I do find it a little disturbing though that one of the key benefits would be to educate some of the Senators involved – especially considering that this isnt a new issue, the evidence is everywhere and where the quickest of briefs by the parliamentary library would disabuse them of any ignorance relatively quickly.

But I do hope that something worthwhile is produced – and more power to you in that regard . We’ll certainly run through the reports when they come out and pick them apart mercilessly.

Sean – nope, I’m no relation of Nick Possum and I added your links into the bottom of the policy bits post.

Thanks steve for the links.

http://www.treasurer.gov.au/DisplayDocs.aspx?doc=pressreleases/2008/018.htm&pageID=003&min=wms&Year=&DocType=

Can someone explain this to me as I have never found a decent explaination. Why is the housing component of the CPI calculated using owner’s equivalent rent rather than actual house prices? To me it seems so straight forward that if CPI was calculated using actual house prices then the housing bubble would have fed straight back into increased inflation which would have caused the RBA to raise interest rates which would have at least alleviated the housing bubble. When we had one of the biggest housing bubbles in the world why didn’t the Reserve act to do something about it when it would have been so easy for it to do so? Why didn’t it raise interest rates in response to the housing bubble? I just don’t get that.

Also, the long since abandoned decentralisation and building up of regional centres that has seen the congealing blood clot choking the capital cities with an excess of politicians, while regional and rural areas haemorrhage hemophiliacally.

Eight years of total stupidity by the previous government, coupled with the previously mentioned abandonment of the Whitlam era regional development plans. The current poo was inevitable.

Please feel free to wander over to the Australian forum of the ‘Global Housing Price Crash’ website at any time, to look at news and views, at the somewhat cryptic address of http://forum.globalhousepricecrash.com/index.php?showforum=9.

I hope there might be some useful cross-fertilisation of opinions and data from here, creating a critical mass of interested participants, as more and more thinking people in the community consider the ramifications of the global housing price booms that have taken place in the last decade — and increasingly put pressure on politicians and bring the whole sorry mismanaged economic affair to light.

Can you consider linking to the forum as a kind of web ‘ring’ also.

Cheers,
Sean Reynolds
http://www.housingaffordability.blogspot.com

P.S. Are you any relative of Private Eye Nick Possum of Sydney City Hub fame?

This link – http://www.aph.gov.au/Senate/committee/hsaf_ctte/index.htm – tells you all you need to know. (the date for submissions has technically closed, but they will almost always accept late submissions for some time yet).

Apart from being available for all the Committee members (and the Secretariat staff, who unlike all the Senators can be relied on to read it), submissions also go online, so anyone else can read them too – all the submissions so far are here, and transcripts of hearings appear within a few days at this link – there is good value material amongst it (like everyhting, you have to wade through some dross along the way – bit like a blog really).

harmless cud chewer: As noted, the terms of reference are not as complete as they could be. Part of why I don’t always get too fussed over terms of reference is that you can never put everything in, and even if you try, if the people with the numbers on the Committee have a pre-determined view, they’ll still come to it anyway. At the end of it, its a Committee inquiring ito housing affordability, and it it ignores half of the issues and factors it will have half the credibility – especially if those fctors are regularly raised in evidence.

The crucial role of transport availability and costs has been brought up by a number of witnesses already, as have the impact of federal taxes and grants on demand and the fact that affordability is currently a far bigger problem in private rental than it is in home purchasing. If the final report refuses to acknowledge or discuss these things, it will just be another weapon for people to use to butress their political talking points. If it goes further and takes on board all the issues and evidence then it will start to move towards being a useful contributor to informed debate on policy solutions and better understandings of the issue. (if we also have a government who pays attention to such things, then we could really on to something, but that outside the Senate’s immediate scope)