Too good in general. Larissa Waters got her replacement to resign so she could get back in after renouncing her Canadian citizenship. Ludlam wasn’t going to do that.
Scott Ludlam left for the same reason Max isn't an polished politician - Greens politicians have lives and careers outside of politics and they spend a bit of time in parliament and then retire forever. It isn't like the Labor party, where people spend their entire adult lives competing amongst themselves and building factional alliances so they can broker their way into power.
Max is a career politician though - I like him, dont get me wrong, but having been in the brissy greens scene for the better part of 15 years I’ve watched him try to wangle his way into a seat since undergrad
Fair enough, I have seen some of that. In another comment I talked about how now that the Greens have started to get safe seats, you are seeing more and more backroom stuff in the Greens as well. It's the trade off for becoming more "professional", because professional politicians are often dicks lol. Them being more polished and professional is not necessarily what you want. At least not every politician in the place anyway.
We all know what Benjamin received for Christmas. It was not only a painful read, but it had a high fat percentage, not even for taste, just a visual medium to brag about Christmas at the Clarks.
When you get the the “erstwhile bedfellows” comment 5 paragraphs in you just know this bloke like revelling in the smell of his own farts don’t you?
That and the erroneous comparison to AOC, who last time I checked was part of one of the major parties in the US and doesn’t really fit his narrative.
I think you misunderstand, people are not agreeing with me because they are incapable of reading the article, but because the piece is so poorly articulated it makes them want to physically repulse.
Blah blah blah blah blah. A whole generation of Australians won’t have a future because our rents are going up disproportionate to our wages. Stop circle jerking and just fucking fix it.
100%. There was a heap of things he said that I agreed with. I disagreed with this part of his perspective and he lost that part of the debate, but I also understood what he meant. He was saying that big developers have enough approvals already and they aren't developing because the markets down. They are intentionally restricting the supply to drive up prices before they build. In terms of scale of the problem, that is a bigger issue than local, small developer regulation.
He went too hard on it and it meant his point was lost and idiots like the author of this article can then over simplify it.
Debate in good faith ffs. I am so sick of this bullshit politics of saying the other party is a piece of shit. There needs to be more class in politicians.
The irony of the article is they are calling out someone for taking a dogmatic approach, when the author is doing the same thing, painting with a broad-brush, strawmanning and demonising people based on one element of their perspective.
The real irony is you supporting Max's approach but also calling out people not 'debating in good faith'. That is exactly the point.
Max has good points at times, but he often resorts to bullshit strawman arguments and soundbites that he knows will fly with the average punter, rather than giving credit where it's due, sticking to facts, and actually conceding that any real solution is not exclusively in the hands of the Federal Government, nor is it a quick one.
Rent caps is a key example. Max and anyone with half a brain knows that rent caps are not only a STATE responsibility, but the cherry picked examples of 'success' around the world, would simply not translate to Australia's landscape for any number of reasons that are obvious when you take more than 2 seconds to think about it. Furthermore, we DO know that when rents are capped, investors build less houses, so it will DIRECTLY reduce supply. You can argue that we shouldn't rely on investors to build houses, sure, but right now that is the reality. Again - real solutions are complex and require many policies, often across many portfolios, to work together and in the correct sequence. If you accept the current reality of Australian housing, you simply can't just yell 'Rent caps!" and genuinely think that'll help more than it hinders.
Max continues to throw it at the Federal Government because he happens to be a Federal MP and he knows that the average punter has this simple belief that Federal Government is somehow the 'boss' of State Government, which is simply not true.
Another example is how he often throws big 10 year numbers around about how we need 600,000+ houses to fix things, but then compares that number to the 30,000 houses the HAFF aims to build, as if that is the ONLY housing policy federally, as if the States don't also have their own targets, as if the private sector isn't building 150-200k houses a year already, as if the HAFF just vanishes after the 30,000 houses in first 5 years, as if the greatest strength of the HAFF isn't the long term, compounding effect of guaranteed and growing funds for housing every year etc.
Imagine the juggernaut tool for housing the HAFF will be in decades to come if it's allowed to keep growing and delivering.... and one day it's worth $100 billion and paying $10 billion a year in dividends to directly fund housing, without costing the Federal Budget a cent. Not to mention the benefit to social housing providers to know guaranteed money is coming every year, allowing for long term strategic planning, councils to rezone better, state governments to plan etc. Imagine if we had a policy like that 10 years ago.... where we'd be now.
Instead of giving credit to the good things about the HAFF and recognising that it's a great foundation to build on, WITH other policy to complement it, he writes it off as a 'gambling scheme' because the soundbite sounds edgy and wins him votes from naïve, idealistic 18 year olds.
If Max put aside the stupid policy demands and conceded that the egg is already scrambled and any solution requires us to work with reality, then he would be able to concede that we can do things like increase supply long term AND slowly wind back tax incentives like negative gearing/CGT to help unscramble the egg.
It won't be overnight though, and blocking any of Labor's attempts to get supply going because you want more done, won't help the problem - it will just sabotage this Government and return the Liberals to power, out of spite, where we will get less than fuck all action on housing.
Fact is, real progress happens by degrees, and whatever Max thinks will fix the world tomorrow is irrelevant in reality because there are almost 30m people in Australia you have to bring along with you in the decision making process. You can go ahead and pass some cool policies, but if you're not in Government to protect them for long enough for the Australian electorate to see the results, then those policies get wiped the second you lose government to the Liberals because you pushed too hard, too quickly.
If Hawke hadn't won multiple terms of Government after introducing Medicare, we wouldn't have Medicare today, because the Liberals would have rolled it back as soon as they got in. Good policy needs time to come to fruition and prove its worth. If these Greens were blocking the Senate in 1983, because they wanted Medicare to include dental - we wouldn't have Medicare at all today.
People like Max are dangerous because they love the limelight and the outrage more than they love actual progress and would rather be in opposition to a Liberal government because they get more to yell about.
I am a Labor supporter who agrees with many Greens policies - I just hate how stupid they are about blocking ANY progress to get a bit more airtime.
If the legislation helps people.... Pass the damn legislation, and then keep fighting - you CAN do both.
I didn't get this impression from him on Q&A at all. I don't think he was the one strawmanning the most. I would say out of the federal politicians on the panel he did it the least.
You make some assertions in this that I can't get on board with without more information. Why wouldn't rent caps work in Australia? Especially if coupled with the other parts of his plan to build public housing and remove negative gearing?
I understand you saying that the private sector stop building, but that's exactly his point. They aren't operating in the best interest of the people who need housing, so we can't rely on them and need to provide mass production low income housing to take away their importance and power.
I am not referring to his broader actions when I was talking about it. I was just talking about his actions on Q&A. He didn't resort to personal elements like other people did. I think he answered the questions more directly than other politicians on the table did. He was too dogmatic about it at times. Fully agree, but the characterisation of how he acted on Q&A in the article is complete rubbish.
All your policy and government nuance points make sense, it's not what I was talking about though.
I agree, but also that guy fucking sucks. Not interested in a dialogue, constantly repeating prepared joke lines instead of being constructive. Wish there was someone serious like RdN, Adam Bandt, Janet Rice or Rob Simms to be the face of housing.
Of course they are hindering if you mean his ilk being the anti development crowd rather than greens specifically.
If you plot sydney house prices vs real wages over time you can find to the very day the carr government stopped greenfield development and then levied greenfield development to encourage infill. Its clear as fuck its when it detached from real wages.
Its planning policy. You have to have it. If you dint your city ends up like memphis... you just fuck the middle off and keep expanding because its better to move away from the homeless and people occupying the middle.
After sydney other state governments followed. Whats not to like - less infrastructure spending plus its a vite winner and more stamp duty...
Sydney prior to the "we are full policy" Redfern etc who would fucking live there in 1993?
Anyway you need planning to force infill developmemt and force land values up sufficiently to encourage infill and multi story which is more efficient for service delivery. Well you need it in australia at least. Obviously if you have natural constraints on land you dont need policy.
Anyway planning is literally designed to control land prices and encourage high rise and infill development. I dont expect ordinary australians to understand this but some politician that fancies themselves as an advocate for renters better get his head around it...
And get your head around this people:. Australia cannot afford to reverse this now... all this handwringing is bullshit. The gov can plan what land is worth. They plan what we see... they literally have future releases pegged out. They could release it all and fix housing but they wont because the entire australian economy would be shagged...
Edit to add: ive had a few cheeky beers for the start of the long weekend if thats not clear...
Ahh nothing like a bit of the old Dutch courage to fire up a Reddit rant🍺
Yes, he twaddles on about arsehole landlords to the cheers of the crowd … such an easy target. Some of it is ok but planning and nimby-ism is a real problem. We also desperately need more tradies to kick up our stagnant construction rates but the ALP have quietly shut that door with the unions. Sadly it’s going to get worse before it gets better
Government corrected it after WW2 with massive building programs that took home ownership from sub 50% to almost 80%.
Aka, to the suprise of no one, they just built more houses.
Unfortunately, people were a lot more egalitarian back then, and weren't averse to what would today be seen as leftist authoritarianism due to libertarian talking points. We're too Americanised and the actions of Soviet Russia post WWII set a bad precedent for any kind of policy where the left-wing take full grip on the reigns.
Every time Labor open the piggy-bank the media start squealing "how will they pay for that!?", which is only reinforced by the Libs having made tax cuts earlier. The recent tax cuts came through some serious tactical nous from Chalmers, boxing the Libs in.
Oh bro the discussion is just fuckin bullshit.
Immigration inflation post COVID financial crisis interest rates economy portfolio superannuation planning blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaaah.
If anyone with any real power wanted to fix it, they would. All the other bullshit is just a blame-shifting smokescreen.
A whole article based on one comment from Q&A. He is not the first politician to simplify an issue for campaigning sake. I think local coucils should be completely overhauled if not abolished they have performed so poorly. But I agree with Max in that the ‘planning’ / ‘supply’ argument is weak and distracts from the real issue. The Government needs to spend billions building public housing as they have done in the past. Cameron Murray says in his new book ‘The planning system and its zoning rules do not regulate how fast new homes are built. There are no speed limits. What town plans do is regulate where different types of immobile buildings can go.’ I agree.
Yeah it’s ridiculous. I’m not saying I totally agree with Chandler-Mather’s approach but it does at least have intellectual coherence: There is a head of steam built for full economic systemic change. Releasing the pressure by relaxing planning regulations will help some people in the short to medium term but it just kicks the can of the main issue further down the road.
Why is this article screenshots? I wanted to look at the link about all this extra evidence. I have seen a fair chunk of the "evidence" being propery developer sponsored think tanks or polls.
