House prices
A fairly easy to read recent (Feb this yr) Westpac article about the impact of immigration in inflation: https://www.westpac.com.au/news/money-matters/2023/02/surge-in-overseas-...
Immigration :
- puts pressure on the housing stock and prices, which via the wealth effect (homeowners feeling wealthier) leads to higher spending/demand,
- puts upward pressure on rents, feeding directly into inflation measures as mentioned but also increasing the cashflow and spending/demand of landlords,
- and means more people overall and increased spending/demand.
They're all inflationary and directly contradict and undermine what the RBA is trying to achieve with interest rates.
The research on the impact on the labour market and wages is mixed, but it seems that the overall conclusion is that over the years immigration has put net downward pressure on wages. This is disinflationary (and good for corporate profits and share prices).
Westpac thinks the overall net impact of immigration is slightly disinflationary.
One thing is for certain: Immigration leads to not only a larger population but also to stronger economic growth - a bigger society and economy overall - and consequently more taxation revenue and money to spend on defence. We're going all out for "big Australia" due to strategic considerations.
Governments are openly willing to sacrifice housing and rental affordability, wages growth and disadvantage, and environmental considerations, for instead increasing corporate profits and asset prices, and for preparing to go to war with China.
EDIT: correct VJ.
Agree with all above gsco, you said it in more depth. Agree it's strategic, we are taking the Indian ally approach it seems. Perhaps we too can stand next to Krishna on Arjuna's chariot at the next Kurukshetra. You've also defended the RBA here and they look more like the adults in the room compared to Treasury/gov at present with the latter's GDP:people matrix.
AndyM, it's hard not to get frustrated or angry reading those minutes from RBA on higher immigration, and the impacts it'll have in areas that are already of great concern & pain for many (higher prices on everything, tight housing market etc).
And angry not at RBA, but at the fed government. Chalmers, Albo & co get up there post-rate rises and go on about how tough this is for households blah blah blah, meanwhile their actions are pouring fuel on the inflation and cost of living fire with things such as ramping up immigration to eye watering levels.
I hated ScoMo as a smug self-interested liar and the public worked him out, but Albo is subtlety going about things in a similar way, saying one thing about trying to help, but categorically doing the opposite. People will start to cop on eventually that he really isn't much better or different at all, apart from apparently growing up in a commission flat with a single mum on welfare, you may not have heard this...
And we aren't seeing a wage inflation spiral. It's not happening broadly at all. So further immigration will just further keep wage increases at historically low levels.
Edit, saw gsco's post and agree. Fed gov are essentially saying, to hell with you all, we're looking after our own interests
We’re mostly all sons and daughters or grandsons and granddaughters of immigrants ;)
Many also came here as a result of war…
The ‘looking after our own interests’ is a shared dynamic of everyone - from pollies to good ol Aussie battlers to refugees.
This country as we know it (in the developed sense) has been built on immigration.
The brains trust don’t change no matter who is in power. They do as they are told as do we ;)
All the wars we have participated in and our historical colonial roots in places like the sub continent continue to fuel and provide ample immigration stock …
- who are we to say no ;)
https://m.
What’s everyone’s solution to the area’s of work that we currently can’t fill like aged care , nursing , doctors etc . If we don’t bring in immigrants to fill these positions how do we get enough people into this line of work ? I personally would like to see care workers get $50 an hour minimum. It’s a tough job that not many people are willing to do and I know of a few Thai & Indonesian women that have married Australians and moved here , done the course and make a great contribution to society . Paying an above decent hourly rate might persuade younger people to enter this workforce which is only growing with Australia’s growing elderly population . It’s also about time government did something about air BNB to help the rental market .
It's a good question Supa and I would ask why there’s skills shortages in these and other specific areas. I’d say two reasons: our education system - from primary to vocational and tertiary - is failing, and these specific areas of employment have all experienced an exodus of workers due to poor pay and work conditions. I don’t believe it’s due to Australia not having enough people.
Both of these two reasons are due to neoliberalism - deregulation, privatisation, gutted funding of the public sector aspects, globalisation, competition policy, etc. The government’s solution is instead of fixing our education system to produce better outcomes in terms of suitability qualified and experienced workers, and instead of fixing these areas of employment to improve conditions and wages and make them attractive for workers, we just import humans who on paper appear to be qualified and who are willing to put up with the poor pay and working conditions.
