cost of living

The Queensland government faces the voters every 4 years on the last Saturday of October; this year it’s the 27th. What are the issues? Our two-party system offers up a smorgasbord of options. The Laberal duopoly are truly diligent in their effort to identify their differences at election time. Given how studiously they avoid addressing the underlying causes of our most pressing issues, they are to be congratulated for fooling as many people as they do that there’s a choice.

Workers in Australia took a 4.6% real term pay cut in 2022, losing on average AUD $4,163 and working almost 10 days effectively unpaid because wages did not keep up with inflation, reveals new analysis from Oxfam ahead of International Workers Day.  

The total losses for workers in Australia was AUD $58 billion, while the increase to the minimum wage was 1.3% below inflation. 

Recent analysis claims that in 82 of Sydney's 2019 residential postcodes, a single tenant needs to be making at least $100,000 a year to avoid being in housing stress.

Cost-of-living putting Australians at risk: A new survey shows 40% of Australians report cost-of-living and personal debt is causing them elevated distress compared with this time last year – while frontline services rank it the biggest risk to suicide rates - as the country awaits news of another interest rate increase later today (Tuesday 6/9/22).

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.

There is a limit to tax charged under government legislation. There is no limit to Council rates that are charged at whatever level a Council decides upon in a financial period of up to four years. Federal taxes are calculated on income, sale of goods and service, stamp duty etc. Council rates are based on fluctuating property values and calculated on estimated necessary expenditure, not affordable expenditure. Somehow taxes have become merged with rates due to cost shifting from government onto local councils. Until ratepayers understand they are actually paying extra tax via council rates, requests for rates relief will fall on deaf ears because councils are delivering services and infrastructure beyond their financial capacity in order to comply with government policies of continuing growth and expansion.

The notion of “local government“ has been officially and politically perpetuated to legitimise the cost shifting carried out at state and federal level .

Government grants and financial handouts blur the reality of this situation. Ratepayers must look carefully at what they expect in return for taxes paid to government and what they receive in return for annually increasing rates paid to the local council. Rates and Taxes.

There is a limit to tax charged under government legislation. There is no limit to Council rates that are charged at whatever level a Council decides upon in a financial period of up to four years. Federal taxes are calculated on income, sale of goods and service, stamp duty etc. Council rates are based on fluctuating property values and calculated on estimated necessary expenditure, not affordable expenditure. Somehow taxes have become merged with rates due to cost shifting from government onto local councils. Until ratepayers understand they are actually paying extra tax via council rates, requests for rates relief will fall on deaf ears because councils are delivering services and infrastructure beyond their financial capacity in order to comply with government policies of continuing growth and expansion.

The notion of “local government“ has been officially and politically perpetuated to legitimise the cost shifting carried out at state and federal level .

Government grants and financial handouts blur the reality of this situation. Ratepayers must look carefully at what they expect in return for taxes paid to government and what they receive in return for annually increasing rates paid to the local council.

Original article at http://www.crra.org.au/news13/news1314.pdf

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 Peninsula escaped relatively lightly compared to these shires and has no excuse to raise the rates to the same extent.

In addition, an examination of the financial statements for the 79 councils in Victoria shows that the shire has the second highest level of borrowings and that the Mornington Peninsula (apart from the major cities of Melbourne and Geelong) has the second highest level of total current financial liabilities of the other councils.

The Ratepayer's Association says that this earns the shire the disgraceful reputation of being the worst financial performing council in Victoria in 2011­12, that the liveability statement is just further spin, and 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.

Source:
MORNINGTON PENINSULA RATEPAYERS' AND RESIDENTS' ASSOCIATION INC
PO Box 4087 Rosebud Vic 3939 E­mail:[email protected] Tel:0413457092

©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.

Q4. Why is housing supply in capital cities not meeting demand?
ANSWER:
Housing in the capital cities is not becoming available at a rate that can keep up with population growth. Housing is not being constructed fast enough to cater for the increased demand in the capital cities. Even when mass housing construction is released, governments are not funding appropriate residential/social infrastructure - schools, public transport, emergency services, recreational facilities, etc to maintain quality of life comparable to established suburbs.

Q5. Why is Australia's population growth so high?
ANSWER:
Net immigration growth is the bulk of the population growth and this is being perpetually and recklessly encouraged by successive pendulous cycle of Lib/Lab political parties with vested interests in the short term profits of growth.

