The Great Housing Debate: Who's To Blame For Australia's Biggest DISASTER?

Added: 2026-05-22

[00:00:00]The Great Housing Debate. Who's to blame for Australia's biggest disaster? Coming up on this week's Citizens Report.

[00:00:23]Welcome to the Citizens Report for the 21st of May, 2026. I'm Alisa Barick.

[00:00:27]Joining me today is Citizens Party National Chairman Robert Barick. Welcome Robbie.

[00:00:31]>> Thanks Alisa. Also today, support the Dugens Appeal. Finally, AIO debate some truth and Kiwis want a national bank.

[00:00:44]>> Now, help let help us get the word out by please sharing the show, making a comment below. Of course, if you're not already a subscriber, you can do that and ring the notification bell and also hit the like button. And you will find below uh various links to information that we put up so you get more background info from uh the show including links to our publication and how you can donate to support us.

[00:01:09]Now, on our updates today, firstly, we have support the Dugens Appeal. What's the latest Robbie? So this week, Safrine Dugen, who's the wife of uh Dan Dugen, the former US Marines Top Gun pilot turned Australian citizen who's been in an Australian prison for three and a half years despite being completely innocent um under he's never been charged with any crime under Australian law. Um uh Safrine announced that the Dugen family will appeal >> the court ruling against Dan Dugen from last month. Now uh that ruling essentially upheld that the government was okay to use a law retrospectively in order to meet the requirement for dual criminality um that you have to meet if you if you if someone qualifies for extradition.

[00:02:04]It's got to be a they got to be accused of of a crime. That's a crime in both countries. And in order to meet that requirement, um the Albanesei government applied a 2018 law to something that the Americans were accusing Dan Dugen of doing in 2012 because it wasn't illegal under Australian law. In fact, he was he was explicitly licensed by the Australian government to do what he did as it turns out. Um anyway, we won't go into all that. We've covered that quite a lot, but for now, what we'd like people to do is watch um a friend's video announcing this appeal and um you can help the family at freeanddugen.org.

[00:02:40]>> Firstly, I would like to thank everyone who has supported us through this incredibly challenging period of our lives. We have decided to appeal the federal court decision by Justice Stios and will be continuing in our fight for Dan's freedom and for Australian sovereignty. This is about my family and all Australians. We need to ensure that Aussies are protected. Dan was an Australian citizen working in South Africa in 2012. He broke no law and the allegations against him were not a crime in Australia. And yet the Australian government has approved an extradition request to send an Aussie citizen, my husband and father of six kids to the United States. We have been stripped of our property and we have been financially devastated by our ongoing fight for justice. We thank all of our supporters for sticking with us and we appeal to the government to intervene.

[00:03:40]Dan, a father with no criminal record, no violent history, a man who served his country and found happiness in life in Australia, has been locked up in maximum security for 1300 days with no Australian charges.

[00:03:58]He was subjected to 19 months of solitary confinement.

[00:04:03]We continue to fund raise to help with the legal fees and cost of living pressures and we are grateful to those who have helped us. It's time for Dan to come home. Once again, we thank everyone so much for their support. Thank you.

[00:04:20]>> Yes. So, like I said, Lisa, people can help the family at free danugen.org. The only they do not qualify for legal aid.

[00:04:27]um the Americans froze their house >> that so they couldn't sell it to fund his legal defense. They rely on the goodwill of their fellow Australians who see this as Safrine said as a fight for sovereignty.

[00:04:39]>> Yeah.

[00:04:39]>> Right. Our government would not be doing this if it wasn't the Americans after him. When when the Americans jump, we say how high, right? And it's their job to protect citizens, not to sell them down the river.

[00:04:53]>> Yep. So it has big implications for all Australians if we don't fight and win this. Uh okay, finally AIO debate some truth. Uh now last week on the show we reported that the government had done a backflip and suddenly they're the ones that have said they'll put forward an amendment to um put back in a sunset clause that they'd removed from the rejig legislation. Yeah.

[00:05:19]>> But what's the latest that's come up now? Well, then it's still I'm still pinching myself that's happened because I went back and looked at the debates back on the 12th of February in Parliament on the AIO bill. Of course, this is the bill that that will make AIO's um extreme authoritarian interrogation powers would have made them permanent. And there was an amendment put up back in February to keep the sunset clause and it was put up by Kate Cheney, the the independent.

[00:05:46]>> And Tony Burke, the home affairs minister, gets up there all so sincere.

[00:05:52]He goes, "Oh, we really don't want these powers. I really feel for you. I I feel for the we don't want to apply them for children, but you got to understand that the need is so much greater than ever.

[00:06:05]We have to have these powers. we have to make them permanent. That was their position um on the 12th of February thanks to our work uh which has exploded the attention on this AIO bill and caused a lot of feedback into parliamentarians especially coalition senators. They saw the writing on the wall and now they said oh no we'll keep the sunset clause we'll keep them permanent and now they're using the same language or they oh it's very important that these kinds of powers remain in check and that's why sunset clauses are so important. I mean these major party politicians they are um you know uh they're impossible >> right they will you know you cannot believe a word they say because they will they will turn on a dime and every time they they establish their position on something they they they bring out all the sincerity and it's always garbage right they did this under the blowback from the public but >> the best part of what happened last week was we recorded Thursday morning in the later in the in the A there was a debate. The debate started in the Senate.

