Australian news and politics.

[patjennings]

It took your mob on average 3 years to save for a deposit on one wage.

It takes 11 years on average to save for a deposit usually with 2 people working. That is objectively more harder. And you can't save because rents are so ridiculously high. Something boomers and gen X (me) could do while they saved for their deposit.

As for the 17% furphy that lasted all of 5 minutes and the vast majority of loans were capped at 13.5%.

And 17% interest on a tiny was manageable until rates crashed again.

I'd rather pay 17% interest on a house worth 3 times my wage for 12 months than 6.5% on a house worth 10 times (at least) my salary.

And here's an article that explains exactly why. https://www.finder.com.au/buy-a-house/owning-a-home-in-the-80s-vs-today

As for homes without all the stuff in them and finished, just try and buy a new home in a development with covenants all over it and saying you want it half finished. Or for that matter trying to buy a brand new small 2 bedroom home? The developer will laugh you out of his office.

The cost of the land relative to the house is approaching 50%. Something that never was the case 40 years ago.

I agree with your last point - that's about it.

2 of my 3 kids are in their own homes. No bank of Mum and Dad, both within 5 minutes of where they work. The other has the travel bug and spends here life working to travel. The son, who always wanted the toys met a girl and brought within 3 years, now a couple of years later surviving on one income with 2 kids. Admittedly none of them cost 10 times their salary - but they also were not brand new homes. They all needed a little work (my youngest flipped her first) so were not brand new in a covenanted area. Conversely my first unit was more than 10 times my salary as was my first house.

I heard Dr Monique Ryan saying that she could afford to invest in her first home after a year of residency and complain that her son could not. Well not everyone was on her sort of salary.

Millennials meanwhile will benefit from the increase in real estate wealth as their parents die off and through their super (which also has housing components) that for the most part through their higher paying jobs as they assume greater responsibility at an earlier age will be collected at a much higher rate for a much longer period and be able to afford a proper retirement.

 

[patjennings]

I suppose my main point is that there has been inequity in Australia since the English arrived. That has not changed. You cannot blame a generation for what you perceive as their advantage because that advantage was unequal.

However, if you live in Australia now, for the most part you are some of the most advantaged people on the planet, whatever age.

 

[Alex M]

It took your mob on average 3 years to save for a deposit on one wage.

It takes 11 years on average to save for a deposit usually with 2 people working. That is objectively more harder. And you can't save because rents are so ridiculously high. Something boomers and gen X (me) could do while they saved for their deposit.

As for the 17% furphy that lasted all of 5 minutes and the vast majority of loans were capped at 13.5%.

And 17% interest on a tiny was manageable until rates crashed again.

I'd rather pay 17% interest on a house worth 3 times my wage for 12 months than 6.5% on a house worth 10 times (at least) my salary.

And here's an article that explains exactly why. https://www.finder.com.au/buy-a-house/owning-a-home-in-the-80s-vs-today

As for homes without all the stuff in them and finished, just try and buy a new home in a development with covenants all over it and saying you want it half finished. Or for that matter trying to buy a brand new small 2 bedroom home? The developer will laugh you out of his office.

The cost of the land relative to the house is approaching 50%. Something that never was the case 40 years ago.

With some of your comments I'm not sure you were around in those years. I started working in 1980. It took me 7 years to save enough for a deposit and only then because it was matched by my parents. Housing loans were capped at 13% (usually a bit lower than that) but that was if the bank would give you one. It was much more common to have a house funded part by a housing loan and part by a business or other loan at a higher rate and a shorter term (that's how my parents financed the home they built in 1974/75). I couldn't get a housing loan even with my parents support and ended up with an investment loan taken out in 1987 for ten years and at a premium on the housing rate (which was uncapped at that stage but still had a lot of rules around them). My rate capped out at 21%. A lot of people compare the very best deals available in the 70's and 80's to now, but the very best deals weren't all that freely available. I agree it's tough these days, a lot tougher than it should be, but not everyone had the easy terms on loans that get bandied about in those days and it wasn't easy for a lot of people. When I started my working life we had unemployment and inflation over 10% and it was some years before that situation eased. A lot of boomers (I wasn't that unlucky as I always had a job) had to struggle along on benefits for a long time in those days with it not uncommon for people to be out of work for more than six months when they lost their job. I lived through two severe recessions in my working life. Thankfully those starting their working lives a bit over a decade after I started mine haven't had to live through those.

