10 April

The head of Australia’s largest super fund speaking the truth about housing that Australians never want to hear. ‘Supply’ won’t fix the housing crisis. Nobody is going to flood the market with cheap houses. It would send builders and developers and existing property owners bankrupt. Australians use housing as casino chips, as a way to get rich quick, to gain social status. Fast capital gains. Until we stop using housing as a national status casino, it will be unaffordable. Only once in all of history has housing been affordable to ordinary people. After WW2, when government took control of housing. A housing ‘market’ is just the casino, and will never deliver affordable housing. Australia needs to invest in meaningful things, not capital gains. In building 21st century infrastructure. In renewable energy, roads, electric vehicle support, aged care, land repair. Etc etc. We’ve had more than 4 decades of ‘free market’ politicians who refused to do any of those things, telling us the ‘market’ will deliver what the country needs. The market is bullshit, it just funds status games, where people compete with each other for social status. In housing, education, health care, wankpanzer cars, etc. etc.