cost of living

The article below is about cost-shifting to local councils to cope with increasing demand for infrastructure and services. This is of course a reflection of population pressure. The councils once could limit the amount of new homes and development but their capacity to do this has been greatly eroded by state government. The state governments have also left councils with little option but to borrow and to gouge residents with higher rates to cater to ever increasing costs of population growth. Just as there seem to be no limits to population growth in Victoria, there are no limits to local rates in Victoria. The article below is an extract from Cardinia Ratepayers and Residents Assn Inc Newsletter.

Mornington Peninsula Ratepayer's and Residents' Association says that Mornington Peninsula shire has earned the disgraceful reputation of being the worst financial performing council in Victoria in 2011-­12, that its liveability statement is spin, and that they can't understand why the Council ignored the call by many in the community to advertise for a CEO who can control rate increases.

The Mornington Peninsula Shire Mayor, Cr Graham Pittock's spin says the shire budget is a “liveability budget” because rates will only increase 6.8%. However we are confused by his logic.

The fact is that this year the budget shows that ratepayers will be contributing an additional $10.269 million or 9.85% in rates and charges to the shire's “bucket of cash”. This is before the bucket overflows with an additional $1.41 million increase in charges for tip fees.

The Municipal Association of Victoria's list of rates and charges for Victoria's 79 councils shows that only West Wimmera, Murrindindi and Baw Baw have increased rates and charges per assessed property more than the Mornington Peninsula.

West Wimmera and Baw Baw were affected by the recent floods. Murrindindi includes the townships of Marysville and Kinglake and is rebuilding after the 2009 bushfires when 95 people in the shire perished.

©The Cairns Post


Q1. Why are house prices in urban Australia perpetually rising?
ANSWER:
Demand for housing exceeds supply, particularly in the capital cities. Real estate investors, the real estate industry and property developers seek to maximise their capital gain on selling housing and so seek the highest price on an open unregulated market.

Q2. Why is demand for urban housing exceeding supply in Australian cities?
ANSWER:
Population growth is outpacing the combined rate of sales of existing housing and construction of new housing in the capital cities.

Q3. Why is housing demand so strong?
ANSWERS:
Australian federal and state governments are encouraging business development in the capital cities and so employment opportunities are disproportionately higher in the capital cities. Australian federal and state governments are encouraging urban population growth at rates that exceed the housing supply in the capital cities. Since employment opportunities are disproportionately higher in the capital cities, population growth is disproportionately high in the capital cities.

Rudd's penchant for a 'big Australia' is behind his absurd record immigration policy. Population growth and congestion is out of control and is the common denominator driving up Australian land prices, electricity, water, inflation, consumer demand, interest rates, and consequently the costs of living of ordinary Australians.

Our state and federal public infrastructure cannot cope - roads, public transport, health, education, housing, you name it!

Our state and federal public infrastructure cannot cope.
The cost of living for ordinary Australians is becoming desperate!

BIGGER ELECTRICITY BILLS

Today, Origin Energy chief executive, Grant King, warned the Committee for the Economic Development of Australia in Sydney that Electricity prices across Australia were likely to triple over the next 10 years.
He blamed the combination of the federal government's mandatory renewable-energy targets, energy policy uncertainty, higher electricity transmission and distribution costs, and higher fuel costs would drive the increase.

Illustration: Self-storage city by Sheila Newman

ABC Radio National's By Design program of 30 August ran a story which seemed to depict the growth of the 'self-storage' industry as somehow positive. The fact that so many of us can no longer store our accumulated possessions where we live and must, instead, resort to paying, in the case of program presenter Alan Saunders, AU$200 per month to rent the space necessary to store those possessions is yet another indicator of our declining standard of living. Undoubtedly, the economic activity entailed in the provision of a service that few of us once needed is counted in our country's Gross Domestic Product and, hence, as adding to our national prosperity.

One of many reports about the ongoing and worsening rental crisis in Brisbane, is the article "Wanted: a Room to rent" on page 27 of Brisbane's Courier Mail newspaper of 29 April 2008. The article reports trends where both co-tenancy and room-by-room tenancy is increasing. In the latter case, the room is directly rented by each individual tenant from the landlord. This situation is predicted to grow here in the same way that it grew in the UK between 1996 and 2000.

It is hard to fathom whether the intention of the journalist Paddy Hintz is to objectively report this indicator of worsening quality of life for many Queenslanders or to promote acceptance of it. According to the article, "Rental experts are now predicting that &emdash; for good or for bad &emdash; room-by-room renting will continue its stellar rise," as if this trend could possibly be 'good' for anyone other than slumlords, real estate agents and property speculators.

Alex Poulsen, manager of the University of Queensland accommodation services, was quoted:

“I think what is really interesting is the number of professional people in their 20s and 30s who are now sharing.

“It’s that weird 10-year period where you can’t really afford to live in your own home but you don’t want to live at home either.

“People who live in share houses are getting older, people are getting married later and women are waiting longer to have babies.“