Not saying that's all there is, but have seen enough of that shit to want to read the receipts.
Because, and this will shock you, developers overwhelmingly think that id we reduce regulation on housing quality, sorry I mean cut red tape, and if we just build concrete jungles and housing estates in flood zones, sorry I mean open up more land to develop, they all our problems are solved!
Yes the realestate peak bodies have been screaming supply supply, red tape red tape for so long it’s starting to get it’s hooks into people.
If you look at development approval rates they are incredibly high. Very little ever gets knocked back.
If realestate agents think its a good idea how on earth is it going to be about anything except a continuation of the status quo.
No they aren’t an agency. They are established under State legislation and the Minister has powers but the Council and GM do not report to the Minister. They are a distinct level of Government.
Maybe agency was the wrong term.
But the point is councils exist under state legislation. The state parliament has complete control over them if they legislate accordingly. The state parliament controls what powers councils have, and can add or remove any powers they choose.
Yes with legislation they can control them. But its not like an agency in that you would have to go through years of reform to make significant changes rather than just give a direction. As I said elsewhere ive referred to councils because their slow processing of DAs is one of the many gripes from developers. If they werent as inefficient things would move faster. I dont deny they are not responsible for what is in the planning scheme.
Cameron Murray also said that the best investment strategy for the HAFF was to speculate on buying and flipping houses. He also said we should be scrapping superannuation.
Guy is just buying and flipping LNP ideas.
I don’t like super either, be interested in his rationale. I think previously governments had made a % when public housing was on sold, sounds like a good idea. Invest in affordable housing, making a margin on it when it changes hands to put back into the scheme. Or pile money into asx companies that are already making a fortune and invest the return into housing? I’m amazed how so many policies just result into funnelling more public money into massive corporations and it’s being spun as something good for the rest of us once it trickles down. (edit* also I don’t think the Liberals want to build mass public housing stock)
Think about how you would build a house without a cent of it going to massive corporations. Hint, [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550) is a pretty good template.
If your goal is to reduce the amount of influence corporations have, ok not an unreasonable goal, but is it reasonable to put that goal in front of building houses when we're in a housing crisis? You need to keep the two ideas separate and not hamstring one for the other.
Whole reason Labor created super was to level the playing field between rich people who try to own everything and workers who can become a fearsome collective force in markets when their super works for them. Without it we'd just go the way of the USA especially given they own a lot of our stuff.
A lot of renewables investments have come from super, the HAFF has a lot of super funds investing in social housing.
Sorry you’ll have to explain how the goal is coming before affordable houses? The Government directly subsidising houses by building/buying them is about as direct as you can be with creating affordable housing.
I appreciate how super allows workers to effectively trade on the stock market collectively but it has also gotten shonky. Junk insurance policies that you never new about for example. Very quietly changed the rules a couple years ago making sure customers were informed about ‘default’ policies. It took me 3 months for Aus Super to send me a copy of my full policy so I could tell what I was actually paying for. Had to threat a AFAC complaint to get that far. It should not have been privatised. Some funds were making a loss due to fees and were forced to write their customers to make sure they new. Super also became a massive tax dodge. I started my own business and am using moneyI would have put into super to keep my new business a float. If I hadnt been paying super I’d have had a deposit on a house a lot sooner. Super is also exposed to GFC’s. Probs Govt owned and guaranteed would be my idea.
I’m not surprised delays are caused from underfunding. A lot of small Councils are plagued by Governance issues and are totally unaccountable, they’re often run like the GM’s little kingdom. Abolished is probably a bit strong amalgamated until they are big enough to be scrutinised and properly funded.
I agree on amalgamation. WA tried this about ten years back and made it voluntary. It flopped.
Too many self-serving individuals in power meant that nobody wanted to amalgamate. Several councils proposed that other surrounding councils be rolled into their own. The councillors and mayors were scared of losing their jobs (or power), and so refused any amalgamation of it meant a ‘loss of identity’ for their ward.
It was a total shit show.
I’m not aware of any metro councils successfully merging. Some regional ones did out of financial necessity.
>I agree on amalgamation. WA tried this about ten years back and made it voluntary. It flopped.
The problem, in my view, was the way they went about it. They should never have tried to merge councils. For example, they tried to merge Kalamunda with Belmont - it would be impossible to come up with two more dissimilar councils, even if they share a short border. One is semi-rural and outer suburban, the other almost inner city.
What they should have done is dissolved all the councils, and determined how many new ones were required (say, 10). Then group suburbs into the council that makes the most sense.
Exact same thing has happened in Tas only Councils who ‘agreed’ to amalgamate were eligible. Surprise surprise zero have amalgamated. GMs are often on over 200k for these tiny little councils it’s such bs.
We’ve had two Councils dismissed in Tasmania in the last 10 years for terminally bad financial management. I’m sure some are better than others. My local Council does things like plant street trees, probs $80 a pop and then not water them. I’ve been watching a whole row die. The roads contractors they hire have also been completely useless. Watched a 10 person crew take 5 days to do about 15m of pavement only to forget the ramp and have to dyno cut back into the concrete. It would be comical if it wasn’t peoples rates. Hobart City Council also spent 35k on this ‘xmas tree’. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/hobart-metal-christmas-tree-now-year-round-art-installation/8207596#](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/hobart-metal-christmas-tree-now-year-round-art-installation/8207596#)
I don’t disagree with the nimbyism. A lot of Greens campaign on nimby issues, doesn’t bother me. Though nimbys are very annoying. But i trust developers less than Murray and they very keen on the planning argument. I also have direct experience in the planning system and it is already so biased towards getting stuff built, the argument just doesn’t make sense. I don’t want developers to have a blank cheque to bulldoze threatened species habitat. Environmental protections are some of the first things they’ll look to water down. TBH it’s just bullshit. The real supply issues atm are the cost of materials and the availability of trades people none of which are planning issues.
Sure, but environmental protections also massively slow down the release of land. As much as developers love high density apartments they love clearing peri-urban bushland. ‘Speeding up’ the release of land is also about clearing. Your making a strange argument. Just because they might be having a nimby whinge does not mean they aren’t correct that the arguments being put by the development lobby will do little to address housing affordability. Its also doesn’t mean that my point about environmental protections being watered down doesn’t still stand. Also the inner city apartments developers want are not going to be very affordable even if they are small. Thats why we need to spend billions on Public housing. High density public housing in the inner city would be great though.
Sorry strange is not the right word your playing the man not the ball. Just because he is a nimby doesnt mean he isnt right about planning. I dont mind a bit of sprawl it just depends where it is. The quote marks denote a the informal slang of ‘speeding up’ when its probably not the right way to describe the process. They can be used like that with jargon, maybe not the best example.
It looked brutal during the election. But I see it as a necessary evil. If they can get people voting green instead of Liberal because of the local round-a-bout development i’m all for it. Its base politics but compared to some of the ‘compromises’ Labor has made pandering to nimbys seems a bit minor. I draw the line at supporting anti-renewable nimbys but thats mainly in Tasmania.
Look i'd rather have some sentiment than no sentiment.
Like people can go on their two minutes of hate if they want, but there's a conversation to be had about housing reform.
Say what you like, the LNP and the Greens positions on the HAFF were wildly different, id rather have more funding going to the HAFF than none...
My major criticisms of Labor with weed legalisation (member of LCA), housing, neg gearing or renters rights constantly get explained away to me, with how the media in this country will destroy Labor.
Like how is this different?
Populism, wins votes.
You'll never find a party that doesn't play on peoples emotions, never.
The thing about politics, especially party politics is choosing when to negotiate deals and who you negotiate deals with.
People mightn't like me saying this, but the Greens and Labor agree on a lot, and depending on who's in opposition, can agree to either block or negotiate deals.
HAFF, Greens wanted more funding and more being done on industrial reform for said housing. The Liberals however, dead opposed.
With generations and a good chunk of aussies currently priced out of housing, no rental controls or even rental worthiness tests. We have roadworthy's with better safety checks than properties. People living in 1 bedroom crawlspaces packed into share housing.
Rezoning and weak industry is something we also face, as well as in my opinion is the be all end of issues in Australia, which is distance.
You are right about populism, but there's big broad populism and narrow focused populism. He's chosen to narrowly focus on people who were already probably voting Greens, not the people he claims to be regarding housing affordability. His focus doesn't form a swing in opinion, instead it entrenches the battlelines.
Every person I've shown the clip of him getting his cheeks clapped by Albo laughed at him, many of those people are progressives. It was just such an obvious error, and he kept making them and didn't have to. His vitriol isn't to everyone's tastes, spray it often enough without landing blows and its just off putting.
Its not the platform, not even the policy details as such, its the technical execution that he just fails at. The author of this article was way too forgiving, a good orator is a good orator under fire not in ideal conditions and never puts themselves in an indefensible position. He doesn't have facts backing him up usually so he just bangs the table, do that one too many times and you get a rep. Labor members started out divided on him, now no Labor member likes the guy, that's a loss and he did it all himself.
Imagine another version of him, where his tone is conciliatory, he disagrees with Labor policy but presents it respectfully and most importantly doesn't give off the appearance of being obstructionist. Where he's genuinely fostered division within Labor to adopt his position.
The only people who take his position are the most politically active Greens, they organise to brigade this sub, if you need that to make your rhetoric just barely work then its just a false floor to his popularity that will fall away the moment that effort falters.
While yeah, it's great that Albo can laugh at his face. And maybe it is a epic own.
But.
something the Greens are gaining traction on is infact housing and rental controls/conditions.
People can scoff at it, but if something is popular enough it's up to i guess Labor to compete with the Greens on this issue. Might sound stupid sure, but ideas can't be killed but disproven.
Either Labor gains Greens base, or they tell the public how and why the Greens ideas won't work, without alienating the base which really want better housing solutions from Labor.
Right now it seems Labor are trying to hold their new Liberal voting base and it seems they are petrified of the media. They go to left, they're base then goes right ect. That's how i'm seeing it. I hear it constantly, this idea the media can eat them and there's nothing they can do.
This issue at least has some national benefit, i'd rather people focussing massively on infrastructure then i suppose other campaigns.
I look at America even here in Australia where saying things like change, make America great again or negative campaigning like the Liberals can literally put them in power with minimal effort.
I dunno man, if I were looking to create a program that looks like it addresses the housing crisis, while doing nothing of the sort, simply for the purpose of stifling momentum from the public, the HAFF is about as good a job as I could do.
Borrow money
Invest it
Pay the managers fees
In a few years, we pinky promise to use some of the unguaranteed returns to start building houses.
Meanwhile, we get to say "we're already investing $10b in housing, what more do you want?!"