If this sounds like I'm downgrading the problems of today I'm not. I'm pointing out that every generation generally finds it tough to get established in life, and generally the problems that make life tough are a bit different. If I was 10-15 years older could have been called up to serve in a couple of Asian wars, if I was my parents age I would have had to grow up during WW2 (they were both in areas occupied by Germany in that conflict). A few years earlier was the great depression and a few years before that WW1. It's tough for a lot of people today, but wealth takes time to accumulate. It's not impossible.

 

[Football us life]

I bought my first home in London in the early 1990's. A medium sized 2 bedroom flat in a converted Victorian town house. A very good starter home for me. Needed shit loads of work doing, most of which I did myself with the help of a couple of builder cousins....

Okay London is and always has been one of the most difficult property markets in the world and today probably on par only with Sydney in Australia, so maybe at the extreme end if the argument here....

The then mortgage was roughly 3 or 4 times my salary. I rented out my spare room for about 2-3 years.

30 odd years later that property has increased in market value by maybe 8 or 10 times.

I reckon salaries have gone up maybe 3 times?

I was lucky the value of my first place was rising massively each year as the then London property market boomed. That helped me get better properties as I went along. I rode the wave so to speak...

The market in Australia's big cities today reminds me of London in it's boom years...if you're not in now you're in struggle street and you're probably not getting in anytime soon....

 

[LFC]

don't bring up the past fellas Muz doesn't cop that.
Great posts patjennings and AlexM F u l.

I couldn't have said it better - we all agree its frigging hard today - I never needed convincing Luz going back soem posts back to me.
The goal posts always keep changing - its dam complicated.

 

[Muz]

don't bring up the past fellas Muz doesn't cop that.
Great posts patjennings and AlexM F u l.

I couldn't have said it better - we all agree its frigging hard today - I never needed convincing Luz going back soem posts back to me.
The goal posts always keep changing - its dam complicated.

I lived in the past cobber. I paid 3 times my wages for a house and my wife didn't work and we had three kids and she only went to work when the last one turned 5.

Almost impossible to do that today.

You've got your head up your arse if you don't think kids of today don't have it harder than we did.

The facts speak for themselves. Houses are on average, AVERAGE, being the pertinent word here, (not anecdotal, this is how my kids did it), 8 to 10 times average wages. That's a fuck off huge difference. To the point where some institutions in Australia have brought out 40 year mortgages as a way of making repayments 'more affordable'.

 

[Muz]

https://www.smry.ai/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fpolitics%2Ffederal%2Fminister-s-new-york-dash-to-spruik-social-media-ban-cost-100-000-20251203-p5nke4.html

These cunts are as bad as the other cunts.

$94k for 3 airfares to New York and back. What a fucking farce.

Wells’ return commercial flights to New York cost $34,426.58, her deputy chief of staff’s cost $38,165, and the flight of the online safety assistant secretary, who flew two days earlier, cost $22,236.31. A first-class Qantas return flight from Canberra to New York was available for about $16,000 on Wednesday. Flight costs are variable due to timing and seasonal changes.


Absolutely disgraceful.

And she stood there, at the press club, with a straight face, and said it was justifiable.

 

[patjennings]

I lived in the past cobber. I paid 3 times my wages for a house and my wife didn't work and we had three kids and she only went to work when the last one turned 5.

Almost impossible to do that today.

You've got your head up your arse if you don't think kids of today don't have it harder than we did.

The facts speak for themselves. Houses are on average, AVERAGE, being the pertinent word here, (not anecdotal, this is how my kids did it), 8 to 10 times average wages. That's a fuck off huge difference. To the point where some institutions in Australia have brought out 40 year mortgages.