There seems to be 0 care factor for our younger generation Australians in terms of their educational access and quality of outcomes, job prospects and employability, likelihood of owning a home or even renting one, wages growth and quality of life, etc. We are just full throttle with neoliberalism and immigration,, and now war, and lip service to everything else.
@supa I don’t see young Australians doing aged care work even if it’s $50 an hour. I believe these jobs will always be done by migrants. There are jobs where one can easily make $50 ph with minimal education but they’re still done by migrants. My direct experience is in the utility sector (telco, water, sewer etc). There is a lot of work around the country (some would argue even too much) but this work is dirty, messy…Muddy trenches…A lot of this work is done by migrants and some are making great money. Your typical Aussie building company doesn’t want to touch this work as they are busier elsewhere.
"Governments are openly willing to sacrifice housing and rental affordability, wages growth and disadvantage, and environmental considerations, ... instead increasing corporate profits and asset prices."
And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of life in Australia under either the LNP or Labor.
Basically westerners especially white people are lazy and self entitled, wasn't always this way, first generation of immigrants from Europe were real hard workers but every generation is getting more lazy and soft with a bad work culture.
Immigrants especially from China, India, SE Asia, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, Many middle Eastern countries, even Pacific Islands are just much better harder workers because they know first hand how hard life can be and aren't spoon feed and just appreciate the opportunity to make a better life. ( a good work culture)
Even those from well off families in places like China & India who come here and study or be doctors etc are hard workers, they aren't wasting their time on the piss when studying like white folk or being activist and you can tell when they finally do get a job as a doctor etc they really do try their best and put in 100%.
Honestly i think westerners or white people in general have developed a culture of laziness and self entitlement, probably because we have had it so good and never known any different unlike many of our parents or grandparents that have even gone through wars and true hard times and had to really work for things.
Yeh just to be clear on my comment I’m absolutely not against any immigrants, of course we continue to need a steady flow. The extreme ramp up being spoken of however is worth a look to ensure it’s not overdone, again considering the housing/inflation issues that we have.
Dx3 wrote:Yeh just to be clear on my comment I’m absolutely not against any immigrants, of course we continue to need a steady flow. The extreme ramp up being spoken of however is worth a look to ensure it’s not overdone, again considering the housing/inflation issues that we have.
Yeah, having a housing crisis and then squeezing in another 700,000 people in 2 years is a bit contradictory.
I think it does point out that the problem isn't that there's too many people. It's that supply is artificially restricted and we're developing a very American "property rights above all else" mentality when it comes to the housing market.
Between Hobart, Glenorchy, and Launceston we found that there were at least 2100 empty homes based on water meters. These are areas unlikely to be holiday homes, though we all know that most coastal towns will have a LOT of empty houses too. In bigger cities there are thousands of properties that are left empty by investors. In other countries, homes left empty attract an ever increasing tax until to discourage having surplus homes left vacant while people live on the street. Trying to even discuss that in Australia sets off an avalanche of "it's my property and nobody can tell me what to do with it" arguments which are both untrue, and also just really gross.
The same goes for AirBnB properties. I can't remember the figure off the top of my head, but roughly 10% of Hobart's private rental market is now on AirBnB. There are at least a dozen on my street. Across the entire East Coast or Tasmania there's more than 800 of them, but rarely ever more than 2-3 long term rentals available.
We have plenty of homes, but we've set our system up to defend the rights of people who would leave small children to shiver in cars with their parents through Tasmanian winters just so they could make more profit for themselves.
dandandan wrote:I think it does point out that the problem isn't that there's too many people. It's that supply is artificially restricted and we're developing a very American "property rights above all else" mentality when it comes to the housing market.
Between Hobart, Glenorchy, and Launceston we found that there were at least 2100 empty homes based on water meters. These are areas unlikely to be holiday homes, though we all know that most coastal towns will have a LOT of empty houses too. In bigger cities there are thousands of properties that are left empty by investors. In other countries, homes left empty attract an ever increasing tax until to discourage having surplus homes left vacant while people live on the street. Trying to even discuss that in Australia sets off an avalanche of "it's my property and nobody can tell me what to do with it" arguments which are both untrue, and also just really gross.