Comment:

The sheer volume of immigrants to Australia are -over-demanding housing forcing housing scarcity and price rises making housing unaffordable to Australians. Governments are encouraging urban property price increases - through excess immigration, and urban-centric economic stimulus, yet all the while neglecting social responsibility for providing urban capacity. As Sheila Newman states on CanDoBetter: "Here in Australia every state government is in the business of raising the price of land beyond the capacity of most people to pay for it, creating exorbitant rents."

Just because many foreign governments allow excessive populations, this does not mean that Australia has to accept foreigners seeking a better opportunity. Beyond Australia's humanitarian obligations to accept refugees fleeing persecution, Australia does not have to accept economic migrants. It is these economic migrants who are displacing Australians from housing, employment, education. Economic migrants are not paying their way and are draining tax revenue to the detriment of indigenous and local Australians.

Once Australia's homeless have a humanitarian safety net of food, shelter, clothing, medical care and educational opportunity, only then should Australia consider extending invitations to foreigners to share the Australian dream of owning one's own home, but then only if carrying capacity permits.

"105,000 Australians are homeless on any given night."
[Source:Homelessness Australia]

This is a national disgrace! It is as if Australia has a 'Migrant First Policy'.

Australian Per Capita Self-Reliance Cost

What is the cost to house, feed, shelter, clothe, provide medical care, educate in literacy and numeracy a person in Australia to enable that person to become independently self-reliant and at an acceptable Australian quality standard of living? From birth to say age 22 when tertiary education will prepare a person for the workforce in the 21st Century, let's say the per capita cost is $1 million. In addition, the costs of providing social infrastructure and economic opportunities to nurture and support one's stable family environment would need to be included. Let's say the per capital cost is then $1.3 million for argument sake.

It thus costs $1.3 million in Australian taxes to get each Australian-born to a minimum self-reliance standard. Many of course will require more resources and time to achieve this and those who are disadvantaged may never reach this ideal standard, so the costs will be higher.

It is with this reality in mind that Australia's social policy and immigration policy needs to be fully realised and publicly costed. The fact that this is deliberately neglected by cyclical Lib/Lab governments at all levels that Australia's living standards are rapidly approaching those of 'Second World' New Zealand.

New Zealand a 'Second World' nation you ask?
Well, the term traditionally referred to Eastern Bloc countries, but times have changed. The term more usefully refers to countries that on the basis of economic prosperity, living standards and quality of life lie between the First World (like most of Western Europe) and the Third World (like most of Africa). Some Third World countries like Malaysia are advancing, while some First World countries like New Zealand are going backwards.

"An international report has found that a sixth of New Zealand children are being raised in poverty - a higher rate than in all but three of the world's 26 rich nations.

The Innocenti Research Centre, established by the United Nations Children's Fund (Unicef), says 16.3 per cent of New Zealand children in 2001 lived in homes that earned less than half the national median income.

Only Mexico, the United States and Italy had higher rates of child poverty."

[Source: 'NZ's child poverty rate one of highest', NZ Herald, Simon Collins, 2nd March 2005].

Further Reading:

Read More about the 'Second World' by author Parag Khanna in his book 'The second world: empires and influence in the new global order.'. Khanna claims this Second World comprises Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Latin America, the Middle East, and East Asia, emerging Third World countries such as Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Colombia, Libya, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

However, just as some Third World ('developing') countries are advancing, there are some presumed 'First World' (developed) countries that have allowed their economies and societies to slip below modern First World socio-economic health standards. These include New Zealand, Greece, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Russia, and Portugal. We may refer to retrograde socio-economic as 'nation backsliding'.

The measures determining a country's socio-economic health include a factor of Physical quality-of-life index (PQLI) derived from basic literacy rate, infant mortality, and life expectancy at age one, all equally weighted on a 0 to 100 scale. The measures are also a factor of Gross National Product (GNP) as a measure of comparative economic performance and the UN Human Development Index (HDI) as a comparative measure of poverty, literacy, education, life expectancy, childbirth, and other factors for countries worldwide. HDI measures the average achievements in a country in three basic dimensions of human development:

A long and healthy life, as measured by life expectancy at birth.
Knowledge, as measured by the adult literacy rate (with two-thirds weight) and the combined primary, secondary, and tertiary gross enrolment ratio (with one-third weight).
A decent standard of living, as measured by gross domestic product (GDP) per capita at purchasing power parity (PPP) in USD.

Each year, UN member states are listed and ranked according to these measures. Those high on the list often advertise it, as a means of attracting talented immigrants (economically, individual capital) or discouraging emigration.

An alternative measure, focusing on the amount of poverty in a country, is the Human Poverty Index.

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.

