Housing News Digest
Housing News Digest
The Tenants' Union Housing News Digest compiles our pick of items from all the latest tenancy and housing media, sent once per week, on Thursdays.
Below is the Digest archive from November 2020 onwards. From time to time you will find additional items in the archive that did not make it into the weekly Digest email. Earlier archives are here, where you can also find additional digests by other organisations.
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Archive
Federal budget 2021 is a missed opportunity for aged care reform
Anne Connolly ABC (No paywall)The billions of extra dollars going into aged care has to improve the system, but it is not the "generational change" the Prime Minister is touting. When the royal commissioners into Aged Care Quality and Safety Tony Pagone QC and Lynelle Briggs wrapped up their $90 million, two-and-a-half-year inquiry into aged care, they had one wish: a "landmark Australian social policy reform" which would ensure well trained, well paid staff overseen by an independent auditor and with complete transparency for the billions of dollars in taxpayer funds given to the industry each year. Best calculation to achieve that: an extra $10 billion a year. What Australia received is almost $18 billion over five years, no guarantee of mandatory minimum training of workers, a refusal to lift wages, a bolstering of an inept regulator and continuing freedom for providers to spend money as they see fit.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-15/aged-care-reform-not-evid…
# Australia, Federal Government, Housing market, Older people.NSW Building Commissioner says engineers behind Sydney towers with 'structural issues' must be 'accountable'
Josh Bavas ABC (No paywall)The NSW Building Commissioner says he will refer the principal engineers involved in a large Sydney residential development where "structural issues" were found to the industry's peak body. ... A team of inspectors from NSW Fair Trading has also reported finding "the existence of structural issues that would require specialist engineering advice" in the basement of two of the five proposed towers, following a separate inspection.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-05-14/engineers-of-castle-hill-…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.Inspectors investigate five-tower apartment block amid building defect allegations
Laura Chung The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)An apartment complex under construction in Sydney’s north-west has undergone an urgent inspection after allegations of serious building defects were aired by a whistleblower.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/inspectors-investigate-five-…
# NSW, Housing market, Minimum habitability standards.‘Shattered’: Residents rise from the sudden death of their ’hood
Harriet Alexander The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)There are communities that die slowly, with the closure of a mine or the re-routing of a road, and those that are erased with the speed of a bushfire. The obliteration of Randwick’s Eurimbla precinct, wedged between UNSW on one side and Prince of Wales Hospital on the other, was perfunctory. In 2017 officials started knocking on the residents’ doors. A date was given. They were promised fair prices for their homes, but there was no negotiating about the fact they had to move out. After all, the hospital was expanding and who could argue with that?
https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/shattered-residents-rise-fro…
# NSW, History, Housing market, Planning and development.The Melbourne suburbs with too much lead in veggie gardens
Rachael Dexter The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)When Julie Heller and her young family moved into their weatherboard home in 2013, they were excited by the prospect of growing their own produce in their sprawling north-facing backyard lined with fruit trees. But a soil sample test two years ago revealed parts of their Brunswick West property contained traces of lead in the soil that were as much as 10 times the level considered safe in Australia.
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/the-melbourne-suburbs-w…
# Australia, Asbestos, lead, hazardous materials, Home ownership.Can we refit empty office buildings for housing in the heart of our cities?
David Stevenson, architect ABC (No paywall)Our city-centres are screaming out for more people at a time when there is an abundance of empty office space. With affordable housing also an issue, is it possible to refit these empty office spaces and entice more people back to living in the city? (ABC RN Drive)
https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/drive/can-we-refit…
# Audio Australia, Affordable housing, Housing market.Pallas insists budget about fairness as property industry savages tax hikes
Ashleigh McMillan The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Property industry leaders have criticised planned hikes on stamp duty and land tax in this week’s Victorian state budget as “short-term gain for long-term pain” that would worsen housing affordability, as Treasurer Tim Pallas insisted it was fair to ask those who had benefited from surging values contributed more to repairing public finances. ... Developers and land speculators who reap windfall gains when their property is rezoned will be hit with a 50 per cent tax if the gain is worth $500,000. The brunt of the new tax increases would be worn by landlords ...
https://www.smh.com.au/national/victoria/property-industry-savag…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents, State Government, Tax.CBA keeping close eye on housing investor loans as profits surge to $2.4b
Clancy Yeates The Sydney Morning Herald (Paywall)Commonwealth Bank chief executive Matt Comyn says he would be wary about any resurgence in speculative borrowing by property investors, even though lending standards have so far remained strong as house prices have taken off.
https://www.smh.com.au/business/banking-and-finance/cba-s-quarte…
# Australia, Housing market, Landlords and agents.