The same goes for AirBnB properties. I can't remember the figure off the top of my head, but roughly 10% of Hobart's private rental market is now on AirBnB. There are at least a dozen on my street. Across the entire East Coast or Tasmania there's more than 800 of them, but rarely ever more than 2-3 long term rentals available.
We have plenty of homes, but we've set our system up to defend the rights of people who would leave small children to shiver in cars with their parents through Tasmanian winters just so they could make more profit for themselves.
Good post Dan. A vacant property tax/levy, call it what you like, is a very good idea. As is removing negative gearing and capital gains incentives on investment properties, but this has all been mentioned elsewhere. Shift the tax exemptions to those offering longer term rentals, tax the f... out of Airbnb income.
what I find absolutely fascinating about these debates, here housing affordability, is that the solutions are all so obvious and simple, yet both sides of politics have such an impressive ability to continue to dance around and deflect them, and instead control and shift the public agenda to other concerns.
Hardly surprising. Political suicide to make such decisions given how any mention of change has been and continues to be weaponised. Those with skin in the game feel they have too much to lose. Sold the lie that you can't lose with property.
The levy on vacant properties would only achieve success if the funds collected get directly reinvested into public housing. My belief is that those who are keeping the property empty can afford the levy and it wouldn't force many to put it into the full-time rental market. The real problem for the most vulnerable is the lack of public housing. Why is there a lack of public housing? We're a rich country with a strong revenue base. How come we are not building more public housing, there is plenty of money for it between state and federal budgets.
Following on some previous points I wanted to see what kind of charges are already in play. I looked into VIC as I knew they had something. So:
- Vacant residential land tax - https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/vacant-residential-land-tax
- Absentee owner surcharge - https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/absentee-owner-surcharge
Federal:
Vacancy fee for foreign owners - https://www.ato.gov.au/General/Foreign-investment-in-Australia/Vacancy-f...
These are in addition to the already existing land taxes - https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/land-tax
So, what else is required here? Some additional tax? Or increasing the existing charges? There is plenty of activity in the Victorian real estate market so you can imagine how much stamp duty the state collects. Stamp duty is collected every time the property changes hands which is an enormous amount of revenue. If you are a foreigner you need to pay more:
https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/foreignpurchaser
'If you are a foreign purchaser and you acquire residential property, as well as land transfer duty you may have to pay foreign purchaser additional duty (additional duty) on the share of the property you acquired.'
There is also a windfall gains tax - https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/windfall-gains-tax
So where is all this money going? When I go to Melbourne I see properties spreading like mushrooms so there is plenty of activity. How come these funds are not directed into public housing?
Honestly, it seems to me that the state picks up the revenue side of the property market while the feds get blamed for not fixing all the issues while collecting a very minor portion of the revenues.
flollo wrote:Why is there a lack of public housing? We're a rich country with a strong revenue base. How come we are not building more public housing, there is plenty of money for it between state and federal budgets.
Because its crazy expensive, you need land, then you need to build and then its going to cost even more than building a private place because governments always overspend and anything to do with government tradies are going to charge triple.
Then you have high maintenance cost because people generally dont appreciate things unless they work hard for them so they often get trashed.
Then on top of that it creates social economic slums with high crime rates.
Much better to encourage private investment in this area and encourage people to rent out empty places, be it with empty housing taxes or incentives fir people to rent out empty houses..
@indo I don't necessarily disagree with you but something needs to be done for low-income (or no-income) residents. The last thing I want to see is the homeless-style environment they have in the US with tents etc.
Better be careful flollo, you are sounding mighty like one of them commies. :)
Public housing is absolutely what Australia needs, and Australians need to stop being so culturally weird about it. 20% of all homes in Sweden are public homes, and more than 50% of rental properties are public homes. In so many countries it is just unquestionably normal to live in public housing. It's such a simple thing - government workers build public homes that are either rented or sold to Australians. I would be far happier giving what is currently almost 50% of my income to the government to reinvest into public services than I am giving it to the enormous loser that is my landlord.
The main reason we aren't building it is because property developers give enormous donations to Labor and Liberal parties to ensure that the property market stays favourable to them. More public housing means more affordable housing, and affordable housing is the exact opposite of what the vested interests of the property industry want. There's also a healthy amount of stigmatisation of public housing and public housing residents, which is used to stop conversations from beginning in the first place.