King attributed the rise in electricity demand to booming sales in energy-inefficient flat-screen televisions and air-conditioners. ['Energy prices to triple', The Australian April 14, 2010] This is clearly a consequence of new housing development driven by population growth laregley fueld by record immigration. And the growth lobby like the Urban Taskforce are lapping up the new cash!

Last month, that dodgy NSW Government euphemism 'The Independent Pricing and Regulatory Tribunal (IPART)' approved electricity price rises of up to 64% over the next three years, with "those living outside the main cities will bear the brunt of the increases."

'Country Energy, which provides all of rural NSW customers with their electricity, has been allowed to raise its prices by the steepest amount, with an increase of $918 if the scheme is introduced; otherwise, the rise will be $601.

'Overall, Energy Australia customers will see prices rise by a total of 46 per cent, for Integral Energy 60 per cent, and for Country Energy 64 per cent.

Welfare groups have warned that the price rises will force many low-income households into ''energy poverty'', and they will not be able to afford to pay their bills.'

[Brisbane Courier Mail, 'Households to feel pinch as price of power soars', 19th March 2010]

BIGGER WATER RATES

Across Australia, water rates are on the rise as each capital city spends big on desalination plants to cope with their swelling populations.

Last April (2009) it was reported by the Essential Services Commission that Melbourne households faced water price hikes of up to 84% over five years. The key drivers were claimed to be the global economy (standard excuse) as well as government not keeping water infrastructure up to demand and so deferring infrastructure works for years. [The Age (Melb), 21 Apr 2009]

Just two days ago, (12th April 2010), with Melbourne's extravagant new desal plant blowing out to cost a whopping $5.7 billion, Melbourne's water prices will further escalate to pay the bill and because of the extravagant dependency of desalination for electricity, which is also going up in price.

'Over the past five years the price of electricity has increased 13 per cent a year in Victoria - and in NSW prices have risen 28 per cent a year in each of the past two years.'

['Water plans drift behind a veil of secrecy', The Age April 12, 2010]

BIGGER HOUSING PRICES

In 2009 Australian capital city house prices rose by 12.1%. Meanwhile Australia's homeless stands at 16,000. Key drivers for house prices surging are the government’s first-home owners’ grant boost.
['Web alert - warning on 'crazy' house prices', Sydney Morning Herald, 16th February 2010]

Other drivers are the inflow of new immigrants seeking accommodation and foreign nationals permitted to invest in Australia's residential housing market.

BIGGER MORTAGE INTEREST RATES

Last December, interest rates were predicted to rise 1% during 2010. But the drivers were the surge of capital projects in the next few years and China growth.
['Business, brace for 1% rise in interest rates in 2010', Sydney Moring Herald, 24th December 2009]

This month, all the banks followed the Reserve Bank in raising their mortgage rates by 25 basis points, making this the 5th interest rate rise since October and has pushed up mortgage costs by a total of almost $250 a month.

Treasurer Swan said the rise was “a painful reminder” the economy was improving. How out of touch is Swan?

Economists warned there could be at least one more rate rise before the end of the year.

['CBA, ANZ, Westpac follow as Reserve Bank raises official cash rate to 4.25%', Herald Sun , 6th April 2010]

BIGGER GROCERIES BILLS

It was confirmed just last November that Australians "are paying the fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation. The cost of feeding a family has shot up more than 40 per cent this decade, new OECD figures reveal.

Experts say the explanation for our pricey produce and soaring staples is not drought, currency movements or transport costs. University of NSW associate professor Frank Zumbo said comparing costs over 10 years eliminated such variables and exposed our "cosy" supermarket duopoly as the main reason.

[Daily Telegraph, 'Australia has fastest-rising food prices of any major developed nation', 9th November 2009]

BIGGER MEAT PRICES

Wholesale butcher Kevin Masterton says the days of expensive cuts at cheap prices are over for Australian meat lovers. He's predicted Australian meat prices will never be the same again.

"Everyone is predicting Lamb will be the first Australian meat that is unaffordable. Some of the predictions I've seen is that lamb racks and cutlets will be one hundred dollars a kilo by the middle of this decade," Kevin said.

And it's all because we've been spoiled for choice. The drought has forced farmers' hands - they've had to off-load cattle to stay afloat. "They see that they are going to make more money on the cattle so they hold onto them for longer. There is also quite a bit of export, the economy has started to turn so there is less cattle in the market," Kevin said.

And it's a similar story when it comes to lamb. There's been a nine per cent jump in retail sales and a 10 per cent rise in national expenditure on the meat.

And this year the nation's sheep flock is forecast to hit its lowest point since 1905. "And we have got massive exports to the middle east, so if you take those factors into account they've had a pretty detrimental impact on the stock," Kevin said.