[00:07:08]>> They only had time for two senators to debate. The first one was Liberal Senator Maria Kassich. She went through all the routine. Oh, we've got to support AIO, etc. These, you know, these these are times we need these kinds of powers. Um, and she mentioned the sunset clause. I would, yes, it's very important we keep the sunset clause. But then David PCO got up >> and I mean I hope I hope PCO is growing on our viewers as much as he's growing on us, right? Because David PCO to me is a is a testament to the fact that parliament needs independence. In fact, Parliament would work better if everyone was an independent. Right now, it's probably impractical to have not have any parties, but anyway, he's a true independent. And you don't have to agree with him on everything, but when he takes a stand because he's looked at an issue, right, it's an independent stand.

[00:07:59]And he got up and he gave a speech and he went through just expressing and someone not in the major party saying, "Hang on, you are expecting us to accept authoritarianism here, right?" Why? We want to play this one little part because this has been an issue with the bill. And I'm really glad he he raised it because he essentially um cut through all the excuses by the government opposition about why these powers are so important and he singled out some powers and look who he cites as the authority saying that they're not even necessary.

[00:08:36]Have a look.

[00:08:37]>> But even with the sunset clause restored, the bill still asks Australians to accept things we should not have to accept.

[00:08:45]In its current form, the bill retains AIO's power to compulsorily question children as young as 14.

[00:08:53]Children who have not been charged with an offense, children who may never be charged with any offense.

[00:09:02]The standard is not criminal suspicion.

[00:09:05]It is whether the attorney general believes intelligence gathering is warranted.

[00:09:13]Reassuringly, AIO has never used this power. Not not once in 22 years. And two years ago, AIO itself told a PJ CIS review of division 3 of part three of the Australian Security Intelligence Organization Act 1979 that, and I'll quote, we no longer see a strong case to support the continuence of the power to question miners under warrants.

[00:09:43]The Department of Home Affairs also made a submission to a similar effect.

[00:09:50]I'll read their sub submission to the 2024 review. The department suggests is also important that minor questioning warrants be considered in light of their proportionality and the need to protect the rights and interests of vulnerable people.

[00:10:05]As an intrusive and extraordinary power, the carrying out of a minor compulsory questioning warrant would be confronting and difficult for the minor involved with potentially enduring ramifications.

[00:10:19]The powers were introduced at an exceptional moment in world and Australian affairs and the department suggests it is appropriate to reflect on whether it remains necessary to maintain such an extraordinary and intrusive power.

[00:10:36]So, we've got AIO and the Department of Home Affairs saying doesn't look like this power is actually necessary.

[00:10:44]AIO says you should probably drop it.

[00:10:48]Department of Home Affairs says we should consider it. But the government has now walked away from that advice with no real explanation and is asking the Senate to write it permanently into the statute book.

[00:11:04]>> So it's AIO itself, Alisa and the Home Affairs Department.

[00:11:08]>> Yep.

[00:11:08]>> Um what's his name? Tony B's own department.

[00:11:11]>> In 2024, they were saying, >> "Yeah, we don't need to have powers to interrogate kids. Um we've never used them. We don't need them."

[00:11:19]>> That's what they said in 2024. Then they had an election and suddenly it's like no no we we need AO had a submission after the election saying oh we need these powers to interrogate kids.

[00:11:31]>> Home affairs did the same thing. So they had a position before and then they completely back flipped right. Um something has happened. There was there was a there was an expectation that um they could try and make these kind of things more reasonable because they do understand that these are extreme authoritarian powers. And then there was an intervention um by somebody. We don't know who. And now they they're they're demanding no no these powers have to be as extreme as we can make them and they have to apply to um everything AIO does.

[00:12:03]Right. So David PCO's uh speech was an absolute breath of fresh air in that debate.

[00:12:09]>> What happens now Alisa is um uh the Senate will not sit again until the 22nd of June. Parliament resumes next week for two weeks and during that time they have what's called Senate estimates where the senators are in committee and ask questions. So the Senate chamber is not in in operation until the 22nd of June. So the bill will not be debated until then. We have an opportunity and we're putting out a statement about this today. You can look it up in our website.

[00:12:37]Given that we've got them to backflip on the sunset clause and keep these powers temporary, what about some of these other aspects? If Azio itself said they didn't need them for kids because they've never used them, right? Let's start when you when keep hammering your members of parliament, especially your senators, especially coalition senator.

[00:12:55]Just keep hammering them and say why if AIO said you don't need to be able to interrogate kids, why are you inter are you insisting on keeping the powers to interrogate kids?

[00:13:04]>> Right?

[00:13:05]>> That's one. The other one that I suggest that that um and it's in the statement is about um the separation of powers.

[00:13:13]One of the arguments that's come up in relation to these laws uh these powers is that um oh AIO hasn't abused them because and so therefore you should be able to trust AIA because the reason we know it hasn't abused them because they've only used them 20 times since they were first legislated 23 years ago.

[00:13:32]>> You know that's the proof. Now there's an argument that says Alisa well yeah but in that all that time they had a sunset clause and they knew they'd always be looked at how they used it.

[00:13:42]Right. So um by removing the sunset clause that there's no guarantee that AIO would have would have stay remained so constrained. That's one argument. But the other argument is this. Okay. Well, if they've only used him 20 times in 23 years, then it's not ownorous to require AIO to go to a judge >> to get a warrant. Yeah.

