This pattern is repeated all around the West Australian coast, from Esperance to Broome, and I have no doubt exactly the same scenario applies on the east coast.
In my view, the main driver of what has led us to this situation is the relentless trend in wealth inequality in favour of older people and away from younger people who are trying to raise families.
We urgently need better policies at the federal level to address the key problem of intergenerational wealth inequality, and at the state level we need policies to discourage holiday-house construction and to deter sparsely occupied properties from finding their way on to the Airbnb market.
Another obvious federal policy target would be old people who are occupying large and valuable properties while claiming the age pension. They need to be encouraged to sell up and move to more appropriately sized properties that also provide access to aged care services.
If the federal and state governments can just get their policy acts together to rearrange the demographics of housing ownership, the housing shortage will quickly disappear. The houses are out there!
Rex Bevan, North Fremantle, WA
Perils of Putin on display in Ukraine
Misha Zelinsky has written a thoughtful piece on the progress, such as it is, of the Russian military offensives in Ukraine (“Putin could be toppled in Crimea”, May 12). Both nations are preparing for a renewed summer offensive, as if any fighting season respects the changing climate.
Vladimir Putin shares some affinity with the US. The US is impatient for quick results, which is the main reason for its indecent exit from Afghanistan before securing American objectives in that crumbling land. Putin’s political survival is directly proportional to victory in “Little Russia”. The quality of military intelligence will not determine the result, nor even dissociated tactical successes. His grand strategic policy has failed. Morale, logistics, leadership and weaponry will decide the outcome.
Mike Fogarty, Weston, ACT
Advanced design is key to productivity
The prime minister’s $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund is intended to facilitate advanced manufacturing. With a few exceptions, it is likely to expedite the making of the same old boring copies of overseas products as before. Copies that couldn’t be exported.
With our productivity at its lowest growth in 60 years, our manufacturing has collapsed to a miserable 6 per cent of GDP.
What Australia needs is advanced design to improve our productivity by creating the sophisticated, high-value products needed to fill the 730,000 shipping containers that return empty to their overseas destinations.
Jeffrey Newman, Ivanhoe, Vic
Gas industry clings to a flawed business model
Rather than chart a new course for their businesses, gas industry players such as Woodside and Santos, with help from APPEA, are focused on applying an expensive Band-Aid to their emissions problem (“Gas industry pushes carbon capture zones”, May 15).
A more clear-sighted view would suggest that they should, instead of protecting a business model that is flawed in the carbon-constrained future sense, be starting a structural diversification into green energy initiatives. Presumably best done initially by acquisition, the branching into green ammonia, green hydrogen, solar and wind farms and possibly even transmission network industries must be seen as more viable business structures for the latter half of this century.
Capturing carbon dioxide gas, compressing it and then injecting it into underground wells is an inherently expensive process that is a significant energy user in itself. Creating higher-risk, expensive energy is clearly not what shareholders want, as Woodside saw at its recent AGM.
The concept of gas as a transition energy source should not translate into expensive, white-elephant investments that detract from long-term shareholder value.
Robert Brown, Camberwell, Vic
That’s not what Labor was elected to do
The report “Gas industry pushes carbon capture zone” (May 15) reveals that “the changes to the petroleum resource rent tax in the federal budget … were much milder than many in the [gas] industry feared”.
The obvious question is: why would a Labor government be green-lighting a concession to the gas industry that will result in more emissions, despite having been elected to take serious action on global warming? Power sometimes works in mysterious ways.
Douglas Mackenzie, Deakin, ACT
PwC led astray by its lack of a moral compass
Edmund Tadros and Neil Chenoweth’s report “PwC global intervenes in Australian tax leaks scandal” (May 13-14) highlights how the missing moral compass of a trusted and privileged firm paralysed it from taking swift action to address its business trust woes. Outside intervention was required to awaken it from its long slumber and alert it to its flaws.
The behaviour and painfully slow action of the firm’s leadership made it abundantly clear that they had taken Australians for mug punters. Egalitarianism and a fair go have long been touted as the foundational values embedded in the Australian ethos. PwC clearly violated these values by advising foreign firms to avoid Australian taxes. That action was instrumental in the transfer of wealth and was an additional impost on the Australian taxpayer.
Kaz Kazim, Randwick, NSW
‘Economic rent’ needs a better name
A letter from James Burman (Letters, May 12) cleverly conflates house rents with economic rents. Despite a similar name, there is absolutely no connection between them.
Yes, using the name rent in the petroleum resource rent tax confuses and angers non-economists. The economics profession should hold a contest to change the term “economic rent” to something less confusing and more anodyne. The trouble is, proposed alternatives such as “unearned profit” or “excess profit” have connotations that encourage confusion and anger.
Economic rents exist, and should not arouse more feeling than the term “income”. Any takers to organise a contest for a name change?
Tim Walshaw, Watson, ACT
Dutton’s budget reply a missed opportunity
Peter Dutton’s budget reply (“Dutton still thinks he can win middle class”, May 12) was a missed opportunity to highlight the Coalition’s thinking to put the nation on a better financial and administrative footing. The Coalition ideally needs an inspirational voice to make voters sit up and take notice.
Michael Schilling, Millswood, SA