The Forum > General Discussion > Solve the housing crisis - wind-back immigration.
Solve the housing crisis - wind-back immigration.
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Posted by Pericles, Sunday, 17 December 2006 3:25:18 PM
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Pericles,
Floor area has increased, but those small, basic 1950s and 1960s houses are still selling for several hundred thousand dollars within commuting distance of the major cities. In the 1970s, approximately 30% of the cost of a modest house represented the value of the land, and now it is 80%. It is true that construction costs have not increased in real terms over this period, but this is a relatively minor part of the cost. Ask the homeless (practically nonexistent 30 years ago) and mothers who are forced to leave babies to go back to work if this is a change for the better. According to Lester Thurow 1% population growth means that 12% of GNP has to be diverted into public and private infrastructure to accommodate it. This obviously has a cost in terms of services to existing residents. It is true that the real cost of electronic goods (and cars) has come down. This is used to make the CPI look better, as the falling cost of these goods can be used to offset and conceal the rising cost of such things as dental care or fresh fruits and vegetables. Also, so far as housing is concerned, the CPI only considers construction costs, not the cost of the land the house is built on or the cost of buying an established house. You are ignoring environmental and quality of life costs in your assessment that everything is rosy. Here is just one example. If you are old enough to remember the situation 30 years ago, go into a fish market. You will see that species that were cheap and abundant have disappeared or become expensive luxuries for the rich. Posted by Divergence, Sunday, 17 December 2006 3:48:40 PM
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VIETNAM, IRAQ, IMMIGRATION/ASSYLUM SEEKERS.
We know from experience that when we involve ourselves in half baked wars of loyalty to the USA, which are rarely 'finished' that there follows a FLOOD of assylum seekers who are those who (to us) cooperated or "collaborated" (to the Insurgents)with our efforts. This is a situation where the concept of 'human rights and moral responsiblity' as understood by many on the Left of politics which could ruin our country forever. If we, by virtue of our creation of such collaboraters then denied them entry to Australia as the insurgents seek their blood, we look bad. But then, as we see our political,cultural and social situation destroyed, we look (and are) stupid. NO SPECIAL TREATMENT for those Iraqis who ally themselves with us, (and who conveniently forget that alignment when they are asked to do the hard yards and take out some insurgents of their own tribe). They KNOW who are the insurgents, and could take them out NOW if they had the will, so its not 'our fault' that they might be left holding the baby when we leave. They have the weapons, and the training and the tribal and kinship connections. POPULATION The reference to our population and sustainability is certainly a big factor with which I agree actually. I've just returned from a family get2gether and my civil engineer cousin living/working in the Woodonga area reports they are pretty much 'out' of water. The idea of draining Lake Mokoan is beyond rediculous because it is supposedly to replace the water taken to refill the Snowy River. How many times can you drain a lake ? It takes a LOT to get my larrikin cousin thinking and ACTING politically, but this has. Posted by BOAZ_David, Sunday, 17 December 2006 4:33:33 PM
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Ludwig asked: "So, why hasn't mainstream Australia rallied against high pop growth and in favour of a policy of stabilizing our population?"
This is one of the core questions addressed by Sheila Newman's Master's thesis, I referred to earlier (downloadable from http://www.candobetter.org/sheila). I It boils down to the fact that, whilst the benefits of immigration are shared by very few in our community, the costs are borne by the rest of us. Those who stand to benefit, that is property developers, land speculators, bankers, suppliers of building materials, immigration agents and lawyers, etc, have organised themselves into very effective and vocal lobby groups to promote their interests and to thwart the wishes of the broader community. This stands in contrast to France, where, because of the different land use planning system, that is one coordinated centrally by the government instead of the chaotic mess we have in this country, no sufficiently powerful group stands to derive any substantial benefit from high immigration. It is a most readable document in my opinion and well worth the trouble and expense of having all 380 pages (190 if double-sided) of it printed out. The core of it is 248 pages long. This document will answer your question and will go a long way towards explaining a lot else of what has been going in in this country for at least the last three decades. If you read Pericles' post (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?discussion=310#5400) in this thread or in numerous posts he has made in the earlier thread (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=4834#54879) in response to Andrew Bartlett's article "A crisis in housing affordability" of August 2006, you will learn that he doesn't share my view of Sheila Newman's work. However, you will have to look harder than I was able to if you wish to find any substance to Pericles' objections. Posted by daggett, Sunday, 17 December 2006 6:32:41 PM
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Daggett, you're all over the place. No-one's devised a more rigorous or better measure of national wealth than GDP, so when talking about national wealth, it's reasonable to use it. My argument is that if that is neutral, which it is on the account both of expert reports in favour of high immigration and those opposed, then there is no compelling reason not to look at other factors. Your argument about GDP doesn't take us anywhere.