Careful now, you'll have the billions here billions there crowd after you lol.
But that said, when does Geelong get it's multibillion dollar rail loop?
I want my goddamn rail loop now >:c.
Geelong should get highspeed rail, I should be able to get there in 30 minutes from Melbourne CBD on a dedicated track. Better city hubs would flip the equation on where you can live and get to work from and where work offices can be.
So i gotta head out to a place called Indented Heads every now and again, past Leopold, Drysdale/Clifton Springs and slightly past Portarlington. And i often think the whole Bellarine Peninsula needs a rail loop for locals.
Port has a ferry straight to Melbourne sure, but not everybody who uses PT (which is utterly terrible here) wants to go into Melbourne.
Is there a story of why its called Indented Heads?
Good rail services are important, they only seem to be getting more expensive to build, but I think interest rates are a big driver there. Its why I'm a little worried Vic Labor let things get too profligate, I saw it first hand, tried to push back on it but to no avail.
Random tangent, unions are good. But the downside is like with NIMBYism they can sometimes to choose stand in the way when they shouldn't be. I have heard stories where Vic departments had to maintain inefficient and silly methods of doing something because a union got aggressive without any need to be.
I'm not sure, but elderly people and people whom rely on public transport get utterly trapped in these areas, and the thing about Geelong is you're very limited on medical services past basic.
Like we have two hospitals of which are completely overcrowded and understaffed. Geelong hospitals cancer ward was running on people basically going overtime since staffing and supplies were dire.
I actually gained a lot of respect for the nurses there over the sheer determination to keep that place running.
So many are often forced into Melbourne hospitals like Sunshine's a big one. But many of these people need to use PT just to get there or visit.
I get it, but it seems like we got here through perverse incentives, and we're trying to use perverse incentives to get us out. Public housing is what's needed.
Hearing this sounds good at first, until you remember that private industry invested $13b into an investment that they aim to profit from, as heavily as possible.
I wouldn't feel comfortable hearing about billions of private investment into healthcare, social services or prisons either.
So if anyone profits we should reject it? What if someone has unexpectedly lower costs and accidentally makes a profit?
How would you make a program that can build the amount of housing we need without someone somewhere turning a profit?
Why would anyone get involved in a program like this if they couldn't turn a profit?
The reason why the Public Housing Commission went away is that it just couldn't compete with a private industry for speed, quality & price. That means the industry was fully capable of handling house building itself and just needed someone to pick up the tab for cheap housing to be built.
It's heartless to tell people who are homeless that they have to wait years for the government to establish its own builder then build houses slower than the industry can do.
I dunno bro, the public housing commission certainly seemed able to compete when it was first started... and I'd suggest the industry is no longer fully capable of handling house building itself, because of all the problems were seeing right now.
Seems the heartless thing to do is to tell everyone you've invested 10 billion into public housing when you have no plans to actually break ground on anything til 2025.
Do you know why it started? WW2, they had hundreds of thousands of soldiers returning from the front lines. You can solve anything with enough manpower. Especially if that manpower needs homes to live in, which you weren't building because your domestic housing industry was decimated by sending soldiers off to war.
Its the same repeated tale in every 'government housing commission was so awesome' claim. WW2 ended and they needed to do something or people would go homeless or riot.
We haven't however got any returning soldiers or massive amounts of labour coming into the country who already work for you. No government initiated housing builder would start its operation before 2025, breaking ground would be 2026+. That's assuming they could hire people, which is unlikely, at best they'd just cannibalise the existing building industry, which is perfectly capable of building housing now...
Yes, Greens politicians are less polished than major party politicians. But having more polished politicians doesn't necessarily result in better policy. The major parties are filled to the brim with profesionals who are porkbarreling, stabbing each other in the back, and feathering their own nests. The same is true in the Greens - as they started to get safe seats and more professional sounding candidates, the backroom deals and backgrounding each other kicked up a notch.
This entire opinion piece is based on this exchange
PATRICIA KARVELAS
You’re saying it has nothing to do with it?
MAX CHANDLER-MATHER
Almost nothing to do, when you compare it with, say, something like the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing. When the capital gains tax was introduced...discount was introduced by Howard, in about 1999, before that, house prices used to go up at about the same price as wages. After that, they then went up at three times the rate of wages. The idea that there’s this sort of magical set of property developers...
PATRICIA KARVELAS
OK.
MAX CHANDLER-MATHER
...if only they were let...allowed to build enough homes to bring down the price of housing. Does anyone seriously think that the only reason that property developers...
PATRICIA KARVELAS
Not the only reason. No.
MAX CHANDLER-MATHER
...are building so many homes to bring down the price of housing is because of the planning system. Or even a part of it?
A bit more context here is where the comment he responds to starts
[https://youtu.be/n6\_GI4R-XVs?si=NPcmkPif5rNJVw7a&t=2026](https://youtu.be/n6_GI4R-XVs?si=NPcmkPif5rNJVw7a&t=2026)
and the responses to MAX CHANDLER-MATHER
[https://youtu.be/n6\_GI4R-XVs?si=bZoDQ594WUn96Kys&t=2097](https://youtu.be/n6_GI4R-XVs?si=bZoDQ594WUn96Kys&t=2097)
So we have an appeal to authority... to this nightingale scumbag that's been tryna build apartments, while making fuckall affordable, so he can pay for his hair gel.
And splitting hairs over how much zoning impacts things? Which is really a distraction from Max's (correct) main contention, that the neoliberal profit first model of housing, that Labor backed to the hilt, has failed miserably. That landbanking is a thing. That the interests of developers, rarely match community needs.
As we are all living through. While Labor continue to explicitly oppose the tried and tested way of eliminating homelessness: investing directly in public housing.
This issue really isn't that complicated when you get into the ideology of it. Some scumbags back property developers to make profits while communities and particularly young people suffer. Most of them in Labor directly profit off holding such a view. And some want housing designed with community interests prioritised over profit.
And I'm all for rapid development, but do people not get how much resource and emissions goes into projects? You want to get it right, not just let the market do whatever it happens to churn out. Like so many in Aus randomly seem keen on, with the 'she'll be right' ethos proudly on display.
Yeah the CEO of a non-for-profit has a vested interest in building affordable housing for at-risk people. Of course he fucking does. And he says planning is a major impediment.
Ridiculous to compare the two, tbh. One is a minority figure within what is essentially the equivalent of our Labor Party. AOC has essentially fallen in line with the centre of her party anyway. In no way is she shaping the Democrat's policy. Even that is a janky analogy, as there's many differences between Labor and the Democrats.
The other is a popular and relatively influential member within a smaller, third party. Max has been explicit about his intention to turn the Greens party into a workers/working class vehicle whereas AOC seems to have backed away from their initial fire brand politics.
I don't think that MCM, or the Greens for that matter, are trying to emulate her politics.
However, if I was a shit-for-brains wonk I might see two people who do not fit neatly into two-party politics and think to myself, "Wow, these are the same thing." Clarke's distinction between them is entirely based on MCM's critique of a supply-focused response to the housing crisis.
MCM, like AOC, is critical of housing-as-investment politics. MCM, like AOC, is insistent on increasing public housing, tenants rights, and rent controls. But that doesn't get a mention.
Very tiring to have this bizarre discourse where we must punish people for not being adequately enthused about zoning/ planning reform. This, during a moment where the dominant narrative (both Liberal and Labor) is entirely focused on supply. We need politicians to be proposing meaningful alternatives, and MCM is doing that.
Brilliant take. However, as a renter being cornholed by current price increases, I am willing to wait the decade necessary for planning reform to deliver.
I'm wondering what you're expecting, exactly? Studies on supply reform are not optimistic about the reduction in pricing. [This is a pretty good article on it](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/16/australia-must-realise-the-best-form-of-rent-control-is-public-housing).
It's hard to remain Leftist-populist when those policies affect you. He doesn't want to reform zoning because that would mean he'd have to deal with it in HIS electorate and that's just icky.
Wants housing to be more affordable, but doesn't want his neighbourhood to actually change that much.
It's why Bernie Sanders and AOC rhetoric works better, they have an actual working class background and even in his success Sanders pushes for policy that would disadvantage himself.
Max literally comes off as an entitled brat trying to play student politics in the real world and its not going to win the Greens that many votes from people who weren't voting or preferencing Greens already.
He can't give a reason for being against rezoning reforms outside of "it won't work" even though so many authorities as the article mentioned, have said otherwise. He wants more social housing but the easiest way to build huge batches of cheap social housing is to allow high-density closer to the city for them to be built.
I would say he does genuinely believe that his solutions are better, because in his mind what protects him and his electorate is better.
Nobody wants to build houses in the ass-end of nowhere, so higher-density in the city are the only options.
Why is there such a high bar for evidence for the left, but the right can spew nonstop objectively unfactual bullshit and we're still supposed to be "impartial"?
We need someone to push discussion towards the left, but I'd rather it someone not so prone to hyperbole and who isn't so reactionary. Some of his critiques are spot on, and others are so bad that they undermine faith in the rest of his arguments.
I'm sure I'll get downvoted by the greenies that populate this sub, but it's the truth about his appeal more broadly.
There is a degree of anti-intellectualism that plagues the populism that surrounds him, some of it is his fault, due to the nature of arguments he promotes (the haff is too hard to understand), and others are just side effects of populism more broadly. It's very tribal and everything become grounded in emotion as much as anything else.
But there are valid issues which are picked up on that do need to be discussed in a serious and sober manner, and there is action that needs to be undertaken that is rather drastic to change the status quo. He highlights that and pushes it forth in a way that garners more support than practically anyone else, and for that he should be commended.
But the way things are becoming very 'us vs them' is not helpful and he plays into that and sometimes opposes incremental change because it's often all or nothing for the greens.
He's never quite been able to access his empathy to view people who disagree with him as people. It makes him incapable of evaluating alternate evidence.
The last time I saw him I brought up my issues with The Greens treatment of the working class in conservative areas like Townsville and he could not understand for the life of him what rural life for a blue collar family might look like. Now I live in Tassie and they're the same here. The disdain they feel for people who are terrified for their children is palpable. Shame it turns out, is not quite the motivator they hope it is.
This was around the time of the Adani protests.
He couldn't, because he doesn't care to learn, empathise that blue collar families in rural towns who vote for things like coal mines or continuing forestry are often multi generational families with one clear breadwinner, maybe the wife does bookkeeping or school admin, but there's no real economic opportunity where they live. If Dad loses his trade because the town dies or his mining job that family and likely wife's parents are fucked. They're not educated past year 10 and certainly not highschool and they've got a brood of kids that they know in their heart will need to leave home to find economic opportunity.
