Don’t blame migrants, target investors instead
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HOUSING
Next time a friend/colleague/acquaintance (or politician) blames poor housing availability on migrants, thereby justifying reduction in their numbers, make them read Millie Muroi’s article (“Blaming immigrants for high house prices? Look at the other ‘I’ word”, 21/2).
It should be compulsory reading that brings more balance to the discussion. We have long known the benefits of migrants in so many ways, but many choose to scapegoat them rather than to look at true causes and so protect the already well-off investors.
Carol Fountain, Mentone
Restrict undesirable property investment
Millie Muroi’s article on house prices (21/2) was excellent. I’ve never subscribed to the view that immigration is driving up property prices. The main factor is (as she says) local investors buying up existing property. This is unproductive investment from a national point of view, and I’m philosophically opposed to it.
When you buy shares in CSL (for example), you are investing in providing for new vaccines, blood plasma production and so on, which is wealth creating. Encouraging the accumulation of properties by a minority of individuals is not wealth creating; it is wealth redistribution from one set of individuals into the hands of a minority. Such a process increases inequality, which will increase social problems. Tax breaks that encourage this undesirable property investment should be scaled back or eliminated.
Phil Ritchie, Balaclava
System works against young voters
As Millie Muroi explained so well (21/2 ), every young voter without wealthy parents knows the odds are stacked against them in buying a house. It looks like Jim Chalmers might finally try to pare back the generous treatment of Capital Gains Tax but it seems that the new Liberal leader is already getting his team ready to kill it. Tim Wilson, an old hand with franking credits, will be preparing the lines, “aspiration tax”, “housing tax” or similar.
A young house hunter or middle-aged divorcee trying to reestablish will find every auction has an investor or two bidding up the price. That investor can negatively gear the property against their work salary, heavily reducing their tax payable.
As the market rises, the value of the house rises and the rental amount can keep pace. The investor often then uses the rental property as a starter rental or sale to get their children into the market.
The investor might wait to reduce the CGT by selling after retirement when their income is low. In addition, they turbocharge the gain with a 50 per cent tax reduction. Why would young voters see this as a fair go? How can they then get the capital to start a small business?
Helen Hook, Black Rock
Supply and demand issue
Millie Muroi is correct that the taxation of residential property favours the well-off and is causing increasing unaffordability. However, I believe that her downplaying the role of migration is not correct.
The Australian population grew from 19 to 27.6 million from 2000 to 2025, an increase of 27 per cent, of which migration was the primary driver. When demand exceeds supply increases in the price of housing is unavoidable. This has been exacerbated by the fixed supply of land where people want to live, limitations of labour to build and building materials.
Canada has reduced population growth over the past year with the last quarter being negative. Rents have fallen. I would think that housing prices will follow.
Barry Lizmore, Ocean Grove
Slow northern penthouse demand
Surprise, surprise, there’s not much demand for penthouses in “more distant activity centres such as Broadmeadows and Epping” (“Viability doubts plague Allan high-density push”, 22/2).
Lawrie Bradly, Surrey Hills
Councils are winners
The lack of opportunity for middle income earners unable to purchase a home is challenging not only for builders but for home buyers and their families too.
In my suburb, old homes are being pulled down and large homes often with four to five bathrooms, underground parking and no gardens have become the order of the day.
Few new homes are being built on land available that could provide lower cost housing. The real beneficiary is the local council receiving greater rate revenue from the new dwellings.
Many such councils oppose (with ratepayer support) more density housing and apartments. Simply giving middle-income earners access to their superannuation will only raise the prices for new homes.
Ray Cleary, Camberwell
THE FORUM
Values in spades
Once again Jacqueline Maley nails it when she explains that migrants already sign on to values when arriving in Australia (22/2).
What, however, is rarely challenged is the false assumption that people who come from violent countries want to bring that violence here. In fact, I believe the opposite is true. As a recently retired teacher, I had the pleasure of teaching hundreds of refugee students who were escaping some truly horrendous environments.
