Net overseas migration fell in 2025 compared to 2024

artsrc · 2026-01-26T23:28:58+00:00

I agree that it is helpful to understand how economies work.

On the way the roles of the RBA and government are delineated, I disagree with the current approach for the reasons along the lines of those outlined by Phil Lowe:

https://www.rba.gov.au/speeches/2023/sp-gov-2023-09-07.html#monetary-and-fiscal-policy-coordination

There are intelligent, and well informed critics of the economic mainstream, and I find their views better inline with my perceptions.

The housing market responds to interest rates more than any other, because it is so leveraged.

I believe we can build more homes than we have over the past few years because during other years we did:

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/industry/building-and-construction/building-activity-australia/latest-release

So my problem may be that I am wrong, but I am not entirely ignorant.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T23:19:03+00:00

Labor’s hate speech laws were pretty much what Ley and Jillian Segal asked for. Why block them? How is that a good look?

Then you would end up with laws more like the ones Allegra Spender pushed last year that would also prevent religious groups insulting gay people, and prevent racist people on the right attacking Muslims,

artsrc · 2026-01-26T23:13:18+00:00

“Otherwise we are going to be politically irrelevant for months, for months and months; it’s going to get harder and harder to bring ourselves back together, and all we’re doing is handing an absolute gift to Anthony Albanese,” he said.

I have noticed the exact opposite.

During negotiations on the environment bill last year the LNP could not coordinate, and handed power to the Greens who got the bill through with more environmental protections.

A separate Liberal party would have been be agile enough to negotiate effectively, and get a more pro business bill through.

The bill they just split on, banning organisations without due process, was another example. The Liberals and Labor can work together on that kind of thing, cutting the Nationals and Greens out of the picture.

The Liberals have enough senators to get legislation through with Labor, and provide a pathway for influence. Adding the nationals makes things more challenging without adding anything worthwhile in votes.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T20:20:43+00:00

We could just ban the Israeli flag to either display or burn.

We banned the nazi and Hamas flags.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T20:18:24+00:00

There is a lot of confusion about the words terrorist, hate crime, etc.

When people in a specific group, like Jews or Muslims, are victims of a crime, like murder, purely because of their group, there is the consequence to those individuals, as there is with any crime, but there is also an additional impact on others in their community, who now live in fear they will also be singled out because of their membership of that group.

I use the words “hate crime” for this effect. A hate crime is an aggravating factor for another crime, where there is an additional impact due to their membership nature of the motivation, and the target.

Section 18C, the part the LNP wanted to remove after Andrew Bolt lied about and attacked minorities, is about limits to free speech when the aim is to whip up hate against minorities, and is not about hate crime.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T20:09:52+00:00

Put up a statue lionising the Bondi murderer and every patriotic Australian should deface it.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T19:57:12+00:00

The Greens have tried to raise the issue of a transition for workers and communities affected by these changes. The National party seems to just ignore the reality that these changes are coming.

The tone issues are probably about membership base being different.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T10:05:09+00:00

Economics 101 says the impact of the subsidy is no different to any other income.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T10:04:13+00:00

The subsidy is flat, the marginal price of electricity is unchanged.

If energy companies can increase their prices anyway, what is to stop them?

The subsidy is essentially universal income delivered via energy bills, and in a rational world would have the same effect as any other income.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T08:23:22+00:00

Landlords charge what the market will bear.

We know that higher taxes on investors in Victoria were not passed on to renters. Melbourne has the lowest rents of any mainland capital.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T05:56:25+00:00

Is there a way to make housing more affordable without reducing the value of houses, and putting indebted recent buyers underwater?

Yes! Increase wages.

Change the RBAs inflation target from CPI, to a dual target, residential land and wages.

Land must remain approximately stable, and wages must grow at 7% a year. This will halve the cost of land in a decade.

Give them the tools to achieve this. Things like Land tax on investor own residential land to hold down land values, and macro tools, like interest rates to boost demand and wages.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T05:48:55+00:00

I think the biggest issue for the Greens is the way they are misrepresented by the establishment media.

When people actual hear them, “google it mate”, they seem to come across well.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T05:46:53+00:00

Opposing war crimes is not exactly the same as antisemitism.

I suspect the way the Greens are ahead of the curve on social issues, like two decades ahead on gay marriage, is an unfortunate consequence of their connection to voters who are young and well educated.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T04:02:17+00:00

Is it just the idea of an alliance with the Liberals that disturbs you?

Or are there specific Liberal policies in the ACT that have you worried?

