Interesting Experience

I had an interesting experience this week - though not a first for me. The Commonwealth is having an inquiry into housing unaffordability. Australia has a similar problem to the UK in that housing prices have had a very strong run, and a Senate Select Committee (SSC) was looking at ways in which housing might be made more affordable. I made a submission a month ago, one of about 65 received by the committee. On the basis of that, I was asked to testify before the committee and have my words of wisdom incorporated in Hansard!

The interview took place on Wednesday by teleconference and I summarised my submission and fielded questions from the committee. By the way, I felt qualified to make the submission as I taught property development for 30 years and had prepared a paper on housing affordability for a major conference (The State of Australian Cities) held one week after my cardiac arrest in November last year. Needless to say, I didn't get to Adelaide to present it! But I did revise it for the SSC. The committee was looking for quick fixes, but I couldn't give them one, except to say that every property boom in Australia's history has self corrected in the longer term - often 5 to 10 years. This one looks no different. I did say that the recent boom, which is now cooling was caused by an extraordinary conflation of events, including a rapid rise in immigration levels, large scale interregional migration in Australia, changing household composition, a wealth boom lasting now 12 years in succession, globalisation, and so on. All those events raised demand against a background in which supply responded very slowly and at great expense because of government taxes and charges. I sketched how to restrain housing prices in the longer term with good public policies, but I guess I'll get ignored.

AS