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Home price slide loses momentum as new listings tighten
The residential property market continues its downturn but the rate of decline has pulled back sharply, AAP reports.
The monthly home value index released by property data from CoreLogic declined 0.14% over the month – the smallest monthly loss since the Reserve Bank first started hiking interest rates in May last year.
CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless said consistently low numbers of new homes listed for sale and rising auction clearance rates were insulating home prices.
Lawless said:
The past four weeks have seen the flow of new capital city listings tracking 17% lower than a year ago and 11.9% below the previous five-year average.
Across the capital cities, Sydney home values recorded the only uplift, rising 0.3%.
But the easing rate of decline was evident across the board, with Darwin the only capital city to record a steeper monthly fall over the month.
Regional home values fell 0.3% and faster than the 0.1% decline across combined capitals, although the lift in Sydney home values largely accounted for this difference.
Overall, rest-of-state regions were still performing the same or better than their capital cities.
Lawless said it was hard to say if the market was bottoming out or if this was “the eye of the storm”:
Considering the Reserve Bank of Australia’s move to a more hawkish stance at the February board meeting, along with an expectation for a weaker economic performance and a loosening in labour markets, there is a good chance this reprieve in the housing downturn could be short-lived.
Key events
Ella Buckland became a campaign manager for Australian Parents for Climate Action in Lismore after the climate crisis came to her front door a year ago.
In an opinion piece today, Buckland shares her experience of what this last year has been like for her and her community, as well as what she wants to see for the country going forward:
I’ve never raised my child to be fearful of climate change. She doesn’t even know what it means. I did this to give her a few more years of innocence, but even with my careful planning for her mental health, climate change came to us.
It broke down our doors and windows and delivered a rain of shit on to everything we loved. I don’t want this to be her future, or the future for any child. There are solutions, Australia is just not utilising them.
We need to work together, we need to at least try to reduce emissions to keep our communities, our children safe, because next time, it could be your child.
Read the entire piece here:
Truth-telling inquiry to hear ‘human toll’ of injustice
The personal toll of systemic injustices on Indigenous Victorians and their families is set to be laid bare by Australia’s first truth-telling inquiry, AAP reports.
From today, Victoria’s Yoorrook Justice Commission will return for another two-week block of public hearings delving into the state’s “broken” child protection and criminal justice systems.
The topics were raised by the commission last year, but the latest block of hearings will place a greater emphasise on personal experiences.
Indigenous parents and carers of removed children and Stolen Generations members will be called during the first week.
Commissioners will also hear from Aboriginal Victorians with links to the adult and youth criminal justice systems and their families, as well as advocates and experts.
Some witnesses will speak in closed sessions because of the sensitive nature of their evidence.
Yoorrook chair Eleanor Bourke said:
We will hear about the human toll of systemic injustice, and the enduring impact this has on individuals, their families and community more broadly.
Reforms to Victoria’s strict bail laws and raising the age of criminal responsibility will continue to be canvassed, after the state government committed to legislative changes, along with addressing systemic injustices in both systems.
Reform needed in a number of areas, not just super tax: Allegra Spender
Independent MP for Wentworth, Allegra Spender, says she wants to see a wider debate about the whole of Australia’s tax system, “not just one tax at a time”.
In a Twitter thread this morning, Spender talks about the reform she’d like to see:
We talked about capping super for a week. And now the government has acted. But the $2bn [p.a.] raised won’t solve our structural deficit. I’m really pleased the Treasurer Jim Chalmers is encouraging “conversations” because frankly there’s a lot we need to talk about.
So let’s talk about our whole tax system. Not just one tax at a time. Australia relies too much on direct taxes – income tax and company tax. We’re out of step with other OECD countries. We need to consider other tax options.
For example – what about a Minerals Resource Rent Tax for future mining? We’ve seen oil and gas companies reap super profits off the back of the Ukraine war. Australian taxpayers missed out. What sort of tax system should we have for the next mining boom? Cobalt, lithium etc …
While we’re on Super – should we be pushing ahead with lifting compulsory Super to 12% in 2025? The Grattan Institute reports that younger Australians face financial stress because they’re putting aside more than they need for retirement. Let’s tackle that discussion too.