Also, centre-right governments have made efforts to paint poverty as individual failure and inadequacy.
It's built in to the liberal ethos of every man for themselves.
AndyM wrote:Also, centre-right governments have made efforts to paint poverty as individual failure and inadequacy.
It's built in to the liberal ethos of every man for themselves.
While centre-left governments kept insisting that more money (hey, let's print some!) would solve all problems, and that all individuals are powerless (hey, look at this new way we have of stripping you of all agency!).
And so we end up in this state. Could we please have real politicians and a proper debate, and make people proud and keen citizens again.
The main reason we dont build more public housing, is because the economics just dont stack up especially when talking actual houses on land and not apartment blocks, not to mention the social economic slum's it creates that then causes even more social issues.
Imagine the cost of purchasing land, then building and maintenance just for one family home over say a 20 year period the cost realistically could be one million dollars and if you assume the government will never re-sell, that cost is never recouped it actually becomes a ongoing cost and financial burden on the state, and what little you get back in rent when so low would barely cover the interest.
IMHO it also risk breeding a bad culture, when people are given thing's instead of working for them they rarely appreciate things and come to expect more free stuff and then you risk their kids going on to expect the same you then have created a bad cultural cycle that is very hard to break. (you can actually see this effect in some areas)
Its ALWAYS far far better to give people a help up rather than a hand out.
That said id fully support an increase in shorter term emergency type housing (up to 12 months) to help people get back on their feet or through hard times and help prevent issues seen in USA.
But it needs to come with strict conditions and lots of extra services and support, a high police/security presence, social workers that regularly actually come into the homes/units, programs to deal with issue's and guide people on better life paths.
with all due respect, everything you've been saying about social housing is contradicted and disproved by the Nordic countries:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/housing-affordability-crisis-requ...
https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/P1244-Homes...
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/social-affairs/more-affordable-housing...
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a99206bee17593d9ef5cceb/t/5f6092...
https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/building-communities/norwegian-housing-model
The economics do stack up.
Trying to rely on the private sector/market to provide everything for society is neoliberal insanity and is a significant cause and main pathway to "bad culture" and social problems.
Australia needs to decouple from the US and its neoliberal pathway to extreme concentration of wealth and inequality, social disfunction, culture wars, poverty, disadvantage, homelessness, etc.
Australia is at a choice point in history of whether we want to be a sane, stable, free and fair country like the Nordic countries, like we traditionally used to be, or completely insane, dysfunctional, divided and polarised like the US, which is where we are currently heading towards.
"the economics just dont stack up "
They can and do, it's just that Australia doesn't want the economics to stack up.
The Netherlands has 35% of its housing stock as public housing and it works fine.
Your favourite benevolent dictatorship, Singapore, has almost 80% of its citizens in public housing.
Indo it's such a shame that your prejudices and biases come out around topics like this.
Have to say the collective intent of the country is a very important factor. My impression when visiting Singapore was it is a country built on a shared goal of making a great country and keeping it that way. Started by a leader who is still revered to this day. Everyone was keen to do what was needed to make progress. Not in a commie way, but in a really refreshing and genuine way. Everyone knew their part and didn’t want to be doing less than their part.
Can’t see Oz emulating this, unfortunately…
Of course they were all scared of retribution, but that’s another argument also. The dudes with machine guns at the airport were a clear sign of what to expect.
AndyM wrote:"the economics just dont stack up "
They can and do, it's just that Australia doesn't want the economics to stack up.
The Netherlands has 35% of its housing stock as public housing and it works fine.
Your favourite benevolent dictatorship, Singapore, has almost 80% of its citizens in public housing.
Indo it's such a shame that your prejudices and biases come out around topics like this.
Scando countries and The Netherlands are good examples, but Singapore is a totalitarian society and not to be emulated, I think.