[00:14:00]>> Rather than the attorney general because the attorney when the attorney general gives a warrant to Azio, that's the executive authorizing the executive.

[00:14:07]>> Yeah.

[00:14:07]>> There's no separation of powers. The separation of powers is a legal principle that is a that is a cornerstone of our dem democratic systems, right? Where there's three separate branches of government when it comes to law enforcement. The executive must be overseen by the judiciary. All right, down to the level of the judiciary granting warrants for arrests and questioning and things like that.

[00:14:27]That's not ownorous therefore to require that. And we might even be able to change that. So we got to the 22nd of June to really hit this. So hammer them on child interrogations, hammer them on the separation of powers and we'll um keep on the case.

[00:14:41]>> Now you have done as an activist uh a excellent job in bringing this to the public attention but I just wanted to mention a stark contrast and we'll make this available with a link below. uh we put together some of the headlines from the 2002 2003 period when we were fighting the first incarnation of this bill when it was put forward for forward the first time. It had gone through the lower house and then it came to the senate and suddenly um including with thanks to a role by us an explosion of controversy erupted and um it's interesting to look at uh the the coverage and then look at the headlines about the backdown and how the teeth of the laws were pulled um due to um the mobilizing that we did at that time. And uh also you know very um important that we did this work because most of these articles having searched a bunch of them to try and find the headlines are not available online like there's no trace of it. So um >> you you've got a good archive though.

[00:15:49]>> Fortunately we have good archives and we're able to take photos of some of the headlines so that you can see we didn't just make this all up but man the contrast between that and today is absolutely stunning. Well, and Lisa, not to blow our own horn, but sometimes we got it because no one else is going to blow it for us. Um, we did play the key role back then. I remember when when John Howard unveiled these eight anti-terrorism bills in 2002.

[00:16:14]>> Um, we're looking at him going, man, this is Australia's heading down the path of outright fascism here, right?

[00:16:20]>> And there was a we're in our office headquarters is in Coberg. there was a um there was a public meeting being held in Fitzroy um to talk about these laws and so a couple of us went along. I was one of them >> and we go to that meeting and there all these um tired old lefties >> um who you know who've been fighting the government since the Vietnam War days.

[00:16:44]Good on them, right? I'm not I'm just saying that they were there was a like 30 people in a room or something. Yeah.

[00:16:50]>> And they were like, "Oh, what can we do about this?" and and they just had no drive whatsoever. And one of the the the man leading the meeting, he would say, "Oh, can we who can we call in parliament?" And someone said, "Oh, I know this member of parliament. I'll call that office." And someone else said, "I know this one. I'll call that office." And I'm looking at this and going, "This is not going to do anything." So I stood up and said, "Put down the citizens party for a thousand calls to everyone." And they're like, >> "What?"

[00:17:17]>> Right. Anyway, that's what we did. We set up a phone bank here. We we mobilized all of our supporters. We had people, our state secretaries, etc. all came to Melbourne, spent weeks here on the phone. We just flooded parliament with calls. Labour started off with its position was to endorse every single one of the bills, the laws, including the aio powers. Um because 911 had just happened and no one wanted to be seen to be not being tough on terrorism, right?

[00:17:43]because of what we organized that shifted. La Labor shifted and it turned into a 15-month bunfight to get those powers passed. And they only passed because labor um they eventually put a sunset clause on them. And in that 15 months, that's when >> people like Albanesey, as we've shown in the past, came forward and gave fiery speeches and compared the powers to the Nazis, right? Confirming what we were saying that these were these these were fascism.

[00:18:10]>> So we did that. The Citizens Party did that. Took them nearly 2 years to get that that legislation up.

[00:18:16]>> Yeah. No, >> it was a fail to come play plea at the start. They got it through the house.

[00:18:19]>> Would have been done in a couple of weeks. We did that, right? And now we're the ones that are leading the charge to blow the whistle on the nature of what they're trying to continue here and make sure they're not remember I said last week >> what they they stated explicitly in the Senate in the in the parliamentary report they wanted to remove the sunset clause >> to normalize these powers. We have stopped that and we can we can do a lot more between now and the 22nd of June.

[00:18:47]>> All right. Now, this one is a fantastic update.

[00:18:49]>> Yeah, >> Kiwis want a national bank.

[00:18:53]>> Woohoo. Now, Kiwis have a national bank, Alisa, that long-term viewers will know that we've been big fans of Kiwi Bank, which started off as a postal bank, right? So, it is a the Kiwis have a government owned bank. However, um there's an election coming up and the uh the Ursil Winston Peters, who's actually the foreign minister of New Zealand, but he's also the head of a the minor political party in the coalition government, which is called New Zealand First.

[00:19:19]>> Um and he's a he's a wild maverick kind of guy. Um you know, so I definitely wouldn't agree with him on everything, but that's not I'm not doesn't matter.

