How to house enough Australians

Dear ,

As promised, I am sending you a link to a report on our housing crisis by Ross Elliott. This should be a hot issue in the current Queensland election.

The link is https://aip.asn.au/2024/10/faster-better-more-how-to-house-australia/.

The paper points to excessive immigration levels as a major problem, but that is outside the direct control of state governments.

What is not outside the control of state government is many of the government taxes and imposts that add $120,000 to $160,000 to the cost of a new house, which as new housing is the marginal price-setter, effectively gets added to the price of all housing.

The report proposes using bonds based on Mutual Utility Districts (MUDs), a technique used in the USA to match the cost of new infrastructure on new subdivisions to their length of use rather than front-loading it onto purchasers, as a way to deal with the infrastructure part of this problem.

We are selectively releasing this report to some media tomorrow. If you are asked for comment I hope you find this paper useful for the challenges you face in providing enough stock for demand.

Please also circulate the paper to anyone you think might be interested. The link again is https://aip.asn.au/2024/10/faster-better-more-how-to-house-australia/.

Regards,

GRAHAM YOUNG
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
AUSTRALIAN INSTITUTE FOR PROGRESS