What I mentioned earlier about proper debate and real contests of ideas applies to Denmark as I remember it (moved 23 years ago), and is vastly different from how things (don't) work in NZ. If Australia goes down the More Public Housing path, I sincerely hope you don't fail as epically as NZ has.
gsco wrote:with all due respect, everything you've been saying about social housing is contradicted and disproved by the Nordic countries:
https://australiainstitute.org.au/post/housing-affordability-crisis-requ...
https://australiainstitute.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/P1244-Homes...
https://newsroom.unsw.edu.au/news/social-affairs/more-affordable-housing...
https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5a99206bee17593d9ef5cceb/t/5f6092...
https://www.bbc.com/storyworks/building-communities/norwegian-housing-model
The economics do stack up.
Trying to rely on the private sector/market to provide everything for society is neoliberal insanity and is a significant cause and main pathway to "bad culture" and social problems.
Australia needs to decouple from the US and its neoliberal pathway to extreme concentration of wealth and inequality, social disfunction, culture wars, poverty, disadvantage, homelessness, etc.
Australia is at a choice point in history of whether we want to be a sane, stable, free and fair country like the Nordic countries, like we traditionally used to be, or completely insane, dysfunctional, divided and polarised like the US, which is where we are currently heading towards.
It is nuts as a country we have not looked towards the Scandanavian example. We are resource rich, educated and used to believe in an egalitarian society.
Guess Oils nailed it with 'Cause Gough was tough 'til he hit the rough
Hey, Uncle Sam and John were quite enough' where it started to go all the way with USA.
Imagine if we had set up a sovereign wealth fund for our resources instead of giving huge tax breaks to foreign owned corporations and a few extremely wealthy individuals. Gina and Twiggy would still be rich with half their wealth.
@GSCO I reckon we are past the choice point, don't know how this can now be turned around unless Labor change course after next election....
When at Uni in 90's heaps of Scandinavians were studying here having tuition 100% paid for by their govt plus living allowance enable by their sovereign wealth fund.
Anyway there we are.
Netherlands is a good example for avoiding dumb dichotomies. In 2022 they reached the record home ownership rate of ~ 70% while having a large social housing sector. So obviously, one doesn’t need to give up on private property ownership and rights to provide social housing and security to those in need. Both is very well possible. Luckily, I never needed Centrelink payments or public housing but you never know what life brings. Any of us can end up in a tricky situation and it’s good to have a system that helps during rough times.
andy-mac, yes we're probably past that point, and Garrett was onto it well before most even knew what hit them.
Actually I did my undergrad in economics/finance at Griffith Gold Coast campus mid-late 90s and there was lots of Norwegian and other Scandinavian students on campus, and they befriended me somewhat. Really cool bunch of people. Why do Scandinavian girls have such perfect skin...?!
Back then there was only a very tiny Chinese student presence. Then I went back to do some lecturing there and Nathan campus late 2000s and early 2010s and wow things had changed. After that I did some lecturing at UQ for a few years and in the classes I taught it was all Chinese students, maybe one or two Aussie students here and there, and not really any other nationalities. (During that period I met a Chinese girl and had a little China journey for a while...) Now we're trying to turn to the Indian student.
For some reason I'm very nostalgic about 80s and 90s Australian society.
gsco wrote:andy-mac, yes we're probably past that point, and Garrett was onto it well before most even knew what hit them.
Actually I did my undergrad in economics/finance at Griffith Gold Coast campus mid-late 90s and there was lots of Norwegian and other Scandinavian students on campus, and they befriended me somewhat. Really cool bunch of people. Why do Scandinavian girls have such perfect skin...?!
Back then there was only a very tiny Chinese student presence. Then I went back to do some lecturing there and Nathan campus late 2000s and early 2010s and wow things had changed. After that I did some lecturing at UQ for a few years and in the classes I taught it was all Chinese students, maybe one or two Aussie students here and there, and not really any other nationalities. (During that period I met a Chinese girl and had a little China journey for a while...) Now we're trying to turn to the Indian student.
For some reason I'm very nostalgic about 80s and 90s Australian society.
Haha classic, I did my undergrad at Griffith in Brisbane mid to late 90's but was still living on the Goldie. Sunday arvos I use to go to Gold Coast campus to study so was not checking the surf at Broady every 15 mins or getting tempted to hit Liars Bar early....
Goldie campus seemed about 50% Scandos, Brisbane not as many but quite a few. I became really good friends at the time with a Swedish girl and Norwegian girl, great chicks. Yes lovely skin!!
Blokes mostly looked like Thor, but were good blokes.