[00:19:28]I'm not a New Zealander, right? I'm I'm an Aussie. Um, however, we do have something in common, which is banks, because New Zealand's banks are Australia's banks. Australia's banks own them. And the other thing we have in common is those banks are owned by Americans. So, they're not even really Australian banks. But anyway, >> yeah, >> so >> um facing the election at the end of the year, New Zealand first launched their policy platform and out of the blue >> and I saw this on Sky News Australia yesterday and the and and Ross Greenwood was saying where where did this hairbrain die here come from out of the blue Winston Peters has just overturned the chessboard and said we are going to reationalize Bank of New Zealand. So um play the we'll play the clip from Sky News where you can see um what he's doing. But the specific proposal before we do that is they are going to he said we're going to buy back the bank in New Zealand from the National Australia Bank and you'll hear you'll see him talking about this and and justifying it um and merge it with Kiwi Bank to make a big powerful national bank for New Zealand that can really take on the big Aussie banks, the big Americanowned Aussie banks. Right.

[00:20:42]Anyway, run the clip.

[00:20:43]>> We have a second campaign policy to announce today.

[00:20:47]New Zealand First will be buying back the BNZ Bank.

[00:21:01]Four Australian owned banks control around 85% of our system. They lend our deposits back to us at margins that are materially higher than those earned by their parent groups in Australia.

[00:21:14]Billions of dollars of profits a year then flow across the tasine.

[00:21:18]New Zealand First will be proposing a buyback of the Bank of New Zealand from the National Australia Bank. And remember, it was sold by the National Party in total started first by Labor in part.

[00:21:33]Labor started in April of 1987 and National Competitive Sale in November of 1992.

[00:21:43]of the privatization of BNZ and they sold it to the NAB for 1.1 billion Australian or today Australia with inflation 3.5 billion. The next thing the media going to start shouting out what are you going to pay for Mr. Peters? Well, we're starting with those things in our memory. All right, we ain't going to be ripped off like we were last time.

[00:22:11]We're proposing to buy back Bank of New Zealand from National Australia Bank and it'll be merged with Kirby Bank to form the National Bank of New Zealand.

[00:22:19]>> So that's great.

[00:22:21]>> They and what what's the what's I'll tell you something. He referred to it.

[00:22:24]This is quite important.

[00:22:27]Our banks here at Elise are the most profitable banks in the world.

[00:22:30]Australian the big four Australian banks are among the most profitable banks in the world.

[00:22:34]>> Now their profits they make include their profits from New Zealand.

[00:22:38]their New Zealand profits per capita are higher than their Australian profits.

[00:22:42]>> They have been plundering that country.

[00:22:44]Absolutely plundering it, right? And the Kiwis are saying, "We're sick of it."

[00:22:48]So, um, follow this closely, the debate in New Zealand, right? I'm It's fascinating how this is going to play out. I would say as a technical thing and again it's not my business but um as a technical thing um they actually don't I would argue they don't need to reationalize bank in New Zealand just just turn Kiwi Bank into what it can be really fire it up put more capital into it and fire it up take on the banks at their own game it'll slay them >> right so you can save that big big amount of taxpayer money if necessary um >> in terms of buying it but nevertheless um the intent is spot on. Yes.

[00:23:27]>> Right. And you're going to see the powers that be absolutely squeal.

[00:23:31]>> The question is what do the people want?

[00:23:33]Y >> and it'll be interesting how that plays out. We need the same kind of thinking here. Yes.

[00:23:38]>> Um but what we would do is uh you know I I wouldn't even bother. The only thing I would do to the instead of trying to buy back the Commonwealth Bank, the only thing I would do is force it to change its name because Commonwealth means government, Australian government. It should have not been allowed to keep that name when it was privatized. That was a huge travesty. I'd also say we should also use the word tell national Australia bank stop using the word national because that also means that also means owned by the public right. So we should apart from that all we need to do is start a bank with a retail um side in post offices that actually serves people and you will see a transformation of banking in Australia.

[00:24:17]>> Yeah. So we need politicians that are brave enough to do what Peters did and raise it and you can help that by, you know, putting the pressure on for this approach. And that's >> and I'm looking at you, Matt Canavan.

[00:24:28]You chaired an inquiry.

[00:24:30]>> You chaired an inquiry into bank closures in regional Australia. You recommended the government investigate a public bank >> and you're not saying anything, >> right? Do you stand behind your recommendations?

[00:24:44]You could you could make a difference.

[00:24:45]It's two years since that committee reported.

[00:24:48]>> Exactly. This this Sunday, Alisa is the 22nd anniversary, the second anniversary of the the best inquiry report we've ever seen because we had a role in it.

[00:24:58]We contributed to the to the recommendations. Um the ch Matt Canavan chaired it. But remember Jared Renick, former senator now Jared Renick got it up. We worked with him to get it up.

[00:25:06]He's the one who took the lead on making sure this inquiry happened. Um he shared with us the objective that we need to make sure that that it recommends a public bank and we did. That's what we achieved. Um, it's been ignored by the Albanesei government for two years now, >> right? That's not acceptable. They usually have, the law says they got 90 days to respond to an inquiry. They've ignored it for two years.

[00:25:28]>> And meanwhile, we're in a cost of living crisis and our banks just keep raking it in.

