. They have no place in business of any kind, apart from the policing of laws and standards laid down for private enterprise to produce the goods for profit.

I think a discussion on what "Negative Gearing" is might be helpful from different perspectives.

There are problems with red tape in housing. People used to build their own homes for 1000 pounds.