From the Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm christinamiot. It's Thursday, October thirty one. The Prime Minister is denying having called Alan Joyce to request flight upgrades, as pressure mounts on Anthony Albanesi to refer himself to the National Anti Corruption Commission over allegations he benefited from a close relationship with the former Quantus boss. New South Wales's Aboriginal land councils have called for amendments to heritage laws that
would enshrine their authority in legislation. It comes after a controversial decision by Environment Minister Tanya Plimasek to block a gold mine in Blaney on contested Indigenous heritage grounds. Those stories alive right now at the Australian dot Com dot a U. Australia is in the grips of a housing crisis and the major parties are struggling to come up with policy that gives first home buyers and renters a
fair go. In today's episode, why a New Alliance is taking a grassroots approach to housing policy.
This is the laundry, similar to what I've got now.
A lot more stuff in it. This is me at one of the dozens of property inspections I've embarked upon over the last year. Yeah, a little study nook, Okay, you could make it into my office. I remember this apartment distinctly, one bedroom with a study nook and no parking. This bedom lots of storage in here, and they've got.
A dresser.
And then opens on to a really big balcoming.
But it's not the floor plan that made it memorable. No, I remember this apartment because it's how I learned the hard way that you can't get emotionally invested if you don't want your little first home buy a heart to be broken.
It is amazing. These opportunities are hard to find. So ladies and gentlemen, where do we open the bidding?
That apartment, one bedroom with a windowless study nook and no parking sold at auction for about two hundred thousand dollars above the price guide, well out of my range and the reach of millions of Australians.
Just like me. Hammer goes up, all silent, all done selling sold CIR Congratulations.
But over the last year I've persevered queueing alongside couples with dual incomes and first home buyers backed by their parents to inspect smaller and smaller properties that ultimately sell for more and more over the price guides given by sellers. I've watched in horror as Sydney's median home price saws to astronomical levels while my borrowing capacity inexplicably declines. I've made concessions as a twenty percent deposit gets further and
further out of reach. I've watched my credit ratings suffer as ninety day pre approval's lapse in the blink of an eye. I made some headway with a high interest to savings account, and then despaired as I handed almost every single cent of the bonus interest I'd earned over to the tax department. I've seriously considered stashing what's left under my mattress for the rest of this financial year in hopes my prospects will improve, though at this point I'm not confident, and I'm not the only one.
In July and August, Amplify conducted polling of four thousand Australians and that revealed it ninety five percent of people rank housing availability and affordability among their top priority issues.
Jeff Chambers is the Australian's chief political correspondent.
The polling also showed that trust in politicians and governments and their handling of housing policy has never been lower, and some of that could probably be linked to the COVID pandemic the rise of social media, but the polling clearly shows that Australians want to have a proper say in the development of housing policy.
Housing policy is shaping up to be a key election issue and it could even decide who wins government in early twenty twenty five.
So Anthony Albernezi and Peter Darton at a federal government level are at polar opposites when it comes to housing policy, and those spillover areas such as migration, superannuation for housing, associated infrastructure and taxes. This issue with housing has been a long time coming and it encompasses all three tiers of government, local, state and federal.
It has never.
Really traditionally been the domain of a federal government for the Commonwealth to take courage of housing policy at associated taxes, community infrastructure as such. But it has gotten so bad at a local government level in particular, and you've got different taxes, different approaches to stamp duty, different priorities, different first home buyer schemes that have just changed and morphed
over the years. The other really big issue here, and particularly in recent years, has been this record surge in migration, and this is where the common Wealth does have a role. So there's a lot of flip sides when it comes
to housing now. In terms of a federal response through national cabinets such, it hasn't worked both sides, but in particular the Albanezi government are putting up these tens of billion dollar programs talking about unlocking supply, but there's very little evidence or proof that's going to happen anytime soon. So big money from all sides of politics, big promises,
and then this sort of chasm. We're about five or six months out from the next federal election and really the politics around housing has never been so toxic and divisive.
Now, a nonpartisan alliance of business, social and youth leaders are backing a grassroots approach to housing policy reform. The group, known as Amplify, is the brainchild of SEEKH co founder Paul Bassett and former Commonwealth public servant Georgina Harrison. On its board is former New South Wales Premier Dominic Perete Tab Corp Chief Executive Gillan McLaughlin and Bunning's managing director Michael Schneider, among others.
It's not an aligned think tank or a politically linked group, and its purpose and the ambition of it is seeking to harness people power and draw on real life experiences of normal Australians to feed into policy development that is
completely separate from the political process. And their idea is that they'll have online and in person forums across the country over the coming months and that process will culminate in February next year when they randomly select a diverse group of one hundred Australians to assemble in Sydney for the first Amplification event, and that will be solely focused
on housing. Amplify will provide access to a range of independent experts and they'll help punters guide their ideas into policy development, and once they get to that endpoint where they land on a range of policy platforms, Amplify will then make those representations and publicly promote what Australians normal Australians want and believe that the government should be doing in relation to housing.
Experts like Jeff are speculating that an election will be called for March or April of next year. So isn't that cutting things a bit fine?
It is, but quite often you can maximize your effect if you're unveiling, announcing, launching, agitating in policy areas right
in the thrust of a campaign. It's not to say that an incoming government or a political party who is interested in some of the ideas that are developed won't pick those up, maybe look at those post election, or potentially feed them into policies of their own that might align with what this process provides, and that all tiers of government and all politicians from every party will be able to very clearly see what the people are thinking and some of their ideas put forward.
Coming up the major parties make their pitch for the roof over your head. Prime Minister Anthony Alberanzi has donned a whole lot of hard hats and high viz. Lately he's been out and about sprinking Labour's multi pronged solution to the housing crisis.
This is a fantastic project, so close to amenity, so close to facilities. It's an example of what we want to achieve.
One part is called the Housing Australia Future Fund, and it's worth ten billion dollars. It was passed into legislation at the end of last year. The goal there is to build twenty thousand new social homes and ten thousand new affordable homes across the country over five years. There's also a three billion dollar new home bonus, which funnels funding to states and territories that build more than their
share of the government's one point two million new home goal. Plus, there are five hundred million dollar grants available to connect essential services to new housing developments, but The Australian's reporting shows a good chunk of those funds are tied up in bureaucracy, and that means the government is likely to fall short of its lofty housing goals. On the flip side, the Coalition says it will use a five billion dollar user it or Lose It infrastructure fund to build five
hundred thousand new homes around the country. The cash would be granted to local councils and state and territory owned providers to build infrastructure like water, power, sewerage and access roads, but rescind it if the work doesn't make progress after twelve months, and if it wins the next election. The Opposition has promised to freeze changes to the National Construction Code for a decade to protect families from red tape and the growing costs of evolving energy efficiency standards.
The other really big issues I think for both sides is getting those migration settings right, because a lot of migrants are filling jobs that Australians don't want to do and where we have shortages. And then on the flip side of that, the construction sector is suffering crippling skilled shortages as well, and costs for supplies that are a really high light and there's big delays on projects because you can't get trades people in and things are blowing out.
And I think demand is one issue, but I do think we need to have enough houses and I think people need to be realistic about where they want to live, and so many people, including migrants, want to live in the cities, and I don't see either side really coming up with a clear solution on that at this point.
Jeff Chambers is The Australian's chief political correspondent. You can read all his reporting on Australia's housing crisis right now at The Australian dot com dot au