And what about how govt spends your taxes? For example, we’re spending more on education than ever, but education standards aren’t rising. How can we spend that money to better effect? Problems aren’t always solved by more money. We’ve got to make sure we’re spending wisely.
All these areas and more need reform – positive change for the future. Too often the major parties (pushed by the media) won’t tackle reform. They’re trapped in a spiral of gotchas and point scoring where reforms are ruled out before they’re even considered.
We need to develop policies to achieve our national objectives for a future economy that supports innovation, business, climate action, and fairness. Voters want to see politics done better, and I’ll be consulting my constituents and pushing both sides to do politics better.
On what reform other crossbenchers want to see, read Paul Karp’s latest:
Home price slide loses momentum as new listings tighten
The residential property market continues its downturn but the rate of decline has pulled back sharply, AAP reports.
The monthly home value index released by property data from CoreLogic declined 0.14% over the month – the smallest monthly loss since the Reserve Bank first started hiking interest rates in May last year.
CoreLogic’s research director Tim Lawless said consistently low numbers of new homes listed for sale and rising auction clearance rates were insulating home prices.
Lawless said:
The past four weeks have seen the flow of new capital city listings tracking 17% lower than a year ago and 11.9% below the previous five-year average.
Across the capital cities, Sydney home values recorded the only uplift, rising 0.3%.
But the easing rate of decline was evident across the board, with Darwin the only capital city to record a steeper monthly fall over the month.
Regional home values fell 0.3% and faster than the 0.1% decline across combined capitals, although the lift in Sydney home values largely accounted for this difference.
Overall, rest-of-state regions were still performing the same or better than their capital cities.
Lawless said it was hard to say if the market was bottoming out or if this was “the eye of the storm”:
Considering the Reserve Bank of Australia’s move to a more hawkish stance at the February board meeting, along with an expectation for a weaker economic performance and a loosening in labour markets, there is a good chance this reprieve in the housing downturn could be short-lived.
Graham Readfearn
Australia must set targets for amount of CO2 to be removed from air, scientists say
Australia should set targets for the amount of carbon dioxide that could be pulled permanently from the atmosphere using “carbon drawdown” techniques like tree planting and direct air capture, according to a report from the Australian Academy of Science.
A national coordinated approach is urgently needed to promote projects that remove carbon dioxide from the air, the report says, with a lack of policies seeing Australia fall behind other countries.
Drivers asked to go without a car in Uber experiment
Fifty Australian drivers will be challenged to give up their cars for a month and replace driving with ride-share trips, rental cars, e-bikes and scooter rides as part of a social experiment.
Uber unveiled its One Less Car trial today, revealing it would work with behavioural researchers as well as micro-mobility firms Lug + Carrie and Lime to test whether it was possible and cheaper to replace car ownership with services.
Each participant will receive more than $1300 in travel credits to use on public transport, Uber rides, short-term Uber car share rentals, e-bikes or e-scooters through Lime, and cargo e-bikes from Lug + Carrie.
The trial will come after a survey of more than 1,000 Australians found almost half were concerned about road congestion but almost as many planned to buy another car within two years.
Uber Australia general manager Dom Taylor said the experiment was “many, many years in the making” and was designed to challenge the idea Australians needed to own a car for everyday transport.
There is going to be a gradual shift, we think, away from car ownership over the next 50 years but Uber’s the sort of place where we don’t love gradual shifts – we like step changes.
There is a mind-boggling problem that Australia faces and that is the 15m cars that Aussies own that sit idle 95% of the time that are causing holes in our cities and our wallets.
Uber will recruit participants from Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Adelaide and Canberra for the trial, and ask them to give up at least one of the cars in their household.
Each person must fill out a journal about their experience and wear a fitness tracker to determine whether they exercise more.
Taylor said data compiled in the trial would be analysed by researchers at The Behavioural Architects, and shared with academics and government agencies.
– AAP
Ancient texts shed new light on mysterious whale behaviour
Taking a step away from superannuation for a moment to bring you news that will delight lovers of whales and ancient history alike.