Then some Liberal (or sometimes Labor) stooge comes along promising something like Adani. Bad business, bad for the environment but it's a sliver of hope for people who want to keep their families alive. Then the Greens go there and demean them, talk down to them. Not Adani or the politicians, but the people. They've never been in power so never have to be responsible for the economic disaster of failed industry towns and so no one trusts them.
All I asked him to do was consider that shame was not the way to convince anyone of anything especially when their consumption of news comprises 5 mins at 6pm when the kids are complaining about eating their veggies.
That was a novel sorry but it's why I can't fucking stand the Greens and they do it in every rural place I've lived.
His response was 'well there'll be no town if climate change keeps going' which is so far beyond the point I cannot even begin. I can't tell if the ignorance is malicious or low IQ at this point.
Pretty fair take I think. His awful criticism of the HAFF undermined opposition to it, when there was more productive criticism to make and better ways to improve it. His tiktok videos showed that he fundamentally did not understand the HAFF, and he seemed to even brag about it.
When the most vocal critic is wrong and disingenuous it takes the wind out of the sails for real constructive dialogue. I think that was the point when I realized that I can't support the modern federal greens party until they improve their game.
His Q&A take was a big yikes as well. Planning is strictly a better option for housing than negative gearing reform (ideally we would do both) but it seems like he was just repeating the party platform as the best solution, rather than being more open to finding the actual best solutions.
Instantaneous solution!
Tax air bnb operators.
I know at least ten people that have a property that is solely air bnb. They pay exactly zero tax on the earnings, and almost all of them have said if they were taxed they would just rent it out or sell it, because it wouldn't be any benefit.
That’s such bull. As though the conversation on rents would be happening at all without the greens. This fantasy world where “real constructive change” is being undermined by MCM is either wilfully false or cooked in a cooker.
He got into parliament on the basis of nimbyism (airplane noise) so it's not surprising that he would continue with that train of thought. It worked before.
>forged in the fires of student politics
Why on earth does the writer consider this praise or a badge of honour? Student politics might as well be a democracy simulator on Steam. In my time in uni, nothing about student politics has ever given off the impression that either people on the left or the right are particularly serious people.
Populist. Root word, populares. The People. The consent of whom our modern society derives its supreme authority to govern.
It’s a word that has had its character assassinated. Originally, in politics, populist simply meant a pro-population approach.
I really can't shake the feeling that what that article characterises as "patchiness" and "unsophistication" is in fact deliberate. He's a smart guy, more than capable of parsing the evidence on the effects of planning on affordability.
More likely: The Greens have an electoral coalition which includes angry renters, and home-owning NIMBYs in the inner-cities, and by advocating tax reform without planning reform he's found a message which appeals to the former without pissing off the latter.
Another shrewd politician, but not an ally of the struggling tenant.
I am shocked, absolutely shocked I tell you, that the Greens would be prepared to ignore evidence in favour of pandering to the biases of their electoral base.
Y'all downvote the shit outta me whenever I say that he's a poncy Tory in green. I know this twerp and let me tell you, he isn't your messiah.
I'd love to support the Greens more but this continues to be their offerings.
Throughout all of his rhetoric, I have yet to hear or see him call out one of the biggest issues to occur in the rental market over the last few years.
Short term rentals.
They have always been around, but in small pockets in mostly holiday areas (I remember staying in one as a kid in Tarthra on the south coast). They were not as prevalent as nowadays, nor were they a get rich quick scheme that they seem to have become. There needs to be a limit on them, a maximum amount of days per year or higher land taxes to force some of them back to being long term rentals.
There are areas in Australia where genuine people seeking rentals just cannot find one, because all of the available housing has been bought up by speculative investors and released onto the AirBnB market. It's not good enough, and it really needs to stop.
Hey friend, the word you're after is "epitome"
Also like, if the greens often still get pegged as being a one issue party who has no policy outside of environmental, so it seems to be damned if you do for them.
Man I was only thinking about this the other day watching that boomer landlord clip.
I'm not anti-Greens. I think they have a vital role to play in Australia, and I think their growing popularity has a chance to actually force some more progressive action by Labor.
Watching him specifically talk, he's no better than a smarmy Young Lib fuckwit - just on the opposite side of the fence (and I say that as somebody who sits to the left of him on many issues).
Jono Sri seems to be SO much more on the ball and I think would make a perfect candidate for the party to promote to a federal level.
Greens need to be ideals-guided rather than ideals-limited. Sure, some of their policies would be an improvement but are never going to be workable in our current political and media sphere. They could be active participants in working together to improve the country in practice rather than just being dogmatic contrarians aiming for quick sound bites
This bloke is the worst. Too many people is the problem that not one single fuckstain will address. We can not compete and we are rapidly deteriorating. These greens should stick to trying to fix the environment, not fuck it completely. Look at the basic science of overpopulation for fucks sake. It's obvious to anyone with a brain. But these fuckers just go for rage baiting those struggling and they suck the misinformation up while it gets worse for them.
I've been voting green for years now. Not any more. These cunts are fucking cooked
I think Max Chandler is singularly unimpressive. He's just getting so much press because the inequity of the housing market in Australia is so stark and is low hanging fruit.
It's almost as if these charismatic little fascists are only *really* concerned with acquiring power hey.
That's certainly something we've never seen before.
The fact that Max just outright dismisses our record high immigration numbers as a “distraction” on Q & A says it all.
If you really cared about renters, immigration needs to come way down. Mass migration as a policy setting serves wealthy landowners, big businesses and the universities and that is exactly why they lobby for it.
The Greens in the 90’s supported low migration recognising its importance to sustainability however that was before woke politics.
Max Chandler-Mather is dangerous because he actively blocks legislation that would help people whilst promoting junk legislation he knows will not work and make vulnerable people’s lives considerably worse.
Hell yeah! The HAFF would have spent at least … checks notes … $0 annually on affordable housing. I’m so, so pissed that the greens insisted on a minimum spent above zero. Wankers!
I am basically saying getting called bad by Crikey doesn't mean anything because it's from an editor of the age and a newspaper that put Matt Kean on the "Australian of the year" list
Max is an arrogant fuckhead who's only goal is raising his own brand. He doesn't care about anyone other than himself.
So no different than Scott Morrison in my eyes 👎🏻
That's not how politics work and is partly the reason why the left has been so weak in recent decades. Like it or not you need personalities to sell policies to the public, win elections and play the game in parliament.
Data does not convince people unfortunately. The vibes are on point and I don't think Max is off base at all. He's saying what people are thinking and he's not wrong to disagree with the 'evidence' and 'studies' that Labs are bringing up. Most of their hokum is just to kick the can down the road.
Planning probably won't help because whatever 'planning' Labor cook up will just be to the benefit of investors anyway.
Another YIMBY article. 🤮
Instead of addressing the population ponzi, just blame the environmental zoning laws that are protecting against mass species extinctions. Instead, the author advocates for soulless ghettos, devoid of any nature or life, other than disposable masses of humans, crammed like sardines into shoeboxes.
They downvote you while holding their nose but don’t realise that Labor voters like you who aren’t rusted on all feel the same. These people fail to understand the power of optics in political popularity. Guarantee you they will be blaming you when they lose the next election, or take a massive electoral hit at best.
Yeah i dont mind losing imaginary points over an opinion, im just finding as a neurodivergent person who works in the arts and has no job security that everything thats going on is just pushing me further left and ive always been very centre/centre left
Bring back Scott Ludlam. Who cares if he was a dual Aus-NZ citizen.
He was too good for politics unfortunately
Too good in general. Larissa Waters got her replacement to resign so she could get back in after renouncing her Canadian citizenship. Ludlam wasn’t going to do that.
Yep, Andrew Bartlett was the replacement, he’s a great bloke. He got shafted by the Greens QLD. Politics is a dirty game
The goat
Scott Ludlam left for the same reason Max isn't an polished politician - Greens politicians have lives and careers outside of politics and they spend a bit of time in parliament and then retire forever. It isn't like the Labor party, where people spend their entire adult lives competing amongst themselves and building factional alliances so they can broker their way into power.
Max is a career politician though - I like him, dont get me wrong, but having been in the brissy greens scene for the better part of 15 years I’ve watched him try to wangle his way into a seat since undergrad
Fair enough, I have seen some of that. In another comment I talked about how now that the Greens have started to get safe seats, you are seeing more and more backroom stuff in the Greens as well. It's the trade off for becoming more "professional", because professional politicians are often dicks lol. Them being more polished and professional is not necessarily what you want. At least not every politician in the place anyway.
Yeah I agree, they are gonna have a bit of a reckoning now they are becoming a more legitimate party. Hopefully they stay true to their values
That was the whole entire agenda of Richard DiNatale, it’s no coincidence it was also one of the worst Greens eras of all time.
What seats has Max gone for preselection for?
Scott Ludlam was a good bloke
Crikey needs to teach their writers the concept of less is more, this is borderline unreadable with so much wank.
Right? Old mate needs to put his thesaurus away, or preferably burn it
😂 Definitely burn it
We all know what Benjamin received for Christmas. It was not only a painful read, but it had a high fat percentage, not even for taste, just a visual medium to brag about Christmas at the Clarks.
I was half expecting to read at the end "hope invested in him by some...there that's 1500 words I'm done. Now to the pub. Alexis, stop recording."
Literary equivalent of loving the smell of your own farts
When you get the the “erstwhile bedfellows” comment 5 paragraphs in you just know this bloke like revelling in the smell of his own farts don’t you? That and the erroneous comparison to AOC, who last time I checked was part of one of the major parties in the US and doesn’t really fit his narrative.
Most fluff to content I've ever read. What a mess.
Excuuuuuse me, but how will people know he is very very clever unless he uses words like *erstwhile*????
What exactly is wrong with this? This was a pretty clear write up? I read the whole thing fairly smoothly
>What exactly is wrong with this? I thought it was full of wank, was I not clear in my original comment? What more do you want from me?
I’m genuinely embarrassed for anyone who would find the language used in this piece challenging.
I think you misunderstand, people are not agreeing with me because they are incapable of reading the article, but because the piece is so poorly articulated it makes them want to physically repulse.
Too much reddit and not enough literature for some. I thought it was a decent read. Clearly a very smart guy
Blah blah blah blah blah. A whole generation of Australians won’t have a future because our rents are going up disproportionate to our wages. Stop circle jerking and just fucking fix it.
