Falling homeownership rates, stagnant wages and diminishing retirement savings mean that for more and more Americans, the middle-class dream is slowly dying – if it’s not already gone.
The housing crisis has scuppered home ownership dreams for many across the UK, but there is another way to do things.
Before entering politics, Scott Morrison was employed to develop policy for the Property Council of Australia, which is now leading the charge against negative-gearing reform.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
The default position for politicians is to sound concerned about housing affordability, but do nothing. This can be explained by the idea of ‘policy capture’, in this case by industry interests.
Negative gearing is not the housing saviour those in the industry claim it to be.
Labor’s Chris Bowen and Bill Shorten announced plans for new tax rules, and the government, even as it attacked their plan, has also opened the door to changes to negative gearing.
AAP/Gemma Najen
The problem is there are already too many buyers willing to pay high prices, and negative gearing is designed to create more buyers willing to pay more.
The Labor has tackled negative gearing reform first.
AAP/Mick Tsikas
Government policy has not, on the whole, failed. It has been a huge success insofar as protecting the opportunities for speculative investment and profit for homeowners and private landlords.
An experiment compared the experience of Anglo, Indian and Muslim Middle Eastern “renters” looking for housing. The differences in how they were treated were significant.
Japan’s ageing population is at the point that Australia is forecast to reach in 2056. The Japanese have had to develop new models of aged care in the community and we can learn a lot from them.
Professor; School of Economics, Finance and Property, and Director, Australian Housing and Urban Research Institute, Curtin Research Centre, Curtin University
Professor of Social Epidemiology and Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Healthy Housing at the Melbourne School of Population and Global Health, The University of Melbourne