If there’s one story you’ll want to be bringing to your office lunchroom or whatever conversations you’re having today, it’s this one from our science writer Donna Lu about how ancient texts are shedding new light on mysterious whale behaviour:
Mysterious whale feeding behaviour only documented by scientists in the 2010s has been described in ancient texts about sea creatures as early as two millennia ago, new research suggests.
In 2011, Bryde’s whales in the Gulf of Thailand were first observed at the surface of the water with their jaws open at right angles, waiting for fish to swim into their mouths. Scientists termed the unusual technique, then unknown to modern science, as “tread-water feeding”.
… Flinders University scholars now believe they have identified multiple descriptions of the behaviour in ancient texts, the earliest appearing in the Physiologus – the Naturalist – a Greek manuscript compiled in Alexandria around 150-200CE.
Dr John McCarthy, a maritime archaeologist at Flinders University in Adelaide, South Australia, and the study’s lead author, made the discovery while reading Norse mythology, about a year after he had seen a video of a whale tread-water feeding.
Taylor doesn’t answer whether the coalition government would repeal the necessary legislation on these changes to super were they to win government at the next election, he only says that they will oppose the legislation in this term of parliament.
He also questions the veracity of the government’s claim that the changes will only affect 80,000 Australians:
It’s very important to understand the idea that this will only affect 80,000 Australians is baloney, because inflation is running hot and the threshold is not indexed.
So we’ll see the threshold dropping in real terms and affecting many, many more Australians.
At a time when we have high inflation, the Treasurer wants to impact many more Australians … the government should be honest about how many Australians will be affected in a relatively high environment as this threshold falls in real terms, and people’s superannuation accounts increase.
Circling back to the shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor’s interview with ABC News Breakfast.
Taylor is worried about the other $150bn worth of tax concessions that were outlined in yesterday’s expenditure statement being “up for grabs” including a tax on the family home and taxes on negative gearing.
When Rowland informs Taylor the prime minister, Anthony Albanese, has just ruled out any changes to the capital gains tax on the family home, he says:
Well, he ruled out taxing superannuation as well. So, it’s very clear from what’s been happening in the last week that Labor doesn’t keep its commitments. It doesn’t keep its promises. And I don’t think we can trust the prime minister on claiming he’s not wanting to tax the family home as well.
Taylor is asked to confront the possibility he has double standards when it comes to criticising a Labor government, because as Rowlands points out the coalition government, under then Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, “brought in a heap of changes in the 2016 budget”
A $1.6m cap in tax concessions on pension phases, winding back contribution limits, increasing from $300,000 a year to $250,000 a year the income level in which high super taxes come in. None of that was fore shadowed to Australian voters.
Taylor replies:
They were taken to the 2016 election and legislated after the election. Labor is not proposing to do that. They’re proposing to legislate this now, in this term of Parliament. If they were serious about taking it to an election, they wouldn’t legislate before the election.
It’s bizarre. It’s saying, yes, we’re going to legislate this now, and then we’ll take it to the Australian people. I mean that’s not taking it to the Australian people.
Josh Butler
LGBTQ+ health research funding ‘will save lives’: Equality Australia CEO
Equality Australia has praised the government’s $26m for LGBTIQA+ health research as a “gamechanger” that “will save lives”.
As reported earlier, the assistant health minister, Ged Kearney, will announce the funding later today in Sydney, as well as the development of a 10-year health and wellbeing strategy. She will detail the changes at a human rights conference connected to WorldPride.
Equality Australia’s CEO, Anna Brown, backed the announcement this morning.
This historic gamechanging commitment from the federal government recognises that our communities have unique and sometimes very challenging health needs.
Quite simply, this plan will save lives.
LGBTIQA+ people have significantly poorer mental health, disparities in other health outcomes and can often struggle to get the right care and treatment.
Brown said LGBTIQA+ communities had long called for greater national coordination and investment in health, and many felt needs had not been met by the health system.
The fact the announcement has happened here – at the largest LGBTIQA+ human rights conference ever held in the Asia Pacific region – is a sign of how far we have come in Australia when it comes to valuing and respecting our communities.
Government promises $26m for health and medical research for LGBTQIA+ community
Josh Butler
The federal government will invest $26m in new health and medical research for LGBTQIA+ Australians, as well as a new health and wellbeing plan.