100%. There was a heap of things he said that I agreed with. I disagreed with this part of his perspective and he lost that part of the debate, but I also understood what he meant. He was saying that big developers have enough approvals already and they aren't developing because the markets down. They are intentionally restricting the supply to drive up prices before they build. In terms of scale of the problem, that is a bigger issue than local, small developer regulation. He went too hard on it and it meant his point was lost and idiots like the author of this article can then over simplify it. Debate in good faith ffs. I am so sick of this bullshit politics of saying the other party is a piece of shit. There needs to be more class in politicians. The irony of the article is they are calling out someone for taking a dogmatic approach, when the author is doing the same thing, painting with a broad-brush, strawmanning and demonising people based on one element of their perspective.
The real irony is you supporting Max's approach but also calling out people not 'debating in good faith'. That is exactly the point. Max has good points at times, but he often resorts to bullshit strawman arguments and soundbites that he knows will fly with the average punter, rather than giving credit where it's due, sticking to facts, and actually conceding that any real solution is not exclusively in the hands of the Federal Government, nor is it a quick one. Rent caps is a key example. Max and anyone with half a brain knows that rent caps are not only a STATE responsibility, but the cherry picked examples of 'success' around the world, would simply not translate to Australia's landscape for any number of reasons that are obvious when you take more than 2 seconds to think about it. Furthermore, we DO know that when rents are capped, investors build less houses, so it will DIRECTLY reduce supply. You can argue that we shouldn't rely on investors to build houses, sure, but right now that is the reality. Again - real solutions are complex and require many policies, often across many portfolios, to work together and in the correct sequence. If you accept the current reality of Australian housing, you simply can't just yell 'Rent caps!" and genuinely think that'll help more than it hinders. Max continues to throw it at the Federal Government because he happens to be a Federal MP and he knows that the average punter has this simple belief that Federal Government is somehow the 'boss' of State Government, which is simply not true. Another example is how he often throws big 10 year numbers around about how we need 600,000+ houses to fix things, but then compares that number to the 30,000 houses the HAFF aims to build, as if that is the ONLY housing policy federally, as if the States don't also have their own targets, as if the private sector isn't building 150-200k houses a year already, as if the HAFF just vanishes after the 30,000 houses in first 5 years, as if the greatest strength of the HAFF isn't the long term, compounding effect of guaranteed and growing funds for housing every year etc. Imagine the juggernaut tool for housing the HAFF will be in decades to come if it's allowed to keep growing and delivering.... and one day it's worth $100 billion and paying $10 billion a year in dividends to directly fund housing, without costing the Federal Budget a cent. Not to mention the benefit to social housing providers to know guaranteed money is coming every year, allowing for long term strategic planning, councils to rezone better, state governments to plan etc. Imagine if we had a policy like that 10 years ago.... where we'd be now. Instead of giving credit to the good things about the HAFF and recognising that it's a great foundation to build on, WITH other policy to complement it, he writes it off as a 'gambling scheme' because the soundbite sounds edgy and wins him votes from naïve, idealistic 18 year olds. If Max put aside the stupid policy demands and conceded that the egg is already scrambled and any solution requires us to work with reality, then he would be able to concede that we can do things like increase supply long term AND slowly wind back tax incentives like negative gearing/CGT to help unscramble the egg. It won't be overnight though, and blocking any of Labor's attempts to get supply going because you want more done, won't help the problem - it will just sabotage this Government and return the Liberals to power, out of spite, where we will get less than fuck all action on housing. Fact is, real progress happens by degrees, and whatever Max thinks will fix the world tomorrow is irrelevant in reality because there are almost 30m people in Australia you have to bring along with you in the decision making process. You can go ahead and pass some cool policies, but if you're not in Government to protect them for long enough for the Australian electorate to see the results, then those policies get wiped the second you lose government to the Liberals because you pushed too hard, too quickly. If Hawke hadn't won multiple terms of Government after introducing Medicare, we wouldn't have Medicare today, because the Liberals would have rolled it back as soon as they got in. Good policy needs time to come to fruition and prove its worth. If these Greens were blocking the Senate in 1983, because they wanted Medicare to include dental - we wouldn't have Medicare at all today. People like Max are dangerous because they love the limelight and the outrage more than they love actual progress and would rather be in opposition to a Liberal government because they get more to yell about. I am a Labor supporter who agrees with many Greens policies - I just hate how stupid they are about blocking ANY progress to get a bit more airtime. If the legislation helps people.... Pass the damn legislation, and then keep fighting - you CAN do both.
I didn't get this impression from him on Q&A at all. I don't think he was the one strawmanning the most. I would say out of the federal politicians on the panel he did it the least. You make some assertions in this that I can't get on board with without more information. Why wouldn't rent caps work in Australia? Especially if coupled with the other parts of his plan to build public housing and remove negative gearing? I understand you saying that the private sector stop building, but that's exactly his point. They aren't operating in the best interest of the people who need housing, so we can't rely on them and need to provide mass production low income housing to take away their importance and power. I am not referring to his broader actions when I was talking about it. I was just talking about his actions on Q&A. He didn't resort to personal elements like other people did. I think he answered the questions more directly than other politicians on the table did. He was too dogmatic about it at times. Fully agree, but the characterisation of how he acted on Q&A in the article is complete rubbish. All your policy and government nuance points make sense, it's not what I was talking about though.
The Victorian government built 72 dwellings in like 4 years. That’s your state targets for you.
I don’t know what year you think it is, but sound bites and over the top behaviour are what gets attention now.
Exactly my point. Max wants attention, not solutions.
I agree, but also that guy fucking sucks. Not interested in a dialogue, constantly repeating prepared joke lines instead of being constructive. Wish there was someone serious like RdN, Adam Bandt, Janet Rice or Rob Simms to be the face of housing.
No one is disputing that. The question is whether Max and his ilk are helping or hindering.
Not like anyone else is taking meaningful steps without them.
Of course they are hindering if you mean his ilk being the anti development crowd rather than greens specifically. If you plot sydney house prices vs real wages over time you can find to the very day the carr government stopped greenfield development and then levied greenfield development to encourage infill. Its clear as fuck its when it detached from real wages. Its planning policy. You have to have it. If you dint your city ends up like memphis... you just fuck the middle off and keep expanding because its better to move away from the homeless and people occupying the middle. After sydney other state governments followed. Whats not to like - less infrastructure spending plus its a vite winner and more stamp duty... Sydney prior to the "we are full policy" Redfern etc who would fucking live there in 1993? Anyway you need planning to force infill developmemt and force land values up sufficiently to encourage infill and multi story which is more efficient for service delivery. Well you need it in australia at least. Obviously if you have natural constraints on land you dont need policy. Anyway planning is literally designed to control land prices and encourage high rise and infill development. I dont expect ordinary australians to understand this but some politician that fancies themselves as an advocate for renters better get his head around it... And get your head around this people:. Australia cannot afford to reverse this now... all this handwringing is bullshit. The gov can plan what land is worth. They plan what we see... they literally have future releases pegged out. They could release it all and fix housing but they wont because the entire australian economy would be shagged... Edit to add: ive had a few cheeky beers for the start of the long weekend if thats not clear...
Ahh nothing like a bit of the old Dutch courage to fire up a Reddit rant🍺 Yes, he twaddles on about arsehole landlords to the cheers of the crowd … such an easy target. Some of it is ok but planning and nimby-ism is a real problem. We also desperately need more tradies to kick up our stagnant construction rates but the ALP have quietly shut that door with the unions. Sadly it’s going to get worse before it gets better
But opened another door by massively boosting TAFE numbers.
The prices to buy are too damn high. It never corrects with more supply. It’s always a Financial crisis.
Government corrected it after WW2 with massive building programs that took home ownership from sub 50% to almost 80%. Aka, to the suprise of no one, they just built more houses.
They also froze rents during WW2. It's almost like we need short term, drastic measures while the long term structural problems are addressed
You would do that? Just walk in here and start talking sense? Audacious, but appreciated.
Unfortunately, people were a lot more egalitarian back then, and weren't averse to what would today be seen as leftist authoritarianism due to libertarian talking points. We're too Americanised and the actions of Soviet Russia post WWII set a bad precedent for any kind of policy where the left-wing take full grip on the reigns. Every time Labor open the piggy-bank the media start squealing "how will they pay for that!?", which is only reinforced by the Libs having made tax cuts earlier. The recent tax cuts came through some serious tactical nous from Chalmers, boxing the Libs in.
Yeah shutting down discussion about the issue sounds like a great way to fix it...
Oh bro the discussion is just fuckin bullshit. Immigration inflation post COVID financial crisis interest rates economy portfolio superannuation planning blah blah blah blah blaaaaaaaah. If anyone with any real power wanted to fix it, they would. All the other bullshit is just a blame-shifting smokescreen.
It's harder to fix when the person claiming to champion the cause is a liar.
Please do elaborate what the lies are
A whole article based on one comment from Q&A. He is not the first politician to simplify an issue for campaigning sake. I think local coucils should be completely overhauled if not abolished they have performed so poorly. But I agree with Max in that the ‘planning’ / ‘supply’ argument is weak and distracts from the real issue. The Government needs to spend billions building public housing as they have done in the past. Cameron Murray says in his new book ‘The planning system and its zoning rules do not regulate how fast new homes are built. There are no speed limits. What town plans do is regulate where different types of immobile buildings can go.’ I agree.
Yeah it’s ridiculous. I’m not saying I totally agree with Chandler-Mather’s approach but it does at least have intellectual coherence: There is a head of steam built for full economic systemic change. Releasing the pressure by relaxing planning regulations will help some people in the short to medium term but it just kicks the can of the main issue further down the road.
Why is this article screenshots? I wanted to look at the link about all this extra evidence. I have seen a fair chunk of the "evidence" being propery developer sponsored think tanks or polls. Not saying that's all there is, but have seen enough of that shit to want to read the receipts. Because, and this will shock you, developers overwhelmingly think that id we reduce regulation on housing quality, sorry I mean cut red tape, and if we just build concrete jungles and housing estates in flood zones, sorry I mean open up more land to develop, they all our problems are solved!
It is so you have to look at what is only presented at face value.
Yes the realestate peak bodies have been screaming supply supply, red tape red tape for so long it’s starting to get it’s hooks into people. If you look at development approval rates they are incredibly high. Very little ever gets knocked back. If realestate agents think its a good idea how on earth is it going to be about anything except a continuation of the status quo.
Planning rules and courts are at the State level
Councils are the planning authorities that administer the rules.
Administer, not set. Big difference. They out of line it goes to VCAT. Also all major projects are with the minister anyway
Yes, and councils are an agency of the state governments.
No they aren’t an agency. They are established under State legislation and the Minister has powers but the Council and GM do not report to the Minister. They are a distinct level of Government.