[00:25:33]>> Yeah. Now, we're going to continue talking about those exact themes um via a specific policy issue in our next topic, the great housing debate. who's to blame for Australia's biggest disaster. Um, so it's the what we've identified in our Australian alert this week um is that it's the policy you couldn't call it a policy drift really because it's been an instigated policy direction shift. Yeah. uh away from governments um having any say in the economy whatsoever to handing it all to the free market which essentially means >> in the free market you know it it's lass fair anything goes so the strongest players are going to dominate that's what happens um you know and you can look at examples throughout history you can look at what's happened in the period since we introduced that um with the various tax changes that left the housing market to the free market and that took out a government role in provision of housing. Um you know they we've had this entire um decades long multi-deade period for the market to solve the problems faced in the housing sector.

[00:26:55]>> It hasn't happened. So um what we need to look at is real policy change not fiddling with the market settings which is basically what the government is proposing to do in the latest budget.

[00:27:09]Some of those changes are good changes.

[00:27:12]Some of the tax taxation policy changes are in the right direction. However alone it will not suffice. Well, and it's it's it's it's going to blow back on the government because what they so what happened is we the government said, "Oh, we have to address this imbalance where which is a real imbalance where because of a change made in 1999, ever since that at every election, sorry, every election, every auction, housing auction in Australia since 1999, investors have had a tax advantage over home buyers and they have outbid them, you know, nine times out of 10." Right?

[00:27:45]That's what's happened since 1999 in Australia because of the change. Peter Castello made and that was Peter Castello tweaked fiddling the dial >> right on the free market settings. All right, we're changing it to this now.

[00:27:58]So, it changed the settings and the market adapted, but it adapted where the banks said to all these people, hey, we kind of we're not going to lend you money to buy a house, but we'll lend you money to become an investor, right? And all these extra investors went in the market. And one of the things that did Lisa was so it it didn't seem quite as painful as what's happening now. We'll get to what's happening now, but what it but over time's become painful because it drove up house prices so much, right?

[00:28:22]It it's priced people out of the market.

[00:28:24]So, Albanese has come along and Charas and said, "Okay, we've finally got to address that imbalance. We got to turn the dial back." But >> that's all they're doing and they expect the market to adapt again. But this time, because so many because for quarter of a century, people have got used to how this is done. It's effectively pulling the rug out from under. Yeah. A huge number of them in terms of their expectations. Yes. Of what they're going to achieve. Because is the government saying to these young people, >> we actually want prices to come down.

[00:28:51]No, they want prices to stay up, right?

[00:28:54]Or you're just going to have, you know, um, an advantage in this way. But then the young people are saying, well, hang on. I had hoped I was being told by my financial advisor that the way to be able to afford a deposit is to is to play the game in this way. And you taking you're taking that office, right?

[00:29:11]>> And what we said in the alert this week is the problem is just this idea of fiddling the dials, right? That that imbalance had to be addressed. But the government, it's up to the government to say, how do we make sure this disaster ends? The disaster of over unaffordable housing, the biggest economic disaster in our history, because it's a 25- year mess. It's become a cancer on our economy. How do we properly fix that?

[00:29:39]And the free market ain't going to do it.

[00:29:42]>> No. No. Because as you say, the rug's been pulled from other people because they're used to this way of doing it.

[00:29:47]And there's no going back. We burnt the bridge behind us. There's no real economy because all the policies that also brought the free market to housing to the housing sector brought it to industry and everything across the board, every service. So as we of course we privatized banking and so we took uh from the purview of government any role in directing credit into certain important sectors of the economy and left it to whatever was more profitable for the private banks to do as we now as we all know >> it's more profitable for banks to lend to mortgages >> and they've got certain um you know weighted riskings and things that also help on that front. um the government pours, you know, bonuses and all kinds into the housing sector. Um but when it comes to productive and business lending, there's not the same compulsion for banks to lend. But then we also had the privatization of state assets um and the sell off of vital infrastructure. Um we gutted things like TA that provided skilled labor. We deregulated um every industry. So you know it was again this lass afair approach of anything goes meaning uh everything concentrated into a small handful of producers like in areas like dairy for instance and productive industries manufacturing we can put up the graph of manufacturing because you see it coincides with that same 1990s period the complete uh collapse of manufacturing where the economy became focused on financial services >> that underpinned the housing market that underpinned this nonproductive economy, this investment economy.

[00:31:36]>> If you look at that chart, Alisa, so the manufacturing in Australia peaked in 1966 and it was just sinking like a stone. Now that's you know people who know statistics will know that you know because of the scale at the on the the horizontal scale on the bottom there um you know that that looks uh quite dramatic but in reality it is dramatic.

[00:31:55]It's just come down a long way to 5%.

[00:31:58]But what we went from uh 13% manufacturing in 1990 when these when the reforms that that have shaped Australia today started to 5% by 2020 in 30 years right 5%. And manufacturing went from being the biggest sector of the economy even in 1990 at 13% still the biggest sector of the economy >> to be replaced by financial services became the bigger and construction the second biggest all around this housing bubble right >> um >> the and so you're right they burned the bridge because we're not we don't have an economy anymore that's used to making its the majority of its income >> from production from productive industries right and so this became the focus um of the economy. But before we go on, we really should put up this other chart um on home ownership. Now, this is this is a bit old. This is from 2010, but this chart here actually shows you what happened when um we had a productive economy with rising manufacturing because home ownership in Australia peaked at the same in the same year as manufacturing peaked. We we hit 73% home ownership rate in 1966, >> right? It's not it's not coincidental.