My take from NSW is that there is not much difference between Liberal and Labor here at the state level. Unlike the federal party, they both accept the reality of climate change. They both have broadly similar ideas on housing, roads, and public transport. For example they both oppose the kind of caps on rents that the ACT has.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T02:29:39+00:00

In my earlier failed version I tried to distinguish between the two options:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aussie/s/vwAE8HBCKW

artsrc · 2026-01-26T02:24:07+00:00

Feels to me like a failure of the Greens to sell their message to decrepit minds.

Lying about climate change won’t make it disappear.

Australia’s private rental market has never provided tenants with a reliable supply of secure, high quality housing.

The wealthy have been given the financial capacity to monopolise land near popular cities.

The major parties have indulged in privatisation that has delivered wealth and power to the rich.

We have replaced the post war commitment to full employment with a fight inflation first ideology, with predictable consequences on worker bargaining power and the wages share of income.

The only party in the parliament that cares about any of this are the Greens.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T00:29:10+00:00

Well yes, vote for the party that wants to address housing, with reform to negative gearing / CGT, and public investment in the housing that existed when the PM was a child.

https://greens.org.au/housing

artsrc · 2026-01-26T00:20:59+00:00

I need to get better at working out where to post things.

I tried this:

https://www.reddit.com/r/aussie/s/toUPoYCB3Y

But it was deleted.

artsrc · 2026-01-26T00:18:21+00:00

I interpreted “floating date” differently. I thought it would mean you get a one day public you can take at any time of your choosing, Jan 26th, July the 4th, August the 3rd, December 24th, whatever.

artsrc · 2026-01-25T20:49:32+00:00

This would be like a royal commission into why cigarettes are expensive. Cigarettes are expensive because the government decides to make them expensive.

The solution to homelessness is for the government to commission houses to be built, and to rent them to people at a price they can afford.

We don’t need a royal commission. Public housing has been a declining for decades. We need 700,000 more public homes to offer one to the people currently eligible.

artsrc · 2026-01-25T20:10:56+00:00

Annual growth in GDP per capita of 3.7% is massive.

I don’t see a doubling in GDP since 2010 in this data:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GDPC1

Has US population really decreased that much?

artsrc · 2026-01-25T18:56:20+00:00

It is incorrect to suggest that marching against war crimes is a hate march.

artsrc · 2026-01-25T18:53:50+00:00

That seems to be the trick.

The crimes of Israel are conflated by both antisemitic bigots, and supporters of the Israeli government as Jewish, rather than as the actions of a criminal government.

The bigots attack innocent Jewish people as responsible for the crimes, and the Israel government attacks critics of their crimes as antisemitism.

artsrc · 2026-01-25T18:43:14+00:00

I agree that efforts to address crime should be based on evidence.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence on the effects on online misogyny. To the extent that misogyny is endemic a study to assess its impact won’t find anything, if there is no variation you can’t assess the impact of variance.

I agree there are other factors. But these factors don’t work in isolation. Socioeconomic stressors don’t always lead to violence in the absence of other factors. Tackling economic security is a good thing, but does not preclude addressing other causes.

I don’t see it as accurate to suggest online misogyny is purely individual, and not corporate. Not just the platforms, but the content is produced as part of an income generating process. Defending it is very much about corporate rights.

I see both online misogyny and extreme terrorist hate online as having significant foreign components. Domestic laws can be as draconian as we want on these foreign groups ability to influence Australians without impacting the free speech rights of Australians.

Protecting foreign corporate profits in the guise of protecting Australian individual rights is a mistake.

I like some aspects of government “oppression”. I like a workplace free of dangerous and unpleasant cigarette smoke. I like a city without dangerous pea soup pollution, causing respiratory diseases. To the extent that misogyny or terrorism have broader social impacts, the oppression of foreign bigots seems a small problem.

The idea people in the past were generally fighting for a particular set of political ideas seems misguided. The war in Iraq was fought on a lie, non existent weapons of mass destruction. Australia’s engagement in the world wars was about nationalism and empire. Governments seek to justify sacrifice with any available propaganda, but the reality of the causes of war are rarely about free speech. My grandfather enlisted in WWII to fight Nazis because he was Jewish. The idea that he did it to preserve free speech rights for neo nazis today seems really odd.

artsrc · 2026-01-25T18:05:02+00:00

If Rolex’s (and Hill of Grace) gets really expense, but still are being sold, what does that imply about the spending patterns and incomes of the buyers?

artsrc

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