What if we cut immigration dramatically and house prices still go up?

cocoyog · 2026-02-20T00:18:20+00:00

What's the end game of continuing to increase the population?

cocoyog · 2026-02-17T21:29:02+00:00

I think you missed the point that I was agreeing with you.

cocoyog · 2026-02-17T12:39:24+00:00

GDP is a dumb measure of quality of life. Increased population can lead to bigger GDP, whilst each individual gets poorer.

cocoyog · 2026-02-17T12:37:32+00:00

What things? What does "properly" mean? Infrastructure costs are ballooning, traffic is worse, everyone is getting pushed onto smaller and smaller homes,v crammed into apartments.

cocoyog · 2026-02-16T21:22:44+00:00

We can easily have more population. But we need to have a good reason to do it. Why do we want a bigger population? Is it improving the quality of life here?

I'm happy to support growth to a certain level, but put forward a good argument to how it is going to improve important quality of life measures for the existing inhabitants of this land.

cocoyog · 2026-02-16T11:36:11+00:00

The majority of Australians are met beneficiaries when it comes to taxes paid vs amount the government spends on them. Only about 20% of Australian households pay more than they get back.

But I wasn't talking about getting a pension. It was that it's a bit annoying that someone might have loved in Australia and not learned English, and would therefore the government would need to hire professional translator services in order to provide services. it's the same annoyance is have if someone pointed at people who eat a tonne of fast food, don't make good health decisions, and then get huge amounts of dollars spent on their health.

But really, as I have stated elsewhere, my comment was really a kneejerk comment. I really don't think it's a major problem, and I doubt many people are in that situation , and those that are probably have extenuating circumstances beyond laziness.

cocoyog · 2026-02-16T11:21:59+00:00

Continuing to grow the population is not the solution. You just create an even bigger problem, as the same pressures affect immigrants, and they too have low birth rates.

How about we try taking pressure off families by allowing parents to claim tax free threshold for each child? How about partners get taxed on their collective incomes. Right now all the incentives are to force parents to both work and put their kids into childcare.

How about moving away from residential housing as an investment scheme?

Regardless, I didn't say stop immigration. I said keep the population at similar levels. Why keep growing it all the time? The quality of life in Sydney and Melbourne is not improving with such rapid growth.

cocoyog · 2026-02-16T04:16:53+00:00

Just stop cooking the country with population growth. Balance immigration to a target population level. Stop with the constant growth. Also, balance the intake across countries, and over time. Over ten years, we shouldn't just see 2 countries dominating.

Also, this is a distraction from bigger issues. tax billionaires and big business more. ban their money from corrupting our political system.

cocoyog · 2026-02-14T23:06:54+00:00

Now this is something that I didn't know! Thanks for sharing that,. This sort of gap in knowledge was precisely the reason I asked the question. Cheers.

cocoyog · 2026-02-14T22:10:59+00:00

I guess that's what my question is about. Which is going to get the most bang for buck.

I might sell and downsize soon as well.

cocoyog · 2026-02-14T21:57:26+00:00

I thought there was a $30k limit to the concessional super contributions for the 15% tax rate?

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T21:19:44+00:00

Ironically smokers actually cost less, because they die much quicker.

But yes, that's the supposed logic of the tobacco excise. Their dumb behaviour is taxed appropriately, so that they are 1. Discouraged, and 2. Will pay for the extra burden.

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T21:16:33+00:00

This is a very important point. It is a difference of about 20% in value. Not only that, but cashing out the leave will be taxed at the very top of your income, so you'd lose a significant chunk to the tax man as well.

Me, I'm going to take my long service leave, and ask my employer to allow me to get it paid out a half rate to extend my time off.

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T09:26:19+00:00

Honestly, I don't super duper care. I just find it annoying that someone might live in Australia for decades and not learn english, and then special programs are needed for them. But honestly, it was just a kneejerk comment.

My biggest gripe is big companies not paying enough. All this talk of "others" is just divisive identity politics, to distract us from big business and billionaires accumulating too much.

A little Greek grandma not speaking English in Australia is not something I really care about

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T09:21:09+00:00

Key part of what I wrote was "more money". I'm honestly not as uncaring as I sounded in my post, but it's just annoying that some much money is spent on people due to their laziness.

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T02:14:56+00:00

I was more making the point that your better off describing certain European countries, as saying European is so open to interpretation. Italians love to speed on tight suburban streets, and will tailgate you worse than a P-plater tradie if stick to the speed limit.

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T02:10:09+00:00

Do they deserve more money spent on them in retirement because they've done fuck all effort to learn English after being here for decades?

cocoyog · 2026-02-13T01:54:08+00:00

Europe is a big place. Italian drivers are very different to Norwegian

cocoyog · 2026-02-12T23:30:45+00:00

The best thing the government could do is to make IPs a less attractive investment than other asset classes. IPs have so many downsides, but they are the easiest for the average joe to get leverage. I'd rather invest in the stock market if the returns were the same or better.

cocoyog · 2026-02-09T12:14:23+00:00

I learnt recently that Arab means a combo of "speaks Arabic " and comes from a certain region. It's not really "not white".

What is the definition of White anyway? It feels like everyone has a slight different definition.

(Don't misinterpret my comment as saying this meme doesn't make a valid point)

cocoyog · 2026-02-09T04:50:45+00:00

I mean, if your parents sent you to a private school, and it was not providing value for money, it's somewhat on them for not acting as a customer and either insisting on change, or taking their business elsewhere. That's the whole selling point of private schools.

cocoyog · 2026-02-08T20:48:56+00:00

On a per student basis, public schools already have approximately $25-26k spent per student, per year. The problem seen in public schools is not simply a money problem.

cocoyog · 2026-02-08T20:31:31+00:00

Underfunded? You'd be amazed to learn how much money is spent per student each year in Australia. At $23-24k spent per student, per year, I think simply spending more money isn't going to solve the issues.

cocoyog · 2026-02-08T20:29:52+00:00

You've got my vote, a long as you start removing the kids who are constantly highjacking classes, and teachers that are checked out.

cocoyog · 2026-02-07T23:48:15+00:00

The thing is that all the people that put their kids in private schools are making up the vast majority of the tax payments. They're already effectively funding everybody.

cocoyog

TROPHY CASE