Will the real Brendan Nelson please stand up? Is it the man Annabel Crabb saw on Tuesday, the mild-mannered doctor with “substantial empathy for those suffering from misfortune” whose “attention is drawn disproportionately to the Gothic end of the human suffering spectrum”? Or is the rabid Bon Jovi fan?
So Howard screwed up housing affordability too
At some point we will have to stop blaming John Winston Howard for every problem we face. For the moment, though, it does seem that whenever we lift the lid on some important issue we find something smelly whose cause was inaction or ineptitude on JHo’s watch.
Yesterday it was how we’re stuck with the Super Hornets thanks to “a lack of sound, long-term… planning decisions by the former Government over the course of the last decade”. Today let’s look at Chairman Rudd’s theme of the week, housing affordability.
It’s now more expensive to live in Sydney than in New York.
[P]roperty prices have jumped 400 per cent since 1986, while income has increased by only 120 per cent.
The mysterious but awesomely-brained Possum Comitatus explains how he ran the numbers, leading to this graph.
It’s worth reading the full analysis, but his conclusion is blunt:
[R]eal house prices remained virtually frozen over the period from 1990 through to 2000. It wasn’t until Howard started stuffing around with halving the capital gains rate and things like the first home buyers grant that real house prices started to accelerate…
It also highlights in real terms just how much the NSW market has dropped over the last couple of years.
Possum’s going to look at our policy options in part 2, coming soon. However The Australian‘s George Megalogenis has already started down that path — from the suitably cynical viewpoint of which options generate the most votes for whom.
Continue reading “So Howard screwed up housing affordability too”
Not David Hicks, but Wayne Carey
No, contrary to yesterday’s rumour Andrew Denton’s first guest for 2008 won’t be long-term GITMO resident David Hicks but instead noted feminist, temperance campaigner and pacifist footballer Wayne Carey.
Super Hornets are Go
Defence minister Joel Fitzgibbon has announced that the controversial purchase of 24 Super Hornet aircraft will go ahead.
The review of the Howard government’s decision to buy the aircraft — at a total cost of $6 billion even though the RAAF hadn’t wanted them — reached some damaging conclusions, including:
- There has been a lack of sound, long-term air combat capability planning decisions by the former Government over the course of the last decade.
- The retirement of the F-111 was made in haste but is not irreversible. The cost of turning the F-111 back on would be enormous and crews and skills have already moved on.
- The former Government’s decision to leave Australia’s air defences in the hands of the Joint Strike Fighter project was a flawed leap of faith in scheduling terms and combined with the quick decision to retire the F-111 early, allowed an air combat capability gap to emerge.
- The subsequent timetable the former Government put on the acquisition of an interim fighter left Defence planners with no choice but to recommend the Super Hornet. No other suitable aircraft could be produced to meet the 2010 deadline the former Government had set. One year on, that is now even more so the case.
Cancelling the order would still incur a financial penalty and create “undesirable tensions”, and the final conclusions is that “the Super Hornet is an excellent aircraft… and is the only aircraft which can meet the small delivery window created by the former Government’s poor planning processes and politically-driven responses.”
As a shareholder in Australia Inc, I’d like to know why the former “board members” allowed this to happen. When company directors are negligent they become personally liable so why, given the report’s damning conclusions, does Brendan Nelson not become personally liable?
Black is the new President
Peter Black wins Headline of the Day Prize today with Black is the new President. Unless, of course, he means himself, in which case that’s just ego gone mad…
Australia 2020 Summit “destined to fail”
Another negative piece about the Australia 2020 Summit, this time from geneticist Michael Lardelli in The 2020 Summit — more hallucination than clear vision. He reckons it’s “destined to fail”.
Let me quote a couple more lines from the [ALP policy] website:
“The Australia 2020 Summit will examine… How we best invest the proceeds of [current] prosperity to lay the foundations for future economic growth.” And “How… we plan future population growth at a national and regional level, given the constraints of water shortages and sustainability?”
The trouble with these statements is that they assume the possibility of future economic growth and the inevitability and even desirability of population growth. But economic growth requires energy. A clear, objective view of the facts shows that by 2020, Australia and the rest of the world will be deep in an energy and food crisis of epic proportions.
Lardelli reckons that not even the Greens can openly suggest that future economic growth is impossible or that population growth is undesirable.
I don’t think we should write off the Summit just yet. These are Australians we’re talking about. If the Steering Committee tries to shut down true ideas-generation, I reckon our “best and brightest” will fight back with vigour.