affordable housing

The Sustainable Australia Party has prioritised four key issues that unite rather than divide Australians: secure jobs, affordable housing, better planning and a sustainable environment.
Related policies feature in the video.

Why vote for Sustainable Australia?

In short, our party has prioritised four key issues that unite rather than divide us: secure jobs, affordable housing, better planning and a sustainable environment.

We've featured these four issues in our new video:

We need your help

One of the unique selling points of our party is a genuine sustainable population policy. First and foremost, rapid population growth is an environmental problem, but it also impacts on our ability to achieve secure jobs, affordable housing and better planning.

For example, without slowing population growth, desperately needed housing affordability policies around taxation, bank lending practices and overseas buyers are negated by continued rapid growth in domestic demand.

Leading real estate rent-seeker, the Property Council of Australia (PCA), is pushing for another idiotic policy “solution” to fix Australia’s housing affordability woes: offering a government-backed low deposit home loan scheme.

From The Australian:

"A government-backed low-­deposit home loan scheme could help address housing affordability by getting more buyers into the market and adding to the housing stock, according to the Property Council of Australia…

The PCA highlighted the Keystart program in Western Australia, where buyers can purchase a home with a 2 per cent deposit in Perth and up to 7 per cent in regional areas without paying lender’s mortgage insurance…

PCA chief of policy Glenn Byres said the program had been “useful in helping to drive supply” and had helped buyers who would otherwise be locked out.

“The big challenge right now is the deposit gap and people having to save sufficiently to meet the deposit requirements of ­lenders,” Mr Byres told The Australian…

BIS Oxford Economics senior manager for residential property Angie Zigomanis said any rollout of such a scheme might encourage some borrowers to buy better properties than they could otherwise afford, which could drive up prices for more affordable homes…

Are you sick of politicians stuffing up our country? We are - and we’re doing something. We're serious about:
- Secure #jobs
- Affordable #housing
- Better #planning
- Sustainable #environment and population

Watch our new NSW membership video:

Add up all the neglected costs of downsizing and retirees have good reason to be wary of making the move. It’s time to debunk the myth of zero housing costs in retirement if we want to understand why retirees resist downsizing. Retirees have at least five reasons to be wary of the costs of downsizing. [Article first published at https://theconversation.com/downsizing-cost-trap-awaits-retirees-five-reasons-to-be-wary-80895 on 31 July 2017.]

Retirees living in middle-ring suburbs face frequent calls to downsize into apartments to free up larger allotments in these suburbs for redevelopment. Retirees who fail to downsize into smaller units and apartments are viewed as being a greedy, baby-boomer elite, stealing financial security from younger generations.

Referring to the HILDA Report, the author suggests that, if immigration were reduced, a precipitate decline in house-prices could probably be adequately buffered by local buyers who currently cannot afford to enter the grossly inflated housing market.

Yet another report about homelessness in Australia

Melbourne University Faculty of Business and Economics this week released a report entitled,"The Household, Income and Labour dynamics in Australia survey," (HILDA for short).

The main disturbing and most publicized finding on the day it was released was that home ownership in Australia is in steady decline and the steepest decline is in the state of Victoria. In Victoria I see the extreme manifestation of this trend, homelessness in the streets of Melbourne, every time I venture to the city or inner Melbourne areas such as Carlton. I actually know personally two people, one older and one young, who have experienced homelessness in Melbourne.

Planning Minister Matthew Guy has told the Surf Coast Shire Council that ''ministerial amendment'' to planning controls for the land is warranted to ''respond to the urgent need to address housing affordability....and proactively manage growth for Torquay-Jan Juc''.  In other words, the Surf Coast Shire Council must cave into State government demands, or they will be forced to!  ("proactively"!)    It will become another ubiquitous part of Melbourne's sprawling housing estates.  It's an attack on democracy, public opinion, and is ecologically destructive.

Matthew Guy's Ministerial Amendment to override Torquay Council

Mr Guy has told the Surf Coast Shire Council that ''ministerial amendment'' to planning controls for the land is warranted to ''respond to the urgent need to address housing affordability, facilitate the establishment of new schools, and proactively manage growth for Torquay-Jan Juc''.  In other words, the Surf Coast Shire Council must cave into State government demands, or they will be forced to!  ("proactively"!)    It will become another ubiquitous part of Melbourne's sprawling housing estates.  It's an attack on democracy, public opinion, and is ecologically destructive.