(Thurow's argument appears to neglect the fact that money circulates, that countries can borrow, and that immigrants increase resources, including assets - because they bring some with them - and income - because when they get here they work. All of these factors contribute to immigration having a negligible effect one-way or the other. If immigration really were a wealth hazard, then the US, Australia, Canada and New Zealand would be amongst the poorest countries in the world. That they aren't, empirically destroys the argument that you are trying to put.) Your contention that there is a conspiracy here to promote immigration which doesn't exist in other countries is wrong. There are vested interests in all countries, including France, who stand to benefit from immigration. The biggest group is those immigrants already here who want friends and relatives to be able to come out as well. Certainly real estate developers and financiers benefit, but they'd benefit anywhere. Another reason that the migration rate is so high is that we have a shortage of skilled labour which is being filled from overseas. Posted by GrahamY, Sunday, 17 December 2006 7:03:11 PM
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Graham, it seem as if you have not understood my previous posts. Many, including Pericles here do use the GDP measure to wrongly depict circumstances to be more favourable than they actually are. Pericles is trying to argue that, on balance, that per capita GDP figures prove that we are, overall, no worse off, than if we did not have high immigration. This implies that if we have lost because of higher housing costs, we have gained in other ways that negate that loss.
So, is he right or not? The GDP is not a "rigorous ... measure of national wealth". It has not taken into account the "other factors" that have adversely affected our standards of living as a consequence of high immigration and natural disasters and road accidents are counted by the GDP as adding to national prosperity. Why do you believe that Simon Kuznets, himself, the person who devised the GDP measure, warned against it being used a s a measure of national prosperity? Graham wrote: "There are vested interests in all countries, including France, who stand to benefit from immigration." So why do you think that these countries ended their programs of high immigration in 1974, whilst Australia persisted with its program? Whether or not we call it a consipiracy, the evidence of the undue influence that the growth lobby uses in order to maintain high immigration levels is to be found in Sheila Newman's thesis. Posted by daggett, Sunday, 17 December 2006 8:23:04 PM
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>>Until we do, we should stick with the facts, and with measures which do have some bearing on the questions at hand, such as that provided by divergence [Productivity Commission State of the Environment Report] that is, in terms of median wages, the cost of housing has risen by thre times in recent years.<<
The same report states the following:
"Over the decade since 1993/94 the floor area of new houses in the capital cities has continued to increase. In 1993-94, the average floor area of new houses built in Australian capital cities was 196 square metres. In 2002-03, the average size was 235 square metres. Data for the first three quarters of 2003-04 indicates the average size of new houses is still increasing (239 square metres).
While the floor area of new dwellings has continued to increase the average household size has continued to fall over the last three decades. The average household size which was 3.3 in 1971, fell to 2.8 in 1991 and decreased to 2.59 in 2001...
The living area available per person per household has increased by nearly a third over the decade since 1993/94."
If housing is an affordability issue, why is the living area available not decreasing over time, instead of increasing, as it consistently has been? Surely, we would be building smaller, more "affordable" living spaces, instead of spreading ourselves out?
Does this not indicate a conscious choice by consumers, rather than a conspiracy by jackbooted capitalists?