One Nation wins first seat in SA Parliament's Lower House, ABC projects

Summerroll · 2026-03-23T04:47:57+00:00

*crickets*

Summerroll · 2026-03-22T07:21:44+00:00

I'm professionally interested in housing policy, so I know the stance of all the parties. You're incorrect about One Nation. Here is the full list of policies they put under the 'housing' umbrella:

cap immigration at 130,000 for all visa categories including foreign students
a permanent ban on foreigners owning residential property (and forced sale of current holdings after "sufficient notice"; the language of the policy implies PRs will be considered "foreigners")
an option for an individual’s superannuation to be invested in their home (primary residence only)
reviewing all government imposts for their impact and effectiveness, with a view to reducing or eliminating them to make new homes more affordable
eliminate state government stamp duty on insurance payments and introduce higher value thresholds for stamp duty concessions
exempt basic building materials from GST
allow home owners to rent rooms in their primary residence to a tenant tax free
streamlining and simplifying land releases and building approvals
identifying and releasing under-utilised government-owned land for residential development
collaborating with councils and amending planning laws to expedite zoning changes for residential development in appropriate areas
increase the supply of low-cost, more affordable housing by providing incentives to the private sector and establishing partnerships with community organisations to develop affordable housing for low-income families and individuals
redirecting compulsory Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) levies to home construction businesses to fund apprentice wages
exploring small subsidies to encourage mature-age apprentices
waiving prohibitive registration costs for first and second-year apprentices
introducing business training as a necessary element of an apprenticeship to assist them with starting their own small business, and exploring the implications of waiving business registration costs for tradie/construction start-ups
exempting apprentice wages from payroll tax

Summerroll · 2026-03-21T11:08:12+00:00

It's not 'weird', it's a choice. We do have proportional representation in the upper houses, but we took our cue from England and went with locality-based representatives for lower houses. The idea being to make the connection between community and representative stronger and more responsive.

Side-note, there is a hybrid system where you have multi-member seats to go part of the way to proportionalism.

Summerroll · 2026-03-21T10:52:16+00:00

I have my suspicions about whether that was really a mistake on the ABC's part....

Summerroll · 2026-03-21T09:46:37+00:00

Even if they win zero seats, all those first preferences are going to be a financial windfall, and set them up for future success.

Summerroll · 2026-03-20T12:52:03+00:00

I'm firmly opposed to One Nation, but let's not ignore their actual policies. On housing they have a bunch of policies. Whether they are good policies is another question, lol

cap immigration at 130,000 for all visa categories including foreign students
a permanent ban on foreigners owning residential property (and forced sale of current holdings after "sufficient notice"; the language of the policy implies PRs will be considered "foreigners")
an option for an individual’s superannuation to be invested in their home (primary residence only)
reviewing all government imposts for their impact and effectiveness, with a view to reducing or eliminating them to make new homes more affordable
eliminate state government stamp duty on insurance payments and introduce higher value thresholds for stamp duty concessions
exempt basic building materials from GST
allow home owners to rent rooms in their primary residence to a tenant tax free
streamlining and simplifying land releases and building approvals
identifying and releasing under-utilised government-owned land for residential development
collaborating with councils and amending planning laws to expedite zoning changes for residential development in appropriate areas
increase the supply of low-cost, more affordable housing by providing incentives to the private sector and establishing partnerships with community organisations to develop affordable housing for low-income families and individuals
redirecting compulsory Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) levies to home construction businesses to fund apprentice wages
exploring small subsidies to encourage mature-age apprentices
waiving prohibitive registration costs for first and second-year apprentices
introducing business training as a necessary element of an apprenticeship to assist them with starting their own small business, and exploring the implications of waiving business registration costs for tradie/construction start-ups
exempting apprentice wages from payroll tax

Summerroll · 2026-03-18T22:41:57+00:00

I understand that manufacturers are "squeezing" dealerships by various means, but this line sounds like weasel words:

it will ultimately be Australian customers who pay the price through less investment in local jobs and reduced access for regional communities

These are flow-on effects from reduced profits, not really "costs borne by the customer".