Agree Past choice point. That inequality has permeated every aspect of our society, housing education etc . What indication do we have that Labor have the guts to change this course.
"don't know how this can now be turned around unless Labor change course"
I'll say it again - what we've got now is what we're going to get if we vote for the two majors. Labor are a centre-right party and corporations and the value of assets come before the welfare of citizens.
GSCO you said that yourself somewhere, no?
So, continue the trend that's been going on for decades and place your vote elsewhere.
Lib/Lab hold us in contempt, it's as simple as that.
As for the 90s, there was no internet and maybe 9 million less people!
We'd largely moved on from the bogan Australia of the 70s and 80s but we hadn't gone full sanctimony.
And it was pre-Howard.
Easy to argue that it was a better Australia.
AndyM wrote:"don't know how this can now be turned around unless Labor change course"
I'll say it again - what we've got now is what we're going to get if we vote for the two majors. Labor are a centre-right party and corporations and the value of assets come before the welfare of citizens.
GSCO you said that yourself somewhere, no?
So, continue the trend that's been going on for decades and place your vote elsewhere.
Lib/Lab hold us in contempt, it's as simple as that.As for the 90s, there was no internet and maybe 9 million less people!
We'd largely moved on from the bogan Australia of the 70s and 80s but we hadn't gone full sanctimony.
And it was pre-Howard.
Easy to argue that it was a better Australia.
And in my early 20's!! :)
Good times....
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/05/nsw-government-ex... NSW government expects 12 councils to call for strict caps on short-term rentals
This one is actually quite significant
https://www.afr.com/property/commercial/labor-tax-cut-could-fuel-deliver...
There are many corporations aiming to jump into build to rent sector and I believe the government will roll the carpet for them. Not sure how good of a thing this is. Markets in Europe and the US have large corporations owning thousands of units. Vonovia always comes to mind with more than 400,000 units
AndyM wrote:"the economics just dont stack up "
They can and do, it's just that Australia doesn't want the economics to stack up.
The Netherlands has 35% of its housing stock as public housing and it works fine.
Your favourite benevolent dictatorship, Singapore, has almost 80% of its citizens in public housing.
Indo it's such a shame that your prejudices and biases come out around topics like this.
Works fine, im sure that is not the truth, things rarely work fine, UK also has high percentage of public housing (believe second highest in Europe) and we know UK public housing are basically social economic slums.
As for the economics, huge difference between a country that has had high volumes of pubic housing for a long time and done it when land was cheap to trying to do it today, sure they might top up but much different to starting from very little, all that money has to come from somewhere.
Even then its always going to be running at a loss, especially when you are charging basically nothing for rents and in many cases those paying rent are getting social security payments anyway.
There's just no way you can make the economic's work especially today, it more just a pay off in helping preventing other issues, but along with social housing comes social issues itself.
Basically no fixes just compromise's like most things.
Okay Singapore i have no idea how they do things so well, its a true mind fuck how can they do that with housing when their tax rates are crazy low generally 20% or less.
I guess they mostly also did it long ago and also dont have a minimum wage and are in an area with lots of cheap labour.
Nordic countries people pay crazy high tax rates often 50%, so basically everyone pays, some here might think thats great, but sorry nobody deserves to have 50% of their money taken from them, you guys can have that shit, tax rates are too high as it is.
BTW. I use to think exactly like you on most topics discussed here (especially indigenous stuff) i have the beauty of having looked at things from two totally different view points
Not saying i have all the answers on this, just that the economics obviously dont stack up and also having lived not far from. housing commission areas know all the problems these areas have, also just seems silly for the government to provide something that cost so much to create and look after when the private sector can cover it, the government could spend far less encouraging the private sector to do it
"UK also has high percentage of public housing (believe second highest in Europe) and we know UK public housing are basically social economic slums."
More gratuitous, ill-informed generalisations. I lived for 10 years in the UK. Lived in Housing Association flats (adjunct public housing) for most of that time. Knew loads of people who lived in Council houses. The vast majority of places were well looked after, safe and cared for by hard working people who care about their community. There are some that are not so, but to label all as slums is just ignorant.
