Billion-dollar plan to escape housing's 'valley of death'

They maybe looking at where to use that spare $60B

Billion-dollar plan to escape housing's 'valley of death'

 

I don't get this. I couldn't read the article because it's behind a paywall, but this comment concerns me "The federal government is working up a multibillion-dollar scheme to construct residential housing as part of its strategy to stimulate the economy and prop up the building industry as the nation emerges from the coronavirus crisis."

So, we're not allowing much migration at this point in time, (no population growth) but we're going to throw a heap of money around constructing residential housing. How is that a benefit? Who do the government think will live in the excess housing?

Instead, why doesn't the government spend on more infrastructure, or subsidise new manufacturing opportunities. This will provide jobs AND be better for the country as a whole.

 

We build more housings now so by the time the virus is over then we can get more people in

 

Valley of Death is a term that the Master Builders Association is bandying about as they lobby the government for a construction industry boost.

From a Perth/WA point of view we've been in the depths of the valley for at least 4 years now with the lowest residential construction starts in history - half what it was prior to 2014. The good news is that we have now eaten up all that over supply and even with no migration will be heading towards under supply.

So it's interesting to me that nothing was done for Perth but now that it's impacted other states something might be done - I'm a little jaded about that - but if a stimulus package is raised for residential or commercial construction it should benefit Perth too and we are now in a better position to take it instead of states which are already over supplied.

A number of groups are lobbying the federal goverment to do something for construction so there are a lot of click bait type headlines and dramatic words being bandied about. We will just have to wait and see what the govt decides to do - it may decide to do nothing at all but I doubt it.

 

Billion-dollar plan to escape housing's 'valley of death' : AusFinance

Lets just continue the over development craze. How many new units are empty around Australia?

 

Being in construction I should be biased but I would much rather invest this tax payer money in improving our economies production of exports and innovation. I have an issue that our economy is so affected by immigration generally, international students, coal and uranium exports. We can do better than that. At the end of the day if you invest in these areas we will get construction anyway. Why not put this money towards future industries and take a few punts.

 

If money is going to be put it into building and construction, then let it fix issues such as the cladding scandal.Through no fault of their making, property owners have been left with financial headaches caused in a large part by greedy and corrupt developers, their architects, poor council administrators and inept and gullible standards inspectors.

Use the money to rebuild regional and country areas affected by the bushfires and for social housing to ensure there are safe places for the homeless to shelter. With some clear thinking there are lots of ways to quickly stimulate and implement construction work that helps at a lower level and doesn't involve more multi-storey buildings reaching into the clouds and who's developers already have the necessary investment.

The paucity of big ideas from Govt is embarrassing and sometimes I wish they proved me wrong.

 

Only game in town

 

The only building and construction they should/could throw money at is public infrastructure and transport links.

 

Or maybe social housing

 

Fine. Just not near any of my IP's haha.

 

Mr Morrison again raised the issue of an extreme drop in migrant, estimated by Treasury at 85 per cent.
"We're looking at net overseas migration falling to 34,000-odd next year. When you think that – it was the great Professor McDonald who set a figure of between 160,000 and 210,000 as being what you need in this country to maintain GDP-per-capita growth – then there's obviously a big gap there," Mr Morrison said.

If that is what Morrison truly said then its quite telling (and more than a little disturbing) about how his government will react. The obvious concern for me is the continuation of the Ponzi-style overcrowding of our two biggest cities that can't cope. It's complete nuts.
What a pity this bloke doesn't have the vision to instead promote construction of water security projects that could hugely increase farm outputs, improve Murray-Darling water flows, and drought-proof much of Australia's foodbasket. By doing stuff like this the national GDP could skyrocket and many new homes get built anyway for people associated with new employment in value-adding industries away from overcrowded cities.
The Bradfield Scheme could do for Australia what the Hoover Dam scheme did for USA during the great depression of the 1930's. If not now then when ? But we are locked into mediocre thinking for the nation, by leaders of limited intelligence. Just my 2c.

 

Just create three lobby groups for water & food security and each donate to the liberal party. In the next financial crisis, you will get a significant portion of the stimulus.

Better still, have the Prime Minister work as a national policy and research manager for the Water and Food Security Council of Australia for 6 years in his early career.

 

it's sad but true that lobby groups end up being a necessary element that leads to a detrimental outcome. I've tried many times to consider a world where they were either removed or replaced by an improved alternative, but every situation ends up being corrupted by self-interest. No matter the approach, all forms of government arrive in a corrupted version of their idyllic intent.

 

There is a good book - "Game of Mates - How favours bleed the nation" by Cameron K Murray and Paul Frijters.

It shows how a small donation ('Grey Gift' as we don't have corruption in Australia) can cost society hundreds times more.

This is probably a prime example. A small donation from three housing industry groups will probably cost property investors and home owners substantially more in falling house prices due to oversupply, at a time when there is no immigration.

Where is the first gym membership grant, to support gyms, or the first restaurant grant to support restaurants? Why single out one industry?

 

Businesses and states depending on large population growth are facing a coronavirus shock with the Morrison government expecting a fall of up to 300,000 people moving to Australia over the next two years.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison on Friday revealed the government expects net overseas migration to fall by 30 per cent in the current financial year before crashing by 85 per cent in 2020-21.

This year's budget had assumed a net 270,000 increase in migration for 2019-20 and just a small drop off the following year. An 85 per cent drop would take net migration down to 40,500, the lowest rate in decades.

link

 

Interesting to see what construction projects do that are half way to completion.