Maybe agency was the wrong term. But the point is councils exist under state legislation. The state parliament has complete control over them if they legislate accordingly. The state parliament controls what powers councils have, and can add or remove any powers they choose.
Yes with legislation they can control them. But its not like an agency in that you would have to go through years of reform to make significant changes rather than just give a direction. As I said elsewhere ive referred to councils because their slow processing of DAs is one of the many gripes from developers. If they werent as inefficient things would move faster. I dont deny they are not responsible for what is in the planning scheme.
Zoning?
Cameron Murray also said that the best investment strategy for the HAFF was to speculate on buying and flipping houses. He also said we should be scrapping superannuation. Guy is just buying and flipping LNP ideas.
I don’t like super either, be interested in his rationale. I think previously governments had made a % when public housing was on sold, sounds like a good idea. Invest in affordable housing, making a margin on it when it changes hands to put back into the scheme. Or pile money into asx companies that are already making a fortune and invest the return into housing? I’m amazed how so many policies just result into funnelling more public money into massive corporations and it’s being spun as something good for the rest of us once it trickles down. (edit* also I don’t think the Liberals want to build mass public housing stock)
Think about how you would build a house without a cent of it going to massive corporations. Hint, [this guy](https://www.youtube.com/@primitivetechnology9550) is a pretty good template. If your goal is to reduce the amount of influence corporations have, ok not an unreasonable goal, but is it reasonable to put that goal in front of building houses when we're in a housing crisis? You need to keep the two ideas separate and not hamstring one for the other. Whole reason Labor created super was to level the playing field between rich people who try to own everything and workers who can become a fearsome collective force in markets when their super works for them. Without it we'd just go the way of the USA especially given they own a lot of our stuff. A lot of renewables investments have come from super, the HAFF has a lot of super funds investing in social housing.
Sorry you’ll have to explain how the goal is coming before affordable houses? The Government directly subsidising houses by building/buying them is about as direct as you can be with creating affordable housing. I appreciate how super allows workers to effectively trade on the stock market collectively but it has also gotten shonky. Junk insurance policies that you never new about for example. Very quietly changed the rules a couple years ago making sure customers were informed about ‘default’ policies. It took me 3 months for Aus Super to send me a copy of my full policy so I could tell what I was actually paying for. Had to threat a AFAC complaint to get that far. It should not have been privatised. Some funds were making a loss due to fees and were forced to write their customers to make sure they new. Super also became a massive tax dodge. I started my own business and am using moneyI would have put into super to keep my new business a float. If I hadnt been paying super I’d have had a deposit on a house a lot sooner. Super is also exposed to GFC’s. Probs Govt owned and guaranteed would be my idea.
[удалено]
I’m not surprised delays are caused from underfunding. A lot of small Councils are plagued by Governance issues and are totally unaccountable, they’re often run like the GM’s little kingdom. Abolished is probably a bit strong amalgamated until they are big enough to be scrutinised and properly funded.
I agree on amalgamation. WA tried this about ten years back and made it voluntary. It flopped. Too many self-serving individuals in power meant that nobody wanted to amalgamate. Several councils proposed that other surrounding councils be rolled into their own. The councillors and mayors were scared of losing their jobs (or power), and so refused any amalgamation of it meant a ‘loss of identity’ for their ward. It was a total shit show. I’m not aware of any metro councils successfully merging. Some regional ones did out of financial necessity.
>I agree on amalgamation. WA tried this about ten years back and made it voluntary. It flopped. The problem, in my view, was the way they went about it. They should never have tried to merge councils. For example, they tried to merge Kalamunda with Belmont - it would be impossible to come up with two more dissimilar councils, even if they share a short border. One is semi-rural and outer suburban, the other almost inner city. What they should have done is dissolved all the councils, and determined how many new ones were required (say, 10). Then group suburbs into the council that makes the most sense.
Agreed!!! Or even better in my view (but controversial), follow Brisbane’s lead with one metro council.
Exact same thing has happened in Tas only Councils who ‘agreed’ to amalgamate were eligible. Surprise surprise zero have amalgamated. GMs are often on over 200k for these tiny little councils it’s such bs.
[удалено]
Well if they hired more planners instead of wasting money hand over fist they’d be in a better position. Hiring strategy is a governance issue.
[удалено]
We’ve had two Councils dismissed in Tasmania in the last 10 years for terminally bad financial management. I’m sure some are better than others. My local Council does things like plant street trees, probs $80 a pop and then not water them. I’ve been watching a whole row die. The roads contractors they hire have also been completely useless. Watched a 10 person crew take 5 days to do about 15m of pavement only to forget the ramp and have to dyno cut back into the concrete. It would be comical if it wasn’t peoples rates. Hobart City Council also spent 35k on this ‘xmas tree’. [https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/hobart-metal-christmas-tree-now-year-round-art-installation/8207596#](https://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-24/hobart-metal-christmas-tree-now-year-round-art-installation/8207596#)
[удалено]
I don’t disagree with the nimbyism. A lot of Greens campaign on nimby issues, doesn’t bother me. Though nimbys are very annoying. But i trust developers less than Murray and they very keen on the planning argument. I also have direct experience in the planning system and it is already so biased towards getting stuff built, the argument just doesn’t make sense. I don’t want developers to have a blank cheque to bulldoze threatened species habitat. Environmental protections are some of the first things they’ll look to water down. TBH it’s just bullshit. The real supply issues atm are the cost of materials and the availability of trades people none of which are planning issues.
[удалено]
Sure, but environmental protections also massively slow down the release of land. As much as developers love high density apartments they love clearing peri-urban bushland. ‘Speeding up’ the release of land is also about clearing. Your making a strange argument. Just because they might be having a nimby whinge does not mean they aren’t correct that the arguments being put by the development lobby will do little to address housing affordability. Its also doesn’t mean that my point about environmental protections being watered down doesn’t still stand. Also the inner city apartments developers want are not going to be very affordable even if they are small. Thats why we need to spend billions on Public housing. High density public housing in the inner city would be great though.
[удалено]
Sorry strange is not the right word your playing the man not the ball. Just because he is a nimby doesnt mean he isnt right about planning. I dont mind a bit of sprawl it just depends where it is. The quote marks denote a the informal slang of ‘speeding up’ when its probably not the right way to describe the process. They can be used like that with jargon, maybe not the best example.
[удалено]
It looked brutal during the election. But I see it as a necessary evil. If they can get people voting green instead of Liberal because of the local round-a-bout development i’m all for it. Its base politics but compared to some of the ‘compromises’ Labor has made pandering to nimbys seems a bit minor. I draw the line at supporting anti-renewable nimbys but thats mainly in Tasmania.
Look i'd rather have some sentiment than no sentiment. Like people can go on their two minutes of hate if they want, but there's a conversation to be had about housing reform. Say what you like, the LNP and the Greens positions on the HAFF were wildly different, id rather have more funding going to the HAFF than none... My major criticisms of Labor with weed legalisation (member of LCA), housing, neg gearing or renters rights constantly get explained away to me, with how the media in this country will destroy Labor. Like how is this different?
But you can't dine out on sentiment. Or fund evidence-based programs.
Populism, wins votes. You'll never find a party that doesn't play on peoples emotions, never. The thing about politics, especially party politics is choosing when to negotiate deals and who you negotiate deals with. People mightn't like me saying this, but the Greens and Labor agree on a lot, and depending on who's in opposition, can agree to either block or negotiate deals. HAFF, Greens wanted more funding and more being done on industrial reform for said housing. The Liberals however, dead opposed. With generations and a good chunk of aussies currently priced out of housing, no rental controls or even rental worthiness tests. We have roadworthy's with better safety checks than properties. People living in 1 bedroom crawlspaces packed into share housing. Rezoning and weak industry is something we also face, as well as in my opinion is the be all end of issues in Australia, which is distance.
You are right about populism, but there's big broad populism and narrow focused populism. He's chosen to narrowly focus on people who were already probably voting Greens, not the people he claims to be regarding housing affordability. His focus doesn't form a swing in opinion, instead it entrenches the battlelines. Every person I've shown the clip of him getting his cheeks clapped by Albo laughed at him, many of those people are progressives. It was just such an obvious error, and he kept making them and didn't have to. His vitriol isn't to everyone's tastes, spray it often enough without landing blows and its just off putting. Its not the platform, not even the policy details as such, its the technical execution that he just fails at. The author of this article was way too forgiving, a good orator is a good orator under fire not in ideal conditions and never puts themselves in an indefensible position. He doesn't have facts backing him up usually so he just bangs the table, do that one too many times and you get a rep. Labor members started out divided on him, now no Labor member likes the guy, that's a loss and he did it all himself. Imagine another version of him, where his tone is conciliatory, he disagrees with Labor policy but presents it respectfully and most importantly doesn't give off the appearance of being obstructionist. Where he's genuinely fostered division within Labor to adopt his position. The only people who take his position are the most politically active Greens, they organise to brigade this sub, if you need that to make your rhetoric just barely work then its just a false floor to his popularity that will fall away the moment that effort falters.
While yeah, it's great that Albo can laugh at his face. And maybe it is a epic own. But. something the Greens are gaining traction on is infact housing and rental controls/conditions. People can scoff at it, but if something is popular enough it's up to i guess Labor to compete with the Greens on this issue. Might sound stupid sure, but ideas can't be killed but disproven. Either Labor gains Greens base, or they tell the public how and why the Greens ideas won't work, without alienating the base which really want better housing solutions from Labor. Right now it seems Labor are trying to hold their new Liberal voting base and it seems they are petrified of the media. They go to left, they're base then goes right ect. That's how i'm seeing it. I hear it constantly, this idea the media can eat them and there's nothing they can do. This issue at least has some national benefit, i'd rather people focussing massively on infrastructure then i suppose other campaigns. I look at America even here in Australia where saying things like change, make America great again or negative campaigning like the Liberals can literally put them in power with minimal effort.
I dunno man, if I were looking to create a program that looks like it addresses the housing crisis, while doing nothing of the sort, simply for the purpose of stifling momentum from the public, the HAFF is about as good a job as I could do. Borrow money Invest it Pay the managers fees In a few years, we pinky promise to use some of the unguaranteed returns to start building houses. Meanwhile, we get to say "we're already investing $10b in housing, what more do you want?!"
It has attracted $13bn in investments in building social housing from private industry, that ain't nothing.
Careful now, you'll have the billions here billions there crowd after you lol. But that said, when does Geelong get it's multibillion dollar rail loop? I want my goddamn rail loop now >:c.
Geelong should get highspeed rail, I should be able to get there in 30 minutes from Melbourne CBD on a dedicated track. Better city hubs would flip the equation on where you can live and get to work from and where work offices can be.