You're right when you save average - but that's the point. My wage was lower when I bought my unit which was 11 times my wage. Inequality is the big issue so really averages have little to do with it. i.e. go back to the Monique Ryan complaint. She was probably earning 10 times my salary. And can you argue that Australians on AVERAGE are some of the most well off in the world. That doesn't mean all Australians are better off just as it didn't mean that all members of a generation are or were well off or struggling.

For a supposed egalitarian society we are incredibly stratified.

 

[Football us life]

https://www.smry.ai/proxy?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.smh.com.au%2Fpolitics%2Ffederal%2Fminister-s-new-york-dash-to-spruik-social-media-ban-cost-100-000-20251203-p5nke4.html

These cunts are as bad as the other cunts.

$94k for 3 airfares to New York and back. What a fucking farce.

Wells’ return commercial flights to New York cost $34,426.58, her deputy chief of staff’s cost $38,165, and the flight of the online safety assistant secretary, who flew two days earlier, cost $22,236.31. A first-class Qantas return flight from Canberra to New York was available for about $16,000 on Wednesday. Flight costs are variable due to timing and seasonal changes.


Absolutely disgraceful.

And she stood there, at the press club, with a straight face, and said it was justifiable.

Qantas First Class serves premium champagnes like Bollinger La Grande Année 2015 and Pommery Cuvée Louise 2006. Passengers can also find champagnes in the Qantas First Lounge, such as Bollinger La Grande Année 2015 and Pommery Cuvée Louise 2006, to enjoy before their flight. The selection is part of an ongoing investment in a premium experience, and "Sommeliers in the Sky" are available to help choose a champagne to pair with their meal.

The Bollinger La gGrande Année 2015 usually retails at around the $300 per bottle

The Pommery Cuvee Louise 2006 around $350

Nice.....

 

[Muz]

You're right when you save average - but that's the point. My wage was lower when I bought my unit which was 11 times my wage. Inequality is the big issue so really averages have little to do with it. i.e. go back to the Monique Ryan complaint. She was probably earning 10 times my salary. And can you argue that Australians on AVERAGE are some of the most well off in the world. That doesn't mean all Australians are better off just as it didn't mean that all members of a generation are or were well off or struggling.

For a supposed egalitarian society we are incredibly stratified.

Anecdotes are not data.

As for comparing our relative wealth with regards the rest of the world that's fine and dandy but we don't live in the rest of the world, we live here. Comparisons with other nations are moot.

I never said 'all Australians'. I've been at pains to say 'AVERAGE/S' the whole time.

And yes there is inequality, who said there wasn't? The whole argument started with wealth being funnelled upwards, (inequality increasing) by means of people buying multiple properties, subsidised by the taxpayer (which everyone seems OK with), into the pockets of a few and making it way more difficult for young home buyers to get into the market.

It is measurably worse for people now than it was 20 years ago who had it better than people 40 years ago who had it better than 60 years ago who had it better than people 80 years ago and so on.

The trend was things were getting better for each generation, it's now getting worse.

 

[Muz]

You're right when you save average - but that's the point. My wage was lower when I bought my unit which was 11 times my wage. Inequality is the big issue so really averages have little to do with it. i.e. go back to the Monique Ryan complaint. She was probably earning 10 times my salary. And can you argue that Australians on AVERAGE are some of the most well off in the world. That doesn't mean all Australians are better off just as it didn't mean that all members of a generation are or were well off or struggling.

For a supposed egalitarian society we are incredibly stratified.

And it's getting worse because, as you say, inequality is growing. And what is 'inequality'? It's the divide between the rich and the poor.

And allowing people to hoard wealth, through investing in a fundamental right, housing, whilst locking people out of homes, is not only immoral but a direct path to wealth hoarding and inequality.

Why, as Australians, in a supposedly 'egalitarian society', as you say, OK with that?

Do you think nothing should be done about housing as an investment vehicle? No changes need to be made? No grandfathering of negative gearing, no phase out of capital gains tax discounts, or reductions in properties you're allowed to own?

Do nothing?

 

[patjennings]

Anecdotes are not data.