"Lamb has probably had the most spectacular increase - we are probably talking four to five dollars a kilo for the lamb cuts."

['Meat prices on the rise', Today Tonight, 3rd March 2010]

So there is not enough capacity in our meat livestock industry to cope with demand, hence meat prices are going up.

BIGGER PETROL COSTS

"Crude oil prices have surged to 18-month highs on the weekend and have swept petrol prices higher.
Oil prices could go to $US95 a barrel, warns analysts. Domestically, a litre of unleaded petrol costs $1.29, up 0.3 cents.

'Oil, which has been trading at between $US75 and $US85 a barrel for months, now appears to be in a new range that could go up to $95, according to oil trader and analyst Stephen Schork.'

[Perth Sunday Times, 'Petrol prices set to rise, 6th April, 2010]

The trend suggests that Australian petrol prices could be nudging $2 a litre in two years time and this time it will stay there in line with international prices. Ain't globalisation and free trade great for locals!

BIGGER POORER AUSTRALIA

The compounding cost of living for ordinary Australians is becoming desperate!
What the economic data doesn't report is the social consequences - like the growing depression, family breakdowns, homelessness, substance abuse, suicides and domestic violence.
The long term impacts on children are devastating for not only the children but the future society they become adults in.

More people into less space driving up living costs, only delivers a poorer Australia.

The drivers of these costs must be addressed as a national priority.
The BIG elephant in the room is starkly Rudd's immigration out of control!
Rudd's red herring Population Minister is just that, an election red herring.

Rampant Rudd and his immigration wrath must be stopped!

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.

The featured guest was Mark McCrindle of McCrindle Research. He appears to be a promoter of population growth, although one of the documents (pdf, 1.8M) on his web site is frank about one consequence of our population growing to an estimate 24 million (which would have to be an underestimate and must pre-date the announcement in May by Immigration Minister Evans of an increase in immigration) from 21.2 million some time this year. It states:

By 2020 energy consumption will have increase by one third and based on current technologies, greenhouse gas emissions will be 20% higher than today.

I posted the following comment to the By Design Guest Book

The fact that most of us no longer have enough of our own space to store our accumulated possessions is yet more evidence of how our standard of living has declined largely as a consequence of population growth.

Those of us who can't afford $200 month to store our possessions, as in Alan Saunders' case must either endure unacceptable clutter. Throwing out possessions is not always an acceptable solution either. I have come to regret having thrown out possessions including books and magazines.

Interesting that Mark McCrindle pointed out that more of us are renting and that we change jobs every four years. As one who has been made involuntarily to change my job a number of times in my life, I don't see either these statistics as indications that our society is moving forward.

Postscript: The above comment was read out (in essence) in full by Alan Saunders roughly half way through the By Design of Wednesday 10 September (repeated Sat 13 September). There is no one page for that program, but the components were Trends in Lighting, The humble brick, The shrinking office and Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack and the Bauhaus in Australia. The audio file (25MB), which will be available until roughly 8 Oct 2008 can be found here. - JS 16 Sep 08

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.“

Alex Poulsen tried to portray shared accommodation in a somewhat positive light, when he pointed out that this kind of renting can be a great way to meet people, particularly if want to build a portfolio of contacts.

Of course, this is one of many reasons why people have chosen to live in shared accommodation in the past, but it was more a choice than a necessity, and those who did so could expect to save considerably on rental costs in return for having their personal space encroached upon by strangers with whom they may not necessarily have been compatible. These days it is no longer a choice for many, because of skyrocketing rents.

For those who do grasp the nettle of living with strangers under the same roof, the choices may still be limited. Between AU$155-AU$160 per week seems to be the average for shared accommodation which is proving to be a hurdle for many young people seeking shared accommodation in Brisbane according to Don Foster, accommodation manager of the Queensland University of Technology.

The high rents which are forcing many more than previously would have had to have lived together are the direct result of increased demand for rental properties, caused by population growth that has been directly lobbied for by land speculators. Indeed, in May 2004 whilst listening to an "Australia Talks Back" (now called "Australia Talks") talkback program on ABC's Radio National, I was astonished to hear an economist working for the Real Estate Institute of Australia (or possibly the Property Council of Australia) actually state that they were looking towards an increase in immigration to revive the slump in the property market. They have since got their wish of course, with the help of the Courier Mail newspaper, itself a relentless promoter of population growth₁ and the rest of us are paying the price.

See also: "Rent gouging threatens Brisbane inner city retail community"

Footnotes:

1. See The Courier Mail beats the drum for more Queensland population growth. [back]