The announcement has been hailed as a “gamechanger” by a leading health body.
The health minister, Mark Butler, and assistant health minister, Ged Kearney, will announce the funding today, with Kearney attending a human rights conference connected to WorldPride in Sydney.
Butler and Kearney said LGBTIQA+ people had “unique and often complex health needs, and difficulty getting appropriate health care, which can lead to poorer physical and mental health outcomes.”
They will open a dedicated round of grants through the Medical Research Future Fund, which the government is calling the largest ever investment in LGBTIQA+ health research.
The government will also announce a 10-year National Action Plan for the Health and Wellbeing of LGBTIQA+, to address health disparities and improve systems. Kearney is to convene a roundtable before the conference in Sydney, the first part of a major national consultation for the action plan that will be informed by a LGBTIQA+ Health Advisory Group.
Kearney said:
I’m proud of how far we’ve come and I’m even prouder to stand beside so many fierce advocates in the LBGTIQA+ community that have fought to get Australia where we are today – but the fight is not over.
When the glitter washes away, we have real work to do and the new path to better health must be paved together.
She said the government would work with community members, peak bodies and clinical experts to make Australia’s health system more “welcoming, supportive and effective”, and overcome what she called “unacceptable disparities in health outcomes and significant barriers” for LGBTIQA+ people.
Butler said some LGBTIQA+ people still faced discrimination, stigma, isolation, harassment and violence, “all of which leads to poorer health and mental health”.
As WorldPride celebrations continue in Sydney, there is no better time to demonstrate how committed this Government is to health equality.
Darryl O’Donnell, CEO of the Australian Federation of Aids Organisations, said stigma and discrimination were still major barriers to accessing healthcare.
More than one-in-four young LGBTQA+ people have attempted suicide at some point in their lives, while more than six-in-ten have sought counselling or other support.
This investment promises to be a gamechanger. It will transform our understanding of LGBTIQA+ health and properly inform the scope, scale and character of health services needed to arrest the health crisis facing our communities.
Shadow treasurer insists super tax changes are ‘super-sized broken election promise’
The shadow treasurer, Angus Taylor, is now speaking to ABC News Breakfast.
While the government is saying they haven’t broken any election promises because these super changes won’t be introduced until after the next federal election, Taylor is saying the fact that the legislation is going to be put through this term undermines that.
Michael Rowland:
What’s wrong with voters getting to say yay or nay to this at the next election?
Taylor:
They won’t. Because the legislation is proposed to be put through in this term. So, this is a super-sized broken election promise. And it is very clear that Labor committed they wouldn’t make changes to superannuation taxation before the last election. And now, they’ve changed that. They’re going to put the legislation through in this term.
If they were serious about putting it to an election, they would wait to put the legislation through after the next election. That’s not what they’re proposing. So it’s very clear that this is a breach of trust with the Australian people. The prime minister was unambiguous in saying there wouldn’t be changes to superannuation.
Amy Remeikis
PM: Opposition ‘are making themselves irrelevant’ on super tax changes and other issues
Anthony Albanese is also trying to wedge the opposition over this. As Murph and Paul Karp have reported, the Coalition (minus a couple of MPs) are against the super changes. Jane Hume referred to it yesterday as “class welfare” (she meant class warfare). But the PM is willing to have a fight over these concessions for people with more than $3m in their super account.
Albanese said:
We’ll continue to pursue the case for reform in this area, like we’re continuing to pursue the case for reform, in housing, in dealing with climate change, in all of these issues.
It’s a pity that the opposition are making themselves irrelevant. But we’ll talk to the crossbench about these issues like we’re having to talk to them about other issues, because the Coalition sitting on the sidelines, throwing rocks – they created the problem of a trillion dollars debt. They just don’t want to be part of any of the solution.
Amy Remeikis
So will everything be done this way then? Any changes will be set for after the next election?
Anthony Albanese:
No, I think on this measure is the right thing to do. And we have obviously had a discussion about it – cabinet met yesterday – it was something that I strongly supported, ensuring that any changes were after the election. So it’s very clear that we are being upfront about what our intentions are. And that is why doing it after the election makes that very clear.