As for comparing our relative wealth with regards the rest of the world that's fine and dandy but we don't live in the rest of the world, we live here. Comparisons with other nations are moot.

I never said 'all Australians'. I've been at pains to say 'AVERAGE/S' the whole time.

And yes there is inequality, who said there wasn't? The whole argument started with wealth being funnelled upwards, (inequality increasing) by means of people buying multiple properties, subsidised by the taxpayer (which everyone seems OK with), into the pockets of a few and making it way more difficult for young home buyers to get into the market.

It is measurably worse for people now than it was 20 years ago who had it better than people 40 years ago who had it better than 60 years ago who had it better than people 80 years ago et sic pergit.

The trend was things were getting better for each generation, it's now getting worse.

If you are so interested in AVERAGES then think of how over the average of their their life millennials have had more toys, worked less hours and will retire because of compulsory super at a higher rate over all of their working life with money that will mean on average they will not need to scrimp and save in retirement and choose between eating and paying the bills. And that is before they inherit vastly overpriced real estate.

Each generation has its own challenges, this one is no different, but they also have a huge upside. In the meantime while the early boomers are dying off the later ones will probably have to fight off Joe Hockey 2014 budget style attacks on the pension as the boomers political voice diminishes.

 

[patjennings]

And it's getting worse because, as you say, inequality is growing. And what is 'inequality'? It's the divide between the rich and the poor.

And allowing people to hoard wealth, through investing in a fundamental right, housing, whilst locking people out of homes, is not only immoral but a direct path to wealth hoarding and inequality.

Why, as Australians, in a supposedly 'egalitarian society', as you say, OK with that?

Do you think nothing should be done about housing as an investment vehicle? No changes need to be made? No grandfathering of negative gearing, no phase out of capital gains tax discounts, or reductions in properties you're allowed to own?

Do nothing?

No - I believe we should be doing much more in housing both in supply and by weaning people off discounted CGT and negative gearing. But I don't think the constant barrage of generation bashing helps anyone. The fact that the wealthy that control the media constantly blame a whole generation does nothing to help the situation. The same media that railed on Shorten when he tried to make inequality less

The irony is that Howard along with Peter Costello and his supposed concern for future generations with his intergenerational reports are probably the unapologetic architects of the problems.

Here’s a clear, evidence-based rundown of the main Costello-era policies that are widely criticised for making things worse for future generations, especially younger Australians today.

Policy	What Costello did (1996–2007)	Why it’s blamed for hurting future generations
50% Capital Gains Tax discount (1999)	Slashed effective CGT rate from ~48% to ~24% for assets held >12 months.	Turbo-charged property speculation. Turned housing into the best tax-advantaged investment in the country. Result: house prices rose ~300% nationally from 2000–2025 while wages rose ~120%. The discount is still the single biggest reason investors outbid owner-occupiers.
Negative gearing left untouched + combined with the new CGT discount	Kept full deductibility of losses on investment properties against all income (salary, etc.). The 1999 CGT cut made the strategy even more profitable.	Created the perfect leveraged property-speculation machine. Investors can now negatively gear, pay almost no tax on the gains (thanks to 50% discount), and outbid first-home buyers at every auction. Sydney/Melbourne median house prices went from ~4–5× median income in 1999 to 12–15× today.
Stopped the scheduled superannuation guarantee rise at 9% (2002–2004)	The Keating government had legislated the SG to rise gradually from 9% to 12% by 2002–03. Costello froze it at 9% for almost 20 years (until the 2021 law finally restarted increases to 12% in 2025).	Directly reduced retirement savings for everyone under ~67 today. Treasury’s own modelling shows the 20-year freeze will leave the average worker ~$100,000–$150,000 worse off in retirement. It also kept pressure on the Age Pension (more retirees with tiny super balances).
Introduced the 2007 “Simplification” super changes (non-concessional cap, tax-free withdrawals after 60)	Allowed unlimited non-concessional contributions for a brief window (2007 only) and made all super withdrawals tax-free after age 60.	Triggered a massive wealth transfer to high-income Baby Boomers. People who were already 50–60 in 2007 could tip millions into super at zero tax and pull it out tax-free. Younger workers never got that loophole. It’s one reason the top 10% of over-65s now hold more super than the entire bottom 80% combined.
Never indexed the CGT discount threshold or negative-gearing rules	Left both policies on autopilot with no inflation indexing or caps.	The longer they run, the more distortionary they become. A policy that was “moderate” in 1999 is now extreme in 2025 because house prices and rents exploded while the rules stayed identical.

