Steve99

You haven't got kids that will need housing in the future then? Is it better that they can buy with sensible savings and repayments and actually get the place paid off (like all previous generations) or conversely is it better they stay at home till they are 35 then take out an insane mortgage that commits 2 buyers for a solid 30 years and not only that have to live a lot further from work or yourself perhaps? Prices going up in an environment of flat/falling wages and patchy work/career prospects is nothing more than bank promoted inflation.

It is a very bad thing indeed. Apart from pushing prices higher than locals can afford it promotes the wrong type of building to be built (eg high rise in the cities) with associated living problems and costs that also don't reflect Aus lifestyle and wages, ie massive service fees. I already know people who's 30++ kids cant afford to leave home on account of the insane prices. A massive house price crash would be good for everyone and would promote other forms of investment other than that of 'House price INFLATION' which is all it is. As for foreign purchases, legal or not, well many of these actually take a housing unit out of the market by the very fact that they are left empty, just as a store of money 'bitcoin' for when they have to leave China in a hurry or whatever. Another factor which will come back to bite one day is that Aus banks are more heavily involved in residential mortgages than any other country on earth, ie they have little interest in businesses and are only interested in adding to the burden of debt that normal, real people are taking on in order to stay housed.

Is there any form of racism going on here? I and my other half have been subjected to this on numerous occasions over the years. I had on situation where a manager was bailing me up every day and demanding why I thought anything back in the old country was as good and even worse, better than in Australia(without me ever mentioning my thoughts on these issues), the other employees thought this was justified as it made them look better. I also had to walk out of that job but had no redress at all as this was around 15 years ago with far less background support than you can get today. These incumbent workers/managers often create their own fiefdoms within which they think they can do what they like. Pursue this to the limit, they deserve everything you can throw at them (legally that is).. Good luck and you have my 10000% sympathy

Get a silver plated handle, self sterilising.

Perhaps curtailing upper middle class welfare would help the budget and take the focus off the unemployed and disabled, nearly $30 billion per year is wasted on tax cuts to the predominantly wealthy via the superannuation scam, also the massive rort that is real estate speculation (note, not investing) whereby any losses are offset against earned income, ie negative gearing, also predominantly for the well heeled, never mind the 50% capital gains tax scam on such worthy endeavours. All up thats $40Billion saved. dito the focus should be removed from the 'illegal' immigrants and the $5billion per years spent on policing them, let them in after basic screening, send them to country towns, give them housing and the dole and encourage them to work on farms etc (after all they are mostly rural people, not city slickers) and this would cost (as per estimations) $500million per year leaving another $4.5 billion to smarten up the budget deficit. Sound good, or would we rather keep paying for the 'gilded' age of entitlement for the already rich and the huge expense of dogmatic right wing political bullsh*t by putting people in their place. AS for young people, if we are going to bring them into the world then we owe them a living, ie opportunity and real jobs, not destroy it with cheap options set up for greedy and painfully lazy employers who wont train young people any more on account of having a free supply of immigrants all fighting for a job, that in many cases have been devalued due to the massive influx of non needed workers. And to really please you my outlined reasoning would leave money over for genuine tax cuts where needed along with money over to pay the dole for the coming recession we are bound to have thanks to the wasted opportunity that the mining boom has given us.

12

Yes, your right, I should have qualified my reply better. Also getting older so like extreme heat less and now have a job where I have to work in it (driving a bus, aircon works only part time) so no fan of hot days any more.

Don't know which line you are in but I used to work for Telco's but all my work is now in India as per all tech jobs that can be sent there have been. I now drive a bus (what a comedown!) and my company is now importing Irish drivers in order to undermine the local drivers with a special lower wage deal they knocked out with the government?! Good luck and sorry I cant help, anyone I knew in the sector is either collecting supermarket trollies, driving taxies or on the dole.

??? how strange you thought that, must be where you lived, Weve done a total of 25 years in Melbourne in 3 different lots (due to never ending family illness). The winter is as endless as it is in the UK, last winter started in May and ended sometime in December, maybe not the tempreture but certainly the rain and wind component which is worse overall than we ever had in London. There was a day mid December when top temp in Frankston, near were we lived hit a top of 13c. Then of course the sun came out in Januarys and was too hot to go out even though we both like the beach, even under big umbrella we were getting burnt, even with factor 30 suncream on and to top it off we are finding we have to spend so many days indoors with the blinds down to keep the sun out and the air con on. Give us London any day for year round climate (more days outside by far)with our chosen holidays to the med for reliable sun when we need it. As for our views (nothing much to do with this post or thread) Melbourne, well these days all the advantages of previous eras have gone, now its a full on city with constipated roads and London prices for isolated soulless housing estates and corny westfield shopping centres as the focal point of everyone's lives, population doubled in 25 years but not the real 'city' advantages like public transport, parks or other things you would associate with a city of 4million. In fact after a recent visit to the UK we found Edinburgh had as much but with a population of 400k, that is 1/10th. and to boot we had a much better summer in the UK last year than most summers in Melbourne and 1000x better than any drab dreary endless winter here (Melbourne that is)

an interesting aside to this is: http://www.theatlantic.com/china/archive/2013/11/chinas-latest-corruption-target-overseas-real-estate/281199/ ''China's Latest Corruption Target: Overseas Real Estate Chinese officials and businessmen have spent billions on properties in elite pockets of London, New York, and Los Angeles. Beijing is now tracking them down. '' ''China’s corrupt officials and crooked businessmen have smuggled billions of dollars overseas, much of which has ended up in real estate in the United States, Canada, Australia and the United Kingdom—particularly in high-end neighborhoods in London, New York, Los Angeles, Sydney and Toronto. Now the Chinese government is embarking on a worldwide hunt to seize the properties with help from foreign governments, according to asset recovery and anti-corruption specialists.'' ''Chinese officials “are interested in understanding where the assets are” in the U.S., and “the U.S. has said it will work with them,” said Nathaniel B. Edmonds, a former Department of Justice official and a partner with the Washington, D.C . law firm Paul Hastings. In July, Canada and China agreed to seize, share and return the proceeds of crime.'' my take is: Will Aussie ''Authorities'' help Chinese police with their enquiries?? Not while the elites are rolling in it and filling their pockets with ill gotten house price rises across their property portfolio, this includes many politicians, bankers and of course high income earners with negative gearing in mind. If you read the full article, you will see Aus in no2 on the list.. I see this as being Australia's equivalent of the UK's City of London international money scamming operations and just like that, if Aus property scam fails, tax payers will bail out the banks and big players. Affordable housing is not for real people anymore, nor is it considered an issue to either side of politics. I also notice that this did not make the press in Australia, it should have been front page and TV news headlines. Not in the best interests of the nation I assume, regardless of the moral implications.

They already have a scheme like this whereby some employers get virtualy free labour, one of the big recipients is Poundland who take on 'trainees' who then get their freedom at the end, the govt pays, the unemployed only gets the dole and ends up in many cases with a worse CV than they started with. Once again they come out with this stuff when there are no jobs avaliable. Not only that the Job(less)centres dont even match people up with jobs anymore, just harrass people to ring up endless potential employers. Perhaps they should start with the bankers and accomplices who have ruined the world economy, job opportunities and future security, along of course with politicians of all flavours who have their future snouts in the trough too.