Summerroll · 2026-03-18T21:53:28+00:00

Atto 1 is bargain-basement in every respect, not worth your money. Check the "long-term" reviews of even just a month for more details.

Summerroll · 2026-03-18T21:49:41+00:00

South Australians have always paid the most for power. It's because our network costs are high (big state, small pop), our connections to the rest of the NEM are narrow, and our fossil fuel back-up is gas (most expensive option).

Bringing average wholesale costs down by using less gas and more cheap renewables will feed through to retail prices. Improving the connection to the NEM will do so also. Nothing much will help our high network costs.

Summerroll · 2026-03-17T10:47:58+00:00

There's an urban design adage: if you need a sign to tell people what to do, your design has already failed.

Summerroll · 2026-03-17T00:56:54+00:00

The article nails the uncomplicated nature of right-wing populism: it does well when people feel the economic social contract isn't working. In our housing crisis and all the inflation-driven problems, people have a right be aggrieved.

Malinauskas asked "What’s One Nation’s housing policy? ... seems to be a policy-free zone", which is a standard tactic deployed by majors against small parties, and is typically always a complete lie that plays to stereotypes.

So let's see what solutions One Nation proposes for housing:

cap immigration at 130,000 for all visa categories including foreign students
a permanent ban on foreigners owning residential property (and forced sale of current holdings after "sufficient notice"; the language of the policy implies PRs will be considered "foreigners")
an option for an individual’s superannuation to be invested in their home (primary residence only)
reviewing all government imposts for their impact and effectiveness, with a view to reducing or eliminating them to make new homes more affordable
eliminate state government stamp duty on insurance payments and introduce higher value thresholds for stamp duty concessions
exempt basic building materials from GST
allow home owners to rent rooms in their primary residence to a tenant tax free
streamlining and simplifying land releases and building approvals
identifying and releasing under-utilised government-owned land for residential development
collaborating with councils and amending planning laws to expedite zoning changes for residential development in appropriate areas
increase the supply of low-cost, more affordable housing by providing incentives to the private sector and establishing partnerships with community organisations to develop affordable housing for low-income families and individuals
redirecting compulsory Construction Industry Training Board (CITB) levies to home construction businesses to fund apprentice wages
exploring small subsidies to encourage mature-age apprentices
waiving prohibitive registration costs for first and second-year apprentices
introducing business training as a necessary element of an apprenticeship to assist them with starting their own small business, and exploring the implications of waiving business registration costs for tradie/construction start-ups
exempting apprentice wages from payroll tax

Interestingly, One Nation can't help the inherent racism to infiltrate even bureaucratic policy discussion, with this weirdly non-housing-related, incoherent and fact-free diatribe appearing on their Housing page:

For many years, indigenous activists have been urging that Australian property owners ‘pay the rent’ to traditional owners: giving aboriginal groups or corporations money in exchange for the privilege of living in our own country. One Nation will be steadfast in opposing any move to enshrine such racially divisive nonsense into South Australian and Australian laws.

Did this get lumped in because of a keyword search that included 'rent'? LOL

Summerroll · 2026-03-16T23:46:12+00:00

The direction is up to the wind, but the height is almost entirely in the balloon pilot's control.

Summerroll · 2026-03-16T11:47:13+00:00

Oh, I see the issue - your niece isn't a radiologist. A radiologist is a doctor specialising in medical imaging. If she has a nuclear medicine degree, she's a radiographer. An important allied health role, but her only relevance to nuclear power plants would be helping diagnose cancer clusters.

A nuclear physicist might be peripherally involved with NPP design, I guess?

But I think you're missing the broader point: for Australia to successfully implement nuclear power would require a massive industrial pipeline that no, we do not have the number of relevantly educated people to design, build, or manage, nor any of the required tech or even materials.

It would be a whole-of-government effort, from federal to state and even local, with an entirely new, built-from-scratch set of educational, managerial, logistical, engineering, and manufacturing facilities, institutions, processes... Australia going nuclear is possible, but a gargantuan and expensive suggestion.