 

[Muz]

If you are so interested in AVERAGES then think of how over the average of their their life millennials have had more toys, worked less hours and will retire because of compulsory super at a higher rate over all of their working life with money that will mean on average they will not need to scrimp and save in retirement and choose between eating and paying the bills. And that is before they inherit vastly overpriced real estate.

Each generation has its own challenges, this one is no different, but they also have a huge upside. In the meantime while the early boomers are dying off the later ones will probably have to fight off Joe Hockey 2014 budget style attacks on the pension as the boomers political voice diminishes.

Yeah I think I'd rather scrimp and save and have my house paid off by forty and then enjoy my life with shit tons of disposable income than slog through a 30 to 40 year mortgage to hope that I have the good health to enjoy my retirement when I tick over to 67 even with a bunch of super.

As to your point of inheriting all of this wealth do you think every pensioner in Australia in an aged care facility is cashed up to the hilt ready to distribute goodies amongst their children?

 

[patjennings]

Yeah I think I'd rather scrimp and save and have my house paid off by forty and then enjoy my life with shit tons of disposable income than slog through a 30 to 40 year mortgage to hope that I have the good health to enjoy my retirement when I tick over to 67 even with a buch of super.

As to your point of inheriting all of this wealth do you think every pensioner in Australia in an aged care facility is cashed up to the hilt ready to distribute goodies amongst their children?

probably 'on average' haha

 

[Keeper66]

T

It took your mob on average 3 years to save for a deposit on one wage.

It takes 11 years on average to save for a deposit usually with 2 people working. That is objectively more harder. And you can't save because rents are so ridiculously high. Something boomers and gen X (me) could do while they saved for their deposit.

As for the 17% furphy that lasted all of 5 minutes and the vast majority of loans were capped at 13.5%.

And 17% interest on a tiny was manageable until rates crashed again.

I'd rather pay 17% interest on a house worth 3 times my wage for 12 months than 6.5% on a house worth 10 times (at least) my salary.

And here's an article that explains exactly why. https://www.finder.com.au/buy-a-house/owning-a-home-in-the-80s-vs-today

As for homes without all the stuff in them and finished, just try and buy a new home in a development with covenants all over it and saying you want it half finished. Or for that matter trying to buy a brand new small 2 bedroom home? The developer will laugh you out of his office.

The cost of the land relative to the house is approaching 50%. Something that never was the case 40 years ago.

The biggest thing I take out of this article is the relativity of repayments to income (on average).

In 1984, annual repayments were 418 x 12 =5,016 divided by annual salary of 19188 = 26.6% of annual salary

In 2025, annual repayments are 3640 x 12 = 43680 divided by annual salary of 104520 = 41.8%.

So repayments, which is the important thing regarding affordability, are about 50% more now compared to 40 years ago.

There are also other things to consider though that impacted people 40 years ago. For example, availability of loans was considerably less, even if you could afford it. I know that when I bought my first house in 1988, the first two banks I went to refused to give me a loan even though I could afford the repayments. The third I went to (a building society) did give me a loan, but at an interest rate about 1% higher than the banks. There was much less competition in home lending back then, and generally not possible to negotiate lower interest rates. There were no first home owner benefits back then either, not that they make a large difference when comparing generations.

Every generation has their pluses and minuses, and unfortunately housing availability and affordability is a major issue for the current generation.

 

[patjennings]

TBH I can see that in the lead up to the next election that a number of new initiatives will be flagged for the next term. They won't be announced soon or implemented this term because Albanese basically said before the last election that major changes won't be made because that what's Australia voted for in 2019. However, the world has changed. If he grandfathers out CGT, as well as making judicious changes to negative gearing among other tweaks then in spite of any media backlash the Coalition would have to support them or basically consign themselves to irrelevance. Same with Pauline and the Greens.