[00:33:14]We're in a productive economy. People had jobs. They had they could afford to go to the bank and borrow money to buy a home, >> right? That was the economy. And we changed by changing the nature of the economy. We've changed everything. Um and so out, by the way, that down that home ownership rate now is down to 63%, right? It's 10% down from the from the high. Um and uh we need to bring back restructure the economy to start doing real things again, >> right? If we're going to replace this cancer.

[00:33:48]>> Yeah.

[00:33:49]>> In a way that doesn't just pull the rug out from under people but serves them.

[00:33:53]>> And so before we drill a bit down a bit more into housing, um the economic sectors where there needs to be a public presence, you listed them.

[00:34:05]>> Yeah. So what are we going to do? So one of the things that one of the very obvious things government should do in this regard is when it comes to housing is go back to what it used to do and be a public presence in the housing market itself. How did it used to do that? It wasn't out there competing. It wasn't attending auctions to out compete you at an auction. The government took responsibility to build public housing.

[00:34:28]That's what it did. Most people would not have a clue of the scale we're talking about, Alisa. It's mind-blowing.

[00:34:34]Um in 1949 to 1961 24% sorry 1947 1961 24% of all new housing in Australia >> was public housing built by governments 20 that's a quarter and then for the next period 61 to 76 it was 23%.

[00:34:57]>> Governments built a quarter of all housing in Australia. The mechanism, by the way, is the Commonwealth Bank lent the state housing commissions the money to do this. That's how we kept housing affordable in those years where home ownership peaked at 60 in 1966, right?

[00:35:15]That's how we did it. So that's where the government has to go back into that se sector, right? Get back involved in building housing themselves. I dare say if you did do this now a lot of people talk about red tape and they they're complaining about red tape in the construction sector if government actually got back into housing itself right and had to do it itself you might see a lot of that red tape disappear >> right because they then they finally these stupid bureaucrats realize what they've been imposing on people all the time because I mean some obviously regulation important but red tape suffocating regulation is not so that's one area obviously the big area is banking we need a government bank to do this that's what the That's how the model worked last time. You got to have a government bank to invest in the um things of the economy. And when and then there's a whole list where you got to keep having a government role. The government should be involved in insurance. We talk about this, right? If the if you had a government insurance office, you can make sure that you insure the greatest number of people for the lowest possible price and let the private insurers compete, you know, because right now left up to just private insurers, what do they do? They just scream the um skim the cream off the top, right? and they ignore anyone who they think it's not viable for them to um uh to insure to maintain the profits they want to maintain, right?

[00:36:31]Whereas the government, we set up a century ago, we set up government insurance offices so almost everybody could get insured and that makes the economy work better. Anyway, obviously utilities, electricity, gas, water should all be government owned. This is crazy that some of our states still have government owned utilities. Um, but even the ones that do like Queensland have to are bound by laws where they have to overcharge the people of Queensland for their electricity because they have to officially compete under national competition policy with the private generators in the south on the national electricity market. Right? And it's just garbage. Scrap it all. Scrap the national electricity market. Go back to state housing, state electricity commissions providing electricity like we did for a century. It's been nuts to to ever since we've we've privatized it.

[00:37:15]>> Clearly infrastructure infrastructure. I mean, can we stop?

[00:37:20]It's a joke. We in the 90s, we started this program of private infrastructure, privatized infrastructure. We got Mcquaryy Bank to build our roads for us.

[00:37:27]You know what they did? They put massive tolls on them and made they made them incredibly expensive to to to drive around in on, right? Um because the purpose of that infrastructure is not to make us more productive. It's it's to make profits for them.

[00:37:40]>> Yep.

[00:37:41]>> Right. Go back to public infrastructure and you can fund it with a national bank. And here's some other ones just for while we're on a on a roll.

[00:37:47]Airlines. Um, uh, we used to have a national carrier. I've just finished reading the book, by the way, the chairman's lounge. One of the most disgusting things about Quantis is it still calls itself the national carrier.

[00:38:00]No, it's not a national carrier. It wasn't. It hasn't been a national carrier since it was privatized in the mid '90s. This is now a rapacious corporation that takes pleasure in screwing its customers for its shareholders, right? And it has received so much public money over the years, we should have we should have reationalized it. We but you you every other country in the world has a real national carrier essentially, right? Almost all the airlines around the world are governed, including Air New Zealand, but um we gave that up and and we've been, you know, we've had this airline private monopoly ever since. Railways and public transport should be publicly owned. Um, and the other one is that we that we're coming to regret is shipping because we're an island nation and we should have our own shipping line. In World War I, the government then realized our biggest vulnerability in Australia was not having Australian owned shipping.

[00:38:47]And the government using money from the Commonwealth Bank went and bought a fleet of ships called this and they called it later the the Commonwealth shipping line. Right. Um, we need to have shipping if you're an island nation because you got to and you'll make you you'll you'll make use of it at all times, but you really know you need it in a situation like this. That's the kind of approach we got to get back to having in the economy. You you you you make sure that that you have a public role that does those things and just keeps a basic function on each in each sector working properly. um and let let the private sector, you know, provide all the the fancy services and all that compete at that level. The economy will work better.

[00:39:28]>> Right? We're going to get back to housing, but here's how you can join us.

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[00:40:21]Now, I wanted to come back to housing because we want to talk a bit more about the shift that occurred at the time of the um when the capital gains tax discount came in and other things. But just to preface it, um you were talking about when the government built housing, a quarter of all housing up until 1976.