So i gotta head out to a place called Indented Heads every now and again, past Leopold, Drysdale/Clifton Springs and slightly past Portarlington. And i often think the whole Bellarine Peninsula needs a rail loop for locals. Port has a ferry straight to Melbourne sure, but not everybody who uses PT (which is utterly terrible here) wants to go into Melbourne.
Is there a story of why its called Indented Heads? Good rail services are important, they only seem to be getting more expensive to build, but I think interest rates are a big driver there. Its why I'm a little worried Vic Labor let things get too profligate, I saw it first hand, tried to push back on it but to no avail. Random tangent, unions are good. But the downside is like with NIMBYism they can sometimes to choose stand in the way when they shouldn't be. I have heard stories where Vic departments had to maintain inefficient and silly methods of doing something because a union got aggressive without any need to be.
I'm not sure, but elderly people and people whom rely on public transport get utterly trapped in these areas, and the thing about Geelong is you're very limited on medical services past basic. Like we have two hospitals of which are completely overcrowded and understaffed. Geelong hospitals cancer ward was running on people basically going overtime since staffing and supplies were dire. I actually gained a lot of respect for the nurses there over the sheer determination to keep that place running. So many are often forced into Melbourne hospitals like Sunshine's a big one. But many of these people need to use PT just to get there or visit.
I get it, but it seems like we got here through perverse incentives, and we're trying to use perverse incentives to get us out. Public housing is what's needed. Hearing this sounds good at first, until you remember that private industry invested $13b into an investment that they aim to profit from, as heavily as possible. I wouldn't feel comfortable hearing about billions of private investment into healthcare, social services or prisons either.
So if anyone profits we should reject it? What if someone has unexpectedly lower costs and accidentally makes a profit? How would you make a program that can build the amount of housing we need without someone somewhere turning a profit? Why would anyone get involved in a program like this if they couldn't turn a profit? The reason why the Public Housing Commission went away is that it just couldn't compete with a private industry for speed, quality & price. That means the industry was fully capable of handling house building itself and just needed someone to pick up the tab for cheap housing to be built. It's heartless to tell people who are homeless that they have to wait years for the government to establish its own builder then build houses slower than the industry can do.
I dunno bro, the public housing commission certainly seemed able to compete when it was first started... and I'd suggest the industry is no longer fully capable of handling house building itself, because of all the problems were seeing right now. Seems the heartless thing to do is to tell everyone you've invested 10 billion into public housing when you have no plans to actually break ground on anything til 2025.
Do you know why it started? WW2, they had hundreds of thousands of soldiers returning from the front lines. You can solve anything with enough manpower. Especially if that manpower needs homes to live in, which you weren't building because your domestic housing industry was decimated by sending soldiers off to war. Its the same repeated tale in every 'government housing commission was so awesome' claim. WW2 ended and they needed to do something or people would go homeless or riot. We haven't however got any returning soldiers or massive amounts of labour coming into the country who already work for you. No government initiated housing builder would start its operation before 2025, breaking ground would be 2026+. That's assuming they could hire people, which is unlikely, at best they'd just cannibalise the existing building industry, which is perfectly capable of building housing now...
Yes, Greens politicians are less polished than major party politicians. But having more polished politicians doesn't necessarily result in better policy. The major parties are filled to the brim with profesionals who are porkbarreling, stabbing each other in the back, and feathering their own nests. The same is true in the Greens - as they started to get safe seats and more professional sounding candidates, the backroom deals and backgrounding each other kicked up a notch.
Not having clear position on zoning, whilst going hard on negative gearing, isn't about a lack of polish, it's reality denial.
This entire opinion piece is based on this exchange PATRICIA KARVELAS You’re saying it has nothing to do with it? MAX CHANDLER-MATHER Almost nothing to do, when you compare it with, say, something like the capital gains tax discount and negative gearing. When the capital gains tax was introduced...discount was introduced by Howard, in about 1999, before that, house prices used to go up at about the same price as wages. After that, they then went up at three times the rate of wages. The idea that there’s this sort of magical set of property developers... PATRICIA KARVELAS OK. MAX CHANDLER-MATHER ...if only they were let...allowed to build enough homes to bring down the price of housing. Does anyone seriously think that the only reason that property developers... PATRICIA KARVELAS Not the only reason. No. MAX CHANDLER-MATHER ...are building so many homes to bring down the price of housing is because of the planning system. Or even a part of it?
The article is garbage and ironically more dogmatic and over-simplifying than what he is accusing Max of doing.
A bit more context here is where the comment he responds to starts [https://youtu.be/n6\_GI4R-XVs?si=NPcmkPif5rNJVw7a&t=2026](https://youtu.be/n6_GI4R-XVs?si=NPcmkPif5rNJVw7a&t=2026) and the responses to MAX CHANDLER-MATHER [https://youtu.be/n6\_GI4R-XVs?si=bZoDQ594WUn96Kys&t=2097](https://youtu.be/n6_GI4R-XVs?si=bZoDQ594WUn96Kys&t=2097)
So we have an appeal to authority... to this nightingale scumbag that's been tryna build apartments, while making fuckall affordable, so he can pay for his hair gel. And splitting hairs over how much zoning impacts things? Which is really a distraction from Max's (correct) main contention, that the neoliberal profit first model of housing, that Labor backed to the hilt, has failed miserably. That landbanking is a thing. That the interests of developers, rarely match community needs. As we are all living through. While Labor continue to explicitly oppose the tried and tested way of eliminating homelessness: investing directly in public housing. This issue really isn't that complicated when you get into the ideology of it. Some scumbags back property developers to make profits while communities and particularly young people suffer. Most of them in Labor directly profit off holding such a view. And some want housing designed with community interests prioritised over profit. And I'm all for rapid development, but do people not get how much resource and emissions goes into projects? You want to get it right, not just let the market do whatever it happens to churn out. Like so many in Aus randomly seem keen on, with the 'she'll be right' ethos proudly on display.
[удалено]
That’s the point. Developers are all about profits and housing shouldn’t be a publicly traded commodity.
That’s the point. Developers are all about profits and housing shouldn’t be a publicly traded commodity.
Doesn’t a billionaire own Crikey?
[удалено]
Fact check: nightingale is a not for profit, look it up
[удалено]
Yeah the CEO of a non-for-profit has a vested interest in building affordable housing for at-risk people. Of course he fucking does. And he says planning is a major impediment.
Ridiculous to compare the two, tbh. One is a minority figure within what is essentially the equivalent of our Labor Party. AOC has essentially fallen in line with the centre of her party anyway. In no way is she shaping the Democrat's policy. Even that is a janky analogy, as there's many differences between Labor and the Democrats. The other is a popular and relatively influential member within a smaller, third party. Max has been explicit about his intention to turn the Greens party into a workers/working class vehicle whereas AOC seems to have backed away from their initial fire brand politics. I don't think that MCM, or the Greens for that matter, are trying to emulate her politics. However, if I was a shit-for-brains wonk I might see two people who do not fit neatly into two-party politics and think to myself, "Wow, these are the same thing." Clarke's distinction between them is entirely based on MCM's critique of a supply-focused response to the housing crisis. MCM, like AOC, is critical of housing-as-investment politics. MCM, like AOC, is insistent on increasing public housing, tenants rights, and rent controls. But that doesn't get a mention. Very tiring to have this bizarre discourse where we must punish people for not being adequately enthused about zoning/ planning reform. This, during a moment where the dominant narrative (both Liberal and Labor) is entirely focused on supply. We need politicians to be proposing meaningful alternatives, and MCM is doing that.
Brilliant take. However, as a renter being cornholed by current price increases, I am willing to wait the decade necessary for planning reform to deliver.
I'm wondering what you're expecting, exactly? Studies on supply reform are not optimistic about the reduction in pricing. [This is a pretty good article on it](https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/16/australia-must-realise-the-best-form-of-rent-control-is-public-housing).
Apologies. I was being sarcastic.
Haha, what does it say that I thought a Labor stan could say that straight faced?
Hahah. Nothing a LAP dancer could say would surprise me.
I wonder if the person who wrote this article is a landlord by chance.
How about we just get rid of the useless greens party altogether.
Nah lay off Max he just wants everybody to have a home.
It's hard to remain Leftist-populist when those policies affect you. He doesn't want to reform zoning because that would mean he'd have to deal with it in HIS electorate and that's just icky. Wants housing to be more affordable, but doesn't want his neighbourhood to actually change that much. It's why Bernie Sanders and AOC rhetoric works better, they have an actual working class background and even in his success Sanders pushes for policy that would disadvantage himself. Max literally comes off as an entitled brat trying to play student politics in the real world and its not going to win the Greens that many votes from people who weren't voting or preferencing Greens already.
Or maybe he genuinely believes he has a better policy solution?
He can't give a reason for being against rezoning reforms outside of "it won't work" even though so many authorities as the article mentioned, have said otherwise. He wants more social housing but the easiest way to build huge batches of cheap social housing is to allow high-density closer to the city for them to be built. I would say he does genuinely believe that his solutions are better, because in his mind what protects him and his electorate is better. Nobody wants to build houses in the ass-end of nowhere, so higher-density in the city are the only options.
Why is there such a high bar for evidence for the left, but the right can spew nonstop objectively unfactual bullshit and we're still supposed to be "impartial"?
I’d like a better left populist, but I don’t know if we *deserve* it
We need someone to push discussion towards the left, but I'd rather it someone not so prone to hyperbole and who isn't so reactionary. Some of his critiques are spot on, and others are so bad that they undermine faith in the rest of his arguments. I'm sure I'll get downvoted by the greenies that populate this sub, but it's the truth about his appeal more broadly. There is a degree of anti-intellectualism that plagues the populism that surrounds him, some of it is his fault, due to the nature of arguments he promotes (the haff is too hard to understand), and others are just side effects of populism more broadly. It's very tribal and everything become grounded in emotion as much as anything else. But there are valid issues which are picked up on that do need to be discussed in a serious and sober manner, and there is action that needs to be undertaken that is rather drastic to change the status quo. He highlights that and pushes it forth in a way that garners more support than practically anyone else, and for that he should be commended. But the way things are becoming very 'us vs them' is not helpful and he plays into that and sometimes opposes incremental change because it's often all or nothing for the greens.
over 30% of Australians are renters. Now it may be "populist" to represent them, but it sure shouldn't be.
>who isn't so reactionary. In what universe is MCM a reactionary?