Amy Remeikis
PM says negative gearing will not change
Same goes for negative gearing, which independent senator David Pocock wants the government to look at.
That’s a big no from Anthony Albanese.
Albanese says:
He has a range of proposals, and good luck to him.
Albanese says the government is operating on whether or not something is fair. But is it fair for someone to have multiple properties which they are negatively gearing in order to build more wealth?
Albanese doesn’t engage.
We announced exactly what we are doing yesterday.
And the sort of … speculative thing about someone who’s an independent [raising] some issue has no track with me whatsoever.
Albanese rules out changes to capital gains concessions on family homes
Amy Remeikis
Karvelas interrupts to ask whether there would be any changes to things like capital gains tax.
That’s because Jim Chalmers was asked to play a fun game of rule in, rule out on some of his interviews, including on the Seven network.
Chalmers did not rule in or rule out anything. That opened a door which Albanese has slammed shut when it comes to capital gains concessions.
We are not. We are not going to impact the family home … Full stop, exclamation mark.
Asked why not, Albanese says “we’re not going to” and when asked why not again, he says “because it is a bad idea”.
Albanese:
It’s a bad idea because people who save for their home, that you know that they live in with their family, is something that we have no intention – we will not be making any changes there.
And no one I have never heard in all of the meetings that I’ve been to, over the years – and I’ve been to a few of the Labor party, cabinet caucus and branch meeting – I have never heard anyone raise that as a proposition.
Amy Remeikis
So far in this interview, Anthony Albanese is sticking to the main lines. No matter how hard Patricia Karvelas tries, the PM is not moving away from talking about the modest concessions it has put forward over tax concessions for people with more than $3m in their super account.
The RN Breakfast host is trying to pin down whether or not there will be wider reforms of tax concessions, given what we saw in the tax expenditure statement yesterday.
The PM is not biting.
This was a treasury statement. It wasn’t a statement by the cabinet, if you like. This was just a statement of fact [of the situation] that we’re in, which we’re compulsorily required to do under the budget as part of the honesty provisions; what we’ve done is release more information. It’s more honest than it’s been in the past …
Emergency room wait times improve for second quarter in a row in NSW
NSW’s department of health says despite a record number of critical presentations, emergency department wait times has improved for the second quarter in a row.
The Bureau of Health has released the report for the final quarter of last year (October – December 2022) which it says shows the health system is recovering from the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic, despite ongoing high demand.
NSW Health deputy secretary, adjunct professor Matthew Daly, said there were more than 790,000 attendances at the state’s emergency departments throughout the final quarter of 2022 and a record number in the most critical categories.
Despite the huge volume of patients, the proportion of all ED patients who started their treatment on time and the number of patients whose care was transferred from paramedics to ED staff within 30 minutes improved.
For the second quarter in a row we are seeing some positive signs in our results, which is testament to our dedicated staff and their outstanding performance through another challenging quarter.
Labor tracking to win government in NSW, new poll shows
After 12 years in the political wilderness Labor could be poised to form the next NSW government, according to a new poll.
With less than three weeks before the 25 March state election, the Resolve Political Monitor poll is pointing to a majority Labor victory.
However, while 76% of voters polled said they were committed to who they planned to vote for, 24% were still uncertain.
The survey of 803 eligible voters published in the Sydney Morning Herald on Wednesday was conducted between February 22-26.
It found Labor’s primary vote had increased one percentage point to 38%, while the coalition’s had dropped two points to 32%.
With 93 seats up for grabs, the data points to an overall swing of 7% to Labor – enough to deliver the 47 seats required to form a majority government.
The Liberal premier, Dominic Perrottet, remains the preferred premier over Labor’s Chris Minns, at 38% to 34%.
Resolve director Jim Reed told the Herald a majority Labor government followed by a minority government were the most likely outcomes of the election. He said:
However, the comments we receive from respondents tell us that they are still not fully engaged, and a quarter of them tell us they are not committed to their current vote choice.
The poll also showed support for independents had increased, with a primary vote of 13% compared with 5% in the 2019 election.
– AAP
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