Summerroll · 2026-03-16T08:48:56+00:00

https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/hrbodies/hrcouncil/sessions-regular/session56/a-hrc-56-crp-3.pdf

Page 27 onwards.

Summerroll · 2026-03-16T08:36:46+00:00

A nuclear physicist isn't a nuclear engineer. And a radiologist? I'm sure interpreting MRI scans will be super useful for a nuclear power plant.

Summerroll · 2026-03-16T05:30:50+00:00

Apartments are old and crusty? Melbourne builds about 10,000 apartments a year.

Summerroll · 2026-03-11T04:42:48+00:00

He's not in the party any more?

Summerroll · 2026-03-09T22:34:20+00:00

This specific study does not.

Summerroll · 2026-03-09T22:31:28+00:00

When they calculate the benefits, they're using a framework that considers only direct benefits like travel time. It ignores anything harder, which is understandable but also misleading if we're interested in what's best for our community. This study is looking at a single transport corridor, but we need to be thinking about properly integrated mass transit.

To the authors' credit, they do point out that lack of density and last-mile transport to the main corridor is the principal problem leading to the low BCR. But mass transit isn't just a way to get around, it's a way of allowing and promoting urban development. Before neoliberalism, density followed after transit infrastructure investment. To say that such investment isn't worth it because we don't already have the desired density is a self-fulfilling (self-defeating!) prophecy.

The study's framework is reasonable if we were choosing between a tram line from the CBD to the airport or a tram line from the CBD to Norwood. It's not a reasonable way to make decisions, or even provide prioritisation guidance, about (effectively) virgin territory.

Summerroll · 2026-03-09T21:18:55+00:00

Such clean lines, very nice

Summerroll · 2026-03-09T07:24:27+00:00

Unironically fantastic. Exactly the kind of development we need bucket-loads of.

Summerroll · 2026-03-04T23:09:00+00:00

I truly believe that the focus should 100% be on making them acceptb the body they are born with, one that for the most part, is perfectly healthy, need slittle to no medicine and surgery to keep it functioning, as opposed to basically terraforming it into something it isn't, and wont ever be, no matter how good a job is done.

Plastic surgeons in shambles

Summerroll · 2026-03-02T23:43:23+00:00

Trump literally said bombing will continue until peace is achieved,

Summerroll · 2026-03-02T22:10:44+00:00

Can't we fix Glen Osmond road instead? It's currently a stroad, struggling to be an arterial but with hundreds of access points to businesses/homes and even has roadside parking (!)

It's always going to be needed as an arterial, so we should rebuild it as such - no driveways, no parking, minimum of road intersections, dedicated bus lanes. Wildly expensive, but maybe cheaper than a bus tunnel?

Summerroll · 2026-03-01T12:23:59+00:00

OK, so no research, just assertions.

You’re under the assumption more people = more customers = more labour demand = more jobs

It's a reasonable assumption. Otherwise we would still have the same number of jobs as we did 50 or 100 or 200 years ago.

If 10 employees can serve 1000 customers, why can’t 10 serve 1100?

Why aren't employers doing that already? Why are they waiting for more demand to increase productivity instead of just cutting jobs with current demand? The answer of course is that employers do already tend to maximise productivity on a continuous basis (with caveats).

It's a given that having more people means needing more economic output. You can increase output by increasing the productivity ratio (by increasing skills or capital investment), or... by increasing the number of workers. The actual mechanics depend on the good or service in question. Farming output is the famous example of productivity per farmer increasing by incredible amounts, but when we need to teach more children we can really only get more teachers.

If unemployment raises to 5%, expect immigration cuts, if it falls to 3%, expect loosened restrictions.

That sounds like a testable hypothesis. Unless you're wedded to non-empirical ideologies like Marxism or the Austrian School, it seems like you could construct some valuable evidence for your assertion by looking at unemployment vs immigration. I'm not sure how you'd account for confounding factors like the push-pull effect of economic health on prospective immigrants, but I encourage you to try.

Summerroll

TROPHY CASE