@indo you will find that many housing associations don’t just provide social housing. They engage in a range of commercial activities. Build to sell, developing commercial property etc. Social housing is only a part of their portfolio. That’s where the money comes from (and also government subsidies obviously).
The private market doesn't cover it ID, that's why housing is a total disaster. Not to mention that the cost of negative gearing and CGT concessions cost the budget $8.5 billion in 2020-21. It's hardly standing on it's own two feet.
Indo "Nordic countries people pay crazy high tax rates often 50%, so basically everyone pays, some here might think thats great, but sorry nobody deserves to have 50% of their money taken from them, you guys can have that shit, tax rates are too high as it is."
Denmark top income tax rate 15%
Sweden top income tax rate 32%
Finland top income tax rate 56% ( Free education (all schools Govt. funded so quality of education not dependent on parents' income), free health (municipal)care including sickness benefits, hospital, dental, travel costs, reimbursed pharmacy costs, free social assistance including food and housing, free University (includes all EU members) plus social security family allowance, student financial aid, maternity, paternity and parental allowances, child maintenance and child care allowances, sickness allowance, unemployment benefits not related to earnings, etc, etc.) Finland voted happiest country in the world for past six years, Gallop World Poll.
Adam, that number for Denmark is rubbish.
"Altogether, the marginal tax rate cannot exceed 52.07% (2023). However, labour market tax, share tax, property value tax, and church tax are not comprised by this rule.
Net capital income is taxed at a rate up to 42% (in 2023). Negative net capital income and other allowances may be deducted but not with full effect."
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/denmark/individual/taxes-on-personal-income
"Denmark has one of the highest tax rates in the world, which is often mentioned as one of the biggest objections against the Danish welfare model. The average annual income in Denmark is about 39,000 euros (nearly $43,000) and as such, the average Dane pays a total amount of 45 percent in income taxes. Danish income taxes are based on a progressive tax system, so if you make more than 61,500 euros (about $67,000) per year, an additional tax rate of 7 percent is added over this threshold."
I.e., 45% plus 7%. Suck on that.
Denmark gets some things right, but it absolutely does NOT incentivise working. Hence, Danes are lazy cunts (I'm Danish, but left many years ago).
AndyM wrote:We'd largely moved on from the bogan Australia of the 70s and 80s but we hadn't gone full sanctimony.
Have we really, Andy?
Alternate theory: all those who come here from faraway shores, their children and grandchildren end up as bogans.
Island Bay wrote:Adam, that number for Denmark is rubbish.
"Altogether, the marginal tax rate cannot exceed 52.07% (2023). However, labour market tax, share tax, property value tax, and church tax are not comprised by this rule.
Net capital income is taxed at a rate up to 42% (in 2023). Negative net capital income and other allowances may be deducted but not with full effect."
https://taxsummaries.pwc.com/denmark/individual/taxes-on-personal-income
"Denmark has one of the highest tax rates in the world, which is often mentioned as one of the biggest objections against the Danish welfare model. The average annual income in Denmark is about 39,000 euros (nearly $43,000) and as such, the average Dane pays a total amount of 45 percent in income taxes. Danish income taxes are based on a progressive tax system, so if you make more than 61,500 euros (about $67,000) per year, an additional tax rate of 7 percent is added over this threshold."
I.e., 45% plus 7%. Suck on that.
Denmark gets some things right, but it absolutely does NOT incentivise working. Hence, Danes are lazy cunts (I'm Danish, but left many years ago).
Can we look at gst please. Again, it keeps being missed in the tax discussions.
25% in Denmark.
Denmark
Personal income tax rates.
Taxes (2023) Income basis Tax rate (%)
Bottom tax Personal income 12.09
Top tax Personal income 15.00
Local taxes:
Municipal tax (average) Taxable income 25.018
Just Googled it mate
I said "top personal tax rate is 15%" so does Google, so maybe Google is bullshitting?
It's because the Danish tax system is so complex, and it sounds better that way.
In NZ it's 10.50%, 17.50%, 30%, 33% and 39%. The sneaky way would be to say that the top rate was 39%-33%=6%, not 39%.
Island Bay wrote:Hence, Danes are lazy cunts (I'm Danish, but left many years ago).
or maybe they're actually just really fkn clever.
House prices - going to go up , down or sideways ?
Opinions and anecdotal stories if you could.
Cheers