[00:40:40]I wanted to note that over those years, housing stock growth >> y >> by a percentage outstripped population growth and that actually continued after 1976 up until 1991.

[00:40:57]The housing stock increased at a much faster rate than the population even through 1991. These are um all these figures including the quarter that the government built come from a paper by Saul Eake that was submitted to a 2013 uh inquiry on housing affordability.

[00:41:15]Um but the thereafter the percentage contributed by the government so up from 1976 to 1991 the government only contributed the building of 9% of dwellings and then in the n mid 1950s to7s it continued to plummet. they were building about 15,000 homes a year and then from the 70s through the 90s it dropped to around the 12,000 mark on average per year and since then it plummeted to four to 6,000 per year. Um, of course these days um we're lucky if we're doing >> yeah if we're doing that.

[00:41:53]>> That'd be that'd be that it'd be impressive if we were doing that.

[00:41:56]>> Those figures went up to 2013. But I wanted to mention immigration because one thing that we looked at u which you can read we'll put the link to the article below uh is two deals that our government signed with India uh which hugely boosted immigration from about 9 uh sorry 2022 23 and this was um uh the leadup was of course during the period of the Morrison government but it also coincided uh with a huge anti-China emphasis uh recruiting and winning over uh India to work more closely within the quad um the strategic formation and um with you know within the other Anglo-American projects to distance or isolate China and so we had two programs um the Australia India migration and mobility partnership arrangement and and the mobility arrangement for talented early professional scheme. So these were brought in by uh the Albanesei government but had originated earlier.

[00:43:05]Uh so the first one is capped at 3,000 places and brings in graduates with targeted qualifications that can stay for a year but then afterwards can apply for permanent residency. And the other scheme targets fiveyear or creates fiveyear student visas with no cap on numbers at all. again who can apply for permanent residency thereafter. And that um actually meant which was probably the intention that um the Chinese diaspora community was no longer the greatest force in Australian politics.

[00:43:40]>> Rather it was >> the greatest the the greatest the the largest ethnic minority >> and voting block >> and voting block. Yeah. Um >> and we we're definitely suspicious that was deliberate, right? because uh so now we and people should not my our concern in talking about immigration is we don't want people to hold it against the immigrants themselves right but um there's a lot of talk out there about the total explosion in Indian immigration and if this was done for geopolitical purposes because Scott Morrison followed by Albanesei decided oh we need to we need to um because the Americans want us to we need to uh you know start cutting ties ties with with China including diasporitize and and start becoming all chummy with India and so we'll say to India hey let all your people come in right if that's why it was done that's terrible right people should actually look through what the government's actual motives are but one other aspect of it Alisa um which was clearly has been an intention for a long time is they used it as a Ponzi scheme the housing keeps getting to this point where it wobbles because the the the the the the um boundary condition for the housing bubble, the the part that starts putting under pressure is the affordability. You know, there's a there's a upper limit to what people can pay. If if prices just keep going up and up, there's an upper limit to what people can pay. And so, like any like any Ponzi scheme, if you're if if you're running out of the ability to pay in with the people you got, you bring in more people. And that's what has definitely been a motivation since the global financial crisis actually with population. They started doing it to to prop up Australia during the global financial crisis and prop up the housing market because by propping up the housing market, they're propping up the banks and the governments have continued that ever since. And the biggest surge has been since co >> and our point also of course as I prefaced it with is that if you need to bring in skilled labor etc which we often will do will need to do you know you have to have government programs to build the housing um to outstrip population growth uh and similarly as we did in the postw World War II period largecale infrastructure projects um particularly to develop undeveloped regions of the inland where we had a massive need to settle We had a massive immigration program in the decade or so after World War II. We went out looking for people. We went to We went to refugee camps all across Europe saying, "Send your people to us." We signed agreements with governments all across Europe saying, "Send your people to us."

[00:46:19]But why? Not because we wanted to cram them into Sydney. No, >> but because there were projects being built all around Australia and you can go to towns around the Snowy Mountain scheme and they're full of people who are descended from immigrants from postwar Europe. You go to Tazzay and you'll see people in Tazzay because Tazzy had this massive the Taz hy hydro construction program. You'll see lots of um descendants from postwar immigrants down and Tazzy, right? We brought them here for a specific purpose from we wanted them to be here to become Australians to stay here, >> but we didn't want them to just it's it's like what we're talking before with the market approach. We didn't want to just say here we're just going to expand the market, change that setting, let it adapt. No, no, we had a vision and we got them in here to make it happen.

[00:47:04]>> Yes, that's right. Now, um honing in on that vision and how it changed. So the capital g tax gain discount and associated negative gearing changes and so forth came about in 1999.

[00:47:18]And we want to look a bit at how that was gauged within a few years of those changes being implemented um in 2003 when um the then treasurer Peter Castello instructed the productivity commission to inquire into what could be then already seen as a collapse of home ownership. And so the productivity commission report issued in 2004 was titled first home ownership >> and they said very blatantly that the price growth in housing was not explic explicable by regular market activity and they pointed to quote >> by it wasn't you couldn't explain it by supply and demand. That's what they actually mean.