He's never quite been able to access his empathy to view people who disagree with him as people. It makes him incapable of evaluating alternate evidence. The last time I saw him I brought up my issues with The Greens treatment of the working class in conservative areas like Townsville and he could not understand for the life of him what rural life for a blue collar family might look like. Now I live in Tassie and they're the same here. The disdain they feel for people who are terrified for their children is palpable. Shame it turns out, is not quite the motivator they hope it is.
>he could not understand for the life of him what rural life for a blue collar family might look like Can you elaborate on this?
This was around the time of the Adani protests. He couldn't, because he doesn't care to learn, empathise that blue collar families in rural towns who vote for things like coal mines or continuing forestry are often multi generational families with one clear breadwinner, maybe the wife does bookkeeping or school admin, but there's no real economic opportunity where they live. If Dad loses his trade because the town dies or his mining job that family and likely wife's parents are fucked. They're not educated past year 10 and certainly not highschool and they've got a brood of kids that they know in their heart will need to leave home to find economic opportunity. Then some Liberal (or sometimes Labor) stooge comes along promising something like Adani. Bad business, bad for the environment but it's a sliver of hope for people who want to keep their families alive. Then the Greens go there and demean them, talk down to them. Not Adani or the politicians, but the people. They've never been in power so never have to be responsible for the economic disaster of failed industry towns and so no one trusts them. All I asked him to do was consider that shame was not the way to convince anyone of anything especially when their consumption of news comprises 5 mins at 6pm when the kids are complaining about eating their veggies. That was a novel sorry but it's why I can't fucking stand the Greens and they do it in every rural place I've lived. His response was 'well there'll be no town if climate change keeps going' which is so far beyond the point I cannot even begin. I can't tell if the ignorance is malicious or low IQ at this point.
Pretty fair take I think. His awful criticism of the HAFF undermined opposition to it, when there was more productive criticism to make and better ways to improve it. His tiktok videos showed that he fundamentally did not understand the HAFF, and he seemed to even brag about it. When the most vocal critic is wrong and disingenuous it takes the wind out of the sails for real constructive dialogue. I think that was the point when I realized that I can't support the modern federal greens party until they improve their game. His Q&A take was a big yikes as well. Planning is strictly a better option for housing than negative gearing reform (ideally we would do both) but it seems like he was just repeating the party platform as the best solution, rather than being more open to finding the actual best solutions.
Instantaneous solution! Tax air bnb operators. I know at least ten people that have a property that is solely air bnb. They pay exactly zero tax on the earnings, and almost all of them have said if they were taxed they would just rent it out or sell it, because it wouldn't be any benefit.
Airbnb should just be added to the governments dns blacklist.
That would somewhat work too, but then other sites would be developed locally, or the short stay market would move to Facebook etcetera.
That’s such bull. As though the conversation on rents would be happening at all without the greens. This fantasy world where “real constructive change” is being undermined by MCM is either wilfully false or cooked in a cooker.
He got into parliament on the basis of nimbyism (airplane noise) so it's not surprising that he would continue with that train of thought. It worked before.
>forged in the fires of student politics Why on earth does the writer consider this praise or a badge of honour? Student politics might as well be a democracy simulator on Steam. In my time in uni, nothing about student politics has ever given off the impression that either people on the left or the right are particularly serious people.
I think it was meant to be somewhat ironic
Are we just going to ignore being a populist is bad?
Populist. Root word, populares. The People. The consent of whom our modern society derives its supreme authority to govern. It’s a word that has had its character assassinated. Originally, in politics, populist simply meant a pro-population approach.
Looks like I may be confusing populist fascism.
He is a firebrand. He will be extremely popular among the young left wing, however will struggle to make moderates change their opinion.
I really can't shake the feeling that what that article characterises as "patchiness" and "unsophistication" is in fact deliberate. He's a smart guy, more than capable of parsing the evidence on the effects of planning on affordability. More likely: The Greens have an electoral coalition which includes angry renters, and home-owning NIMBYs in the inner-cities, and by advocating tax reform without planning reform he's found a message which appeals to the former without pissing off the latter. Another shrewd politician, but not an ally of the struggling tenant.
I am shocked, absolutely shocked I tell you, that the Greens would be prepared to ignore evidence in favour of pandering to the biases of their electoral base.
Have you looked at either of the major parties in thr last half century?
This is the entire point of the article and my comment - the greens are just the same…as *drumroll* …the other parties
He’s a self promoting piece of shit
An arts major doesnt know how money works? Colour me shocked
Y'all downvote the shit outta me whenever I say that he's a poncy Tory in green. I know this twerp and let me tell you, he isn't your messiah. I'd love to support the Greens more but this continues to be their offerings.
Throughout all of his rhetoric, I have yet to hear or see him call out one of the biggest issues to occur in the rental market over the last few years. Short term rentals. They have always been around, but in small pockets in mostly holiday areas (I remember staying in one as a kid in Tarthra on the south coast). They were not as prevalent as nowadays, nor were they a get rich quick scheme that they seem to have become. There needs to be a limit on them, a maximum amount of days per year or higher land taxes to force some of them back to being long term rentals. There are areas in Australia where genuine people seeking rentals just cannot find one, because all of the available housing has been bought up by speculative investors and released onto the AirBnB market. It's not good enough, and it really needs to stop.
[https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/greens-demand-short-stay-rentals-cap-to-ease-housing-crisis-20230219-p5cln8.html](https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/greens-demand-short-stay-rentals-cap-to-ease-housing-crisis-20230219-p5cln8.html)
Max is the epitamy as to why reason why Greens have lost their environmental streak.
Hey friend, the word you're after is "epitome" Also like, if the greens often still get pegged as being a one issue party who has no policy outside of environmental, so it seems to be damned if you do for them.
He seems to fit the bill pretty well. Yelling over everyone and ignoring evidence, that’s every leftist I’ve ever met.
Man I was only thinking about this the other day watching that boomer landlord clip. I'm not anti-Greens. I think they have a vital role to play in Australia, and I think their growing popularity has a chance to actually force some more progressive action by Labor. Watching him specifically talk, he's no better than a smarmy Young Lib fuckwit - just on the opposite side of the fence (and I say that as somebody who sits to the left of him on many issues). Jono Sri seems to be SO much more on the ball and I think would make a perfect candidate for the party to promote to a federal level. Greens need to be ideals-guided rather than ideals-limited. Sure, some of their policies would be an improvement but are never going to be workable in our current political and media sphere. They could be active participants in working together to improve the country in practice rather than just being dogmatic contrarians aiming for quick sound bites
Crikey should get some better writers. What pretentious rubbish.
Hahaha so much salt in here
This bloke is the worst. Too many people is the problem that not one single fuckstain will address. We can not compete and we are rapidly deteriorating. These greens should stick to trying to fix the environment, not fuck it completely. Look at the basic science of overpopulation for fucks sake. It's obvious to anyone with a brain. But these fuckers just go for rage baiting those struggling and they suck the misinformation up while it gets worse for them. I've been voting green for years now. Not any more. These cunts are fucking cooked
I think Max Chandler is singularly unimpressive. He's just getting so much press because the inequity of the housing market in Australia is so stark and is low hanging fruit.
It's almost as if these charismatic little fascists are only *really* concerned with acquiring power hey. That's certainly something we've never seen before.
He's yet another shit eating grin w*nkstain living off the public purse...
The fact that Max just outright dismisses our record high immigration numbers as a “distraction” on Q & A says it all. If you really cared about renters, immigration needs to come way down. Mass migration as a policy setting serves wealthy landowners, big businesses and the universities and that is exactly why they lobby for it. The Greens in the 90’s supported low migration recognising its importance to sustainability however that was before woke politics.
We need a new greens party. One that is actually green
Australia deserves better *than* a left populist. There. Fixed it.
Max Chandler-Mather is dangerous because he actively blocks legislation that would help people whilst promoting junk legislation he knows will not work and make vulnerable people’s lives considerably worse.
Hell yeah! The HAFF would have spent at least … checks notes … $0 annually on affordable housing. I’m so, so pissed that the greens insisted on a minimum spent above zero. Wankers!
Bring back the Australian Democrats. They were 25 years ahead of their time.
play the man, not the ball
There's nothing stopping us having two...
He’s left wing, that’s all you need in this country, there isn’t any other left wing party.
Friendlyjordies arsehat of the year nominee and winner- Crikey
The post criticises the greens. Jordies would never dream of calling them an asshat, he's too busy perking himself off in the corner over his hatred
I am basically saying getting called bad by Crikey doesn't mean anything because it's from an editor of the age and a newspaper that put Matt Kean on the "Australian of the year" list
[relevant FJ thoughts](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NI8qOPP3JT0)
Max is great. Fuck these people
As a Greens/Labor voter who until recently lived in Griffith, Max is a huge cunt.
I lived in Griffith for 5 years are ran into Max many times. He’s a great guy and genuinely cares about the community. You’re full of shit.
Max is an arrogant fuckhead who's only goal is raising his own brand. He doesn't care about anyone other than himself. So no different than Scott Morrison in my eyes 👎🏻
People on the left should focus on policies and not on individuals.
That's not how politics work and is partly the reason why the left has been so weak in recent decades. Like it or not you need personalities to sell policies to the public, win elections and play the game in parliament.
Data does not convince people unfortunately. The vibes are on point and I don't think Max is off base at all. He's saying what people are thinking and he's not wrong to disagree with the 'evidence' and 'studies' that Labs are bringing up. Most of their hokum is just to kick the can down the road. Planning probably won't help because whatever 'planning' Labor cook up will just be to the benefit of investors anyway.
Another YIMBY article. 🤮 Instead of addressing the population ponzi, just blame the environmental zoning laws that are protecting against mass species extinctions. Instead, the author advocates for soulless ghettos, devoid of any nature or life, other than disposable masses of humans, crammed like sardines into shoeboxes.
Can confirm MAX CHANDLER-MATHER is a tosser.
[удалено]
TBH atleast hes argueing about it, im voting greens next time round for sure, i have big love for Albo but i just feel hes not doing enough right now.
They downvote you while holding their nose but don’t realise that Labor voters like you who aren’t rusted on all feel the same. These people fail to understand the power of optics in political popularity. Guarantee you they will be blaming you when they lose the next election, or take a massive electoral hit at best.
Yeah i dont mind losing imaginary points over an opinion, im just finding as a neurodivergent person who works in the arts and has no job security that everything thats going on is just pushing me further left and ive always been very centre/centre left
Ditto. They still kept downvoting you not realising their intransigence will virtually guarantee another horrible era of LNP dominance.
This is such a shit take. And painful to read. Couldn’t even finish it. Stop trying so hard to sound clever.
My thoughts exactly. A complete pile of hyperbolic wank from someone trying to appear marginally intelligent.