These students were respectful, courteous and conscientious. Their families were supportive and grateful for the opportunity for their children to receive an education and start a new life. Their presence added to school culture. They were hard working with scores gaining careers in medicine, trades, hospitality, retail and the health sectors.
Far from railing against so called ″Australian values″, or should that be ″universal values″, they are the embodiment of them, an example to us all.
Craig Jory, Albury, NSW
No, not under siege
We are camping with a group of friends at Cape Conran in East Gippsland thanks to Parks Victoria. Fantastic.
One of our friends invited their Ukrainian neighbours. We sat, talked, laughed, shared meals, indulged in some great Australian wines.
The couple had management positions in finance before they fled the war with their daughter and her mother. They left with what they could carry. They are now the most highly qualified house cleaners in Melbourne.
They reminded us often how they love Australia and Australians; everything is beautiful, people are friendly and they are safe. They work hard, pay taxes and ask nothing of the government.
So, it sickens me to hear the vitriol spewed out by the likes of Pauline Hanson of how Australia is under siege from migrants. The term ″migrants″ is used to demonise real people who are in need of our help.
Migrants made what Australia is today.
″Migration″ is more than a concept to be bashed. Critics of migration need to meet real people like this family, people who will make great Australians.
Owen Wells, Mont Albert North
Tool of exclusion
Before I was allowed to come to Australia there was not even a mention of Australian values. Adherence to the law of the country, yes, but no more than that.
The constant emphasis on ″Australian values″ seems to be a tool of exclusion.
Helena Kilingerova, Vermont,
ISIS bride doubts
I find it somewhat difficult to understand the correspondents (Letters, 22/2) who want the repatriation of ISIS brides to Australia from Syria, regardless of the possible national security risk that they and their offspring may pose for the nation.
One correspondent states correctly that “there are judicial and security procedures in place here to monitor this”. But this surveillance would regrettably come at a considerable ongoing expense to the taxpayers.
Dennis Walker, North Melbourne
Who does monitoring?
Your correspondent speaks of ″a complex issue’ (Letters, 22/2) where ″some of the children could grow up to be radicalised. It seems however, there are judicial and security procedures in place here to monitor this″.
Yeah, right. I reckon it’ll be teachers who are lumped with keeping track of how the kids are going on their return to Australia – who better?
James Richardson, Langwarrin
Nuclear ills self-evident
Once again, here comes Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price and the same old nuclear policy promoted by Jane Hume that lost the Coalition the last election. Still, no apparent understanding of the huge cost, impossible dangers of waste storage, danger to people living in remote areas nearby, and the decades involved with building leading to extra pollution from coal and gas while waiting.
And, no apparent understanding of the striking differences between the oft-cited nuclear builds in Europe and Australia with its abundance of sun and wind. Not to mention, the targets nuclear sites would represent for national security. They just don’t get it.
Julie Conquest, Brighton
A wicked condition
Thank you to Bianca Hall for exposing the horrific impacts of the South Australian algal bloom (“‘The water was dead’: Marine campaign battles a tiny foe”, 22/2). I recently visited Adelaide and heard locals tell stories of millions of marine animals washing up on beaches, surfers suffering migraines, rashes and breathing difficulties, and the severe toll on fisheries and tourism.
This vast ecological disaster has spread across thousands of kilometres of South Australian waters and has persisted for almost a year.
Why aren’t we hearing more about it? As Hall writes, “climate change has created wickedly ideal conditions” for algal growth that is harming the environment, people’s health and livelihoods — while coal, oil and gas companies remain unaccountable.
When will the Albanese government formally declare this a disaster and stop approving the coal and gas projects that undermine any progress on climate change?
Amy Hiller, Kew
What’s to come
How many more wake-up calls do we need before we take the climate crisis seriously?