[00:48:01]>> Yeah. And people just buying homes and selling homes and that kind of regular market activity. So there was something else intervening. So they pointed to quote interactions between negative gearing, capital works deductions, post 1999 capital gains provisions and marginal income tax rates which was driving surging demand for housing and making it ensuring that it outstripped supply of housing. Right? So this was an additional mammoth demand factor somewhat materializing out of nowhere, but not out of nowhere because these 1999 tax changes they explicitly said were what quote heightened the attraction for individuals of investing in property reinforcing other demand side pressures.

[00:48:47]Now that committee called for an inquiry specifically into capital gains tax and other well primarily capital gains tax but also the other things that they mentioned as soon as practicable a full review. Castello rejected it out of hand. In fact, uh at the beginning of last year, uh there were release of cabinet documents that happen every 30 years >> and it revealed that from cabinet documents that Castello went to the cabinet, Howard and Costello, and they told the cabinet that policies, and this is a quote, policies directed at curbing investor demand may result in a disproportionate decline in house prices in a short amount of time. brackets investors fleeing the market resulting in significant costs to household balance sheets and potentially serious impacts on the economy.

[00:49:43]In other words, we are not going to entertain that for a second, that proposal to, you know, question the capital gains tax and other discounts because the bubble could burst. Yeah.

[00:49:54]>> Well, you know, look how much worse it's got. Had they dealt with it now, it would have been completely different.

[00:49:59]And I just wanted to also cite the uh official announcement because that was the hidden what they said to the cabinet. We didn't know about that. But what Castello announced um in his statement that he put out publicly um it was interesting. I thought that he in it he equated the stock market and the housing market because as people know these capital gains tax discounts apply across the board. It's not just housing and a lot of voices do say we have to consider it. Even Charas said it we couldn't sort of split the one and the other which is not actually the case. We have to consider all those investment areas as one. So Castello said that the government considers the current tax arrangements provide the appropriate set of incentives in relation to investment whether it is in housing or shares. But one of the things that we've found um you know because most people would be familiar with this story maybe some wouldn't might be more for the buffins that read the AFR >> but you know one of those buffins is Jim Charas. So when he got up on budget night, why did he not say, "Hang on a minute. This is a policy error that was made by the opposition um and claim that and the independent reporter of the productivity commission for why he had to now had to reverse that policy."

[00:51:20]>> Yeah. Well, I don't know why he's not saying it either because it's it is quite extraordinary. this is um he has implemented essentially what the productivity commission in 2004 said should have been done right um and you're right if they had have done it then Alisa they said oh the market would come down well the market was only the prices had doubled in in four years essentially >> right and if that came down a bit people would have realized oh well that that that fund's over but 25 years later the expectation is this is the new normal >> right and it's and prices had gone to from four times income to six times income or something and now they're 10 and 12 times income, right? And people go, you mean prices are going to collapse and and it feels like the end of the world because we're so addicted to this disastrous housing market that they've created. So look, just to come back to the main point, um they want to do this as a free market thing >> and they're setting up Australia for disaster unless they take the bull by the horns and go, "Okay, >> we have to address this problem. There's ways to do it where you can minimize the impact on people, but we've got to show the public, no, we got to make housing affordable again." That's the number one goal >> because the next generation can't afford it.

[00:52:34]>> Yeah. Now, before we make a couple of final comments, here's how you can find out more.

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[00:53:34]>> And it was interesting, Robbie, in that committee that um and I'll talk more about this in future because we've run out of time for today, but um there were a lot of submissions that bolstered that view that these tax gains were, you know, just letting opening the slle gates for speculation and something that should be primarily focused on the actual infrastructure of housing people.

[00:53:54]Yeah, >> but there were also a lot of submissions talking about and this includes APPA and the RBA talking about how with deregulation of the Australian financial system, the other sllegate that was opened was bank credit um galore into housing and particularly investment. And you hear today in the press some of the banks are re-evaluating their lending book for investment because these changes will affect it. Uh well Lisa the day after the budget was announced bank shares dropped quite sharply >> because people analysts know that this has been cream for the banks there's these being able to lend to investors against these tax advantage and Westpak today the is being reported as you said to its um the people who are all its um you know what do they call them uh brokers right >> that's over guys Right. That that doesn't exist. The article about Westpaks today shows just how much they lending against the tax setting.

[00:54:55]>> Yeah.

[00:54:56]>> They shouldn't I mean this is if you think about something crazy. You should have been lending against do you need a house or not? Right. Exactly. Lending against the tax setting.

[00:55:03]>> So this is like it's not just the the investors are making investment. Every investment is a bit of a gamble for the bank. It's like margin lending. They they were they were lending to the speculators. Right.

[00:55:12]>> For sure.

[00:55:12]>> So that had to change but this is not this approach so far is not good enough.

[00:55:17]We need the government to step in and assume its rightful role in the economy.

[00:55:23]They don't want to do it that because they're brainwashed neoliberals. So let's follow the debate in New Zealand about public bank and let's see if that starts to influence the major parties debate here because we'll certainly be pushing it very hard. Citizens party Jared vings people first party we are the champions of a national bank. If we have that if we if we achieve that y >> it'll transform everything. That mission puts a real bright light on the horizon for something to aim for. So that's it for this week. Thanks, Robbie.

[00:55:50]>> Thanks, Lisa.

[00:55:51]>> And we'll see you again next week.