If you want evidence of how devoid of serious content this election is — as if we hadn’t had enough already — then look no further than the response to yesterday’s housing approval figures.
They were simply awful. There’s no other way to describe them. Economists have repeatedly expected the housing sector to bounce back from the withdrawal of the first home owners’ boost stimulus component last year. The sector has repeatedly disappointed them. The trend in total dwelling units approved and private houses approved has been relentlessly downward since the end of year.
The trend in building approval value is the same. There were particularly serious falls for total dwellings in NSW (3.9% in trend terms) and WA (nearly 6% in trend terms). South Australia saw a collapse in June, with total dwelling approvals falling more than one-quarter. The only good news is in the Territories, which recorded growth.
It’s clear that, without artificial stimulus — and some construction groups are already calling for a return of the home owners’ boost (which was targeted at new homes) — the residential construction sector continues to suffer from a dearth of finance from the major banks to the residential construction sector, and continuing state and local governments impediments to housing supply responding to demand.
Did any of this get a run yesterday in the election campaign? One journalist — I didn’t recognise the voice so I apologise for not identifying him — raised it with Julia Gillard. Joe Hockey mentioned it in passing in his comments on the RBA decision. Otherwise, despite the campaign notionally turning to the economy this week, it passed untroubled into the financial media pages.
It’s particularly bizarre that Labor is avoiding the issue. After all, Labor has ramped up investment in social and defence housing. It has propped up the non-bank lending market through one of its most under-appreciated achievements, its support of the Residential Mortgage-Backed Securities market. It has set up a COAG process to deal with infrastructure planning and provision across governments, which is one of the biggest impediments to housing supply responding to demand. It has slung $200 million in the election campaign at that problem in regional towns.
After years of governments neglecting the issue — or actually exacerbating the problem — Labor has shown evidence it understood the seriousness of the developing housing supply crisis. But why isn’t it focusing on strengthening competition for the big banks? Why isn’t it, for example, encouraging Australia Post to start competing with the Big Four in financial services, rather than cooperating with them and using post offices to further strengthen their grip on lending at the expense of smaller players?
Maybe Labor has been scared by its experience with the mining companies. But does anyone seriously think some gutsy policies aimed at returning some serious competition to mortgage lending — thereby freeing up more finance for business lending — would see the banks running an effective propaganda campaign with voters?
So far, though, it’s a non-issue for campaigning politicians and the media.
I also wonder why this Government is so atrocious at telling the positive stories it has to tell. I just read a reader’s comments at the Fairfax site where one guy asserted that everything the Government tried was stuffed up. That’s what happens when you leave unfounded negative stories on the record.
Tanya Plibersek made a strong defence of the social housing just the other day.
Here is the thing though with this sort of crap. We can house over 500,000 foreign students, 500,000 kiwis, 5 million tourists and not have a crisis.
We need to stop pretending there is a shortage of houses and remember that there is a glut of people.
Damien – even more bizarre is that inability to sell positive stories was a major justification for getting rid of Rudd. Perhaps it’s more a problem with the Labor party organisation.
Malcolm
[Damien – even more bizarre is that inability to sell positive stories was a major justification for getting rid of Rudd. Perhaps it’s more a problem with the Labor party organisation.]
The reason Labor can not be positive about the governments past performance is because they have to justify the removal of a sitting PM. The only way to do that without admitting it was purely an internal power play is by making the case that the government had ‘lost its way’. They are trying to purge the memory of Kevin Rudd by telling everyone that his government – and thus his accomplishments – was bad, wrong, out of touch ect. In effect they have burned the advantage of incumbency because if they tout the apology to the stolen generations, the repeal of Work Choices or anything that people associate with Rudd they’ll be bringing peoples attention to that unpleasantness we all endured a few weeks ago. Its a catch 22, and they shot themselves in the foot the day they knifed Rudd.
Doesn’t the fall in house construction simply indicate that developers are responding to a reduction in demand for houses by building fewer new houses?