Disturbing aspects of the already record algal bloom in South Australia include water at record temperatures, fisherman and surfers falling sick, and water samples at places such as Boatswain Point devoid of any life. A worse long-term problem is that we don’t know enough about the evolving Karenia algae, or even about the baseline of marine species populations in the past.
The bottom line of climate change is that the high cost of serious action is less than the long term impact of the climate crisis. Major modelling groups including the IPCC, OECD, IEA, IMF, Boston Consulting and the Stern Review agree.
The damage to the South Australian fishing and tourist industries is a taste of far worse damage to come.
John Hughes, Mentone
Cat management
Re Antone Martinho-Truswell’s ″Don’t bell the nation’s cats. Make it illegal to own one″, 22/2): Cats are not the only problem that came to Australia with the early colonists from Britain.
What of rabbits (once again in plague proportions), foxes (running freely near suburban waterways), blackberries totally enveloping native vegetation – the list goes on.
Cats must be the responsibility of all owners to have them desexed, and securely contained either indoors with, say, an outside caged run/walkway, cat wheels, toys etc, or limited outdoors – in our case it’s nylon mesh running around the top of our fence, which is too high for the cat to jump.
All of these problems are eminently manageable – they simply require the will, both of individual cat owners and governments, both state and federal.
Oriana Collins, Hawthorn
But we need our cat
Antone Martinho-Truswell wants to make owning a cat illegal.
On behalf of the millions of cat owners who own adopted and neutered strictly indoor cats, we strongly object.
Our nine year old female, Daisy, gives us great pleasure. We got her from an animal shelter as a two year old. Life without her would be difficult for us.
Tom Cromwell, Prospect, Tas
Royal trial by media
The former prince Andrew’s reputation is being prejudicially gutted in a frenzy of public vitriol without any due process or findings of guilt other than by association with Jeffrey Epstein.
As a royal and the British trade envoy, Mountbatten-Windsor, as he is now known, moved in a world of the titled, rich and famous, but is being vilified primarily by his association with Epstein, a friend or acquaintance of many other prominent people, but their associations with Epstein are being excused or exonerated.
Is it really a surprise that people in the business world cultivate relationships with the purpose of furthering their influence and making deals, including hobnobbing and partying with other rich and famous people, particularly with the attraction of a corporate financier owning a tropical island?
Whether Andrew is a sex offender remains unproven; as a trade envoy, is guilty of influencing and making deals with governments and businesses, to further the interests of the British government – inappropriate behaviour yet to be proven.
The whole saga stinks of the spectacle of a public hanging, appeasing the righteous people and insulating the royals from a similar accusation of connection to an accused transgressor.
Rob Rogers, Warrandyte
AND ANOTHER THING
As the British royals deal with yet another family crisis, it is surely time to fast-track Australia’s becoming a republic.
Phil Lipshut, Elsternwick
Is it reasonable to expect children to pay indefinitely for their parents’ bad decisions? The government’s hard stance on the so-called ISIS brides might change if it were one of their own.
Annie Wilson, Inverloch
President Trump is told (finally) that he’s acting illegally, so his immediate response is to find another way of doing it. Is the president OK?
Fiona White, Alfredton
It seems the number of people angry at the Allan government for losing the MotoGP balance the number of people angry at the Allan government for having the Formula 1 grand prix.
Peter McGill, Lancefield
Re ″The dream lives on but can high-speed rail ever work in Australia?″(22/2). Our velocity trains can travel at 160km/h, but the trip from Geelong to Melbourne averages about
70km/h. A direct train at 160km/h would take 28 minutes.
Brett Byrne, Melbourne
Suffix style
In many cases, the reason why the suffix “ing” has gone missing is due to dismissive disinterest. Thus, to “let them wait” is easier to say than “leave them waiting”; and referring to “change rooms” instead of “changing rooms” ignores their active purpose.
Peter Drum, Coburg
I hear you, Tim Freer. The one that grates for me is all the “camp grounds” we have now. Don’t we go camping?
Joan Connellan, East Melbourne
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