The implementation will need to be careful since there is $4.1 trillion in super - a proportion of which is in real estate.

 

[Alex M]

TBH I can see that in the lead up to the next election that a number of new initiatives will be flagged for the next term. They won't be announced soon or implemented this term because Albanese basically said before the last election that major changes won't be made because that what's Australia voted for in 2019. However, the world has changed. If he grandfathers out CGT, as well as making judicious changes to negative gearing among other tweaks then in spite of any media backlash the Coalition would have to support them or basically consign themselves to irrelevance. Same with Pauline and the Greens.

The implementation will need to be careful since there is $4.1 trillion in super - a proportion of which is in real estate.

I don't believe that negative gearing changes really have that much of an effect either way. It will just make some people feel better. Capital gains tax is structured all wrong IMO. Before Costello's changes the discount was equal to the CPI rate. In 1987 Howard went with a policy of a 20% discount for 5 years which reduced the rate to zero after 5 years. The 50% discount after a year just encourages speculation which also affects the competition for housing. I would be OK with a 10% a year discount or even 7.5% which eventually eliminates CGT if you keep an asset long enough (10-15 years). The brief window of large top ups was mainly to allow people who hadn't been able to contribute significantly to super to top it up. It maybe was a bit generous and should have had smaller limits to contributions. I was in my 40's then and didn't really have much extra cash to splash into super and I think I was a bit too young anyway as I have memories of their being age limits but I'm not 100% sure I am right on that. I keep reasonable track of my assets and currently have around 17% of my wealth in super and its by far the best performing investment as its in retirement phase. Shares makeup about 12%, cash a bit under 4 and the rest in real estate. A lot of the real estate earnings disappear through a combination of maintenance costs, Council rates, water rates, insurance, land tax and income tax on what's left. I could get better returns elsewhere and would sell and reinvest but CGT will scoop up around 20% of the value so any other investment would need to outperform that by at least that amount and none of them do. I'm well aware that I'm better off than most of my generation, but still find it annoying that people think we had it easy when we bloody well didn't. Life is often a struggle, more for some than others but most of us at my age have had our share of struggling over the years.

 

[JS96]

Book exchange.

 

[LFC]

I lived in the past cobber. I paid 3 times my wages for a house and my wife didn't work and we had three kids and she only went to work when the last one turned 5.

cobber come on, don't be like that mate.
You done better than me and I started earlier, my wife had to work period right through us having 3kids and doing 3days to this day.

Almost impossible to do that today.

Nothing is impossible though

You've got your head up your arse if you don't think kids of today don't have it harder than we did.

Why speak as such not deserved, I have agreed its hard in this day and age.

The facts speak for themselves. Houses are on average, AVERAGE, being the pertinent word here, (not anecdotal, this is how my kids did it), 8 to 10 times average wages. That's a fuck off huge difference. To the point where some institutions in Australia have brought out 40 year mortgages as a way of making repayments 'more affordable'.

Facts is one thing laying blame on people who worked their butts off/sacrificed to make a living and provide whatever they strived for for their fam or whatever doesn't make them the bogey gen, pretty pathetic imo, they worked what the system layed ahead no diff to any other gen what challenges they had - only a very small % make it easy as far I can tell.
Typical from gen to gen decade to decade.
I feel for the young gens incl my 2 youngest such as yours not just about affordability but the whole BS lifestyle thats ahead that they embrace.....
patjennings has posted once again some decent feedback instead of being on the soap box like back in the Domain ol days. Those types never got anywhere as well but bags of wind.

patjennings, every gov has done their good and bad policies, everything runs its course till it gets to the point of explosion, no matter whom, we suffered 13yrs of Hawke/Keating high unemployment reccesion we had to have prior to howard/costello please turn it up.
What goes around comes around.....
Big big calls to be made, at the same time the rest of the world is spiralling - its a massive whirlpool and this will play alot into what decisions will be made locally ahead.