Illustration:John Shakespeare
Let’s hope Ross Gittins’ article on the structural changes to the housing market will stop boomers complaining about Gen X,Y and Z trying to secure a home (,February 15). Investor tax incentives (negative gearing) has turned property from an essential human need into an asset class,fuelling speculation,greed and a massive decline in affordability. Interest rates were reduced too far,enticing people to take on larger loans. The previous conservative federal government’s ideological failure to utilise fiscal policy solutions has only exacerbated housing unaffordability.
I don’t envy anyone trying to buy their first home in the 2020s. Those with low job security and/or single incomes are in an especially precarious position.Anne Matheson,Gordon
Housing is now about double the price it once was. What have we done to our young? The Australian dream of homeownership has evaporated. Gittins sings from that well-known song sheet about the rich getting rich and the poor getting poorer. Meanwhile,gutless governments who pander to the rich could salve their consciences and alleviate a dire situation by not subsidising investment properties through tax breaks and negative gearing which condemn the poor to penury.Ron Sinclair,Windradyne
The fastest and easiest way to address the housing shortage for buyers and renters is this;free up all the houses and apartments that are empty,there are tens of thousands of them and maybe more (“”,February 15). These are properties are being used to bank their owners’ wealth who have no need for a rental income. They need to be brought to the market,not all at once,but not left empty. It needs government intervention to compel the owners to either rent their properties or failing that,sell them. Houses and properties are for people to live in and not oversized “piggy banks”.Mark Olesen,Ryde
The government may well need,Jenna Price,to nationalise your spare bedroom,but there is one thing you must not do if you want to help out the homeless. You must not rent out your spare bedroom. If you do,you will pay income tax on the rent (fair enough),but you will also pay capital gains on the bedroom when you come to sell your house,on a pro-rata basis. And given that it is government policy to inflate housing prices,always,this is likely to wipe out any gains you make by renting out your house.
There is a problem with our capital gains tax (CGT) law. If your main residence is a house in Vaucluse worth $60 million,you will not be taxed on the capital gain you will make when selling it. But if you buy a $500,000 unit and rent part or all of it out to pay the mortgage or to supplement your old age pension,you will be stung for CGT when you sell it. The main residence exemption will not apply to that part of the flat or house.
The government could fix this but it won’t,because housing policy in Australia is designed to help the rich,not us,the peasants.Nicholas Reid,Hughes (ACT)
Gittins highlights the challenge for the young in entering the property market. He doesn’t suggest a solution but your article setting out arguments over Crows Nest development around the new metro station does (“”,February 15). Politicians need to explain that substantial development has to occur at these expensive infrastructure builds,they have to include more community cultural and sporting facilities and provide more supply. Resisting NIMBY cries will deliver for our young.Geoff Hodgkinson,Palm Beach
Your article states that the logic underpinning the location of enormous transport infrastructure projects is “not just for people who already live near them. They open up massive development potential”.
In my electorate of Sydney we have the Green Square development,already one of the biggest developments in Australia,with thousands of new apartments and tens of thousands more people due to move in. But already the Green Square train station is overwhelmed to the extent that the doors to the station are sometimes closed because the platform is dangerously overcrowded.
Illustration:Matt Golding
Right now,a new metro line is being built to connect Waterloo and Sydenham with the longest stretch of the track going right under Green Square. Planning logic,as suggested in the article,ought to dictate that a new station should be being built right now to accommodate this swelling population.
But it’s not happening. With many of the new apartments already built,it seems the residents of Green Square are not entitled to benefit from urban consolidation,perhaps because much of the “massive development potential” has already been sold.
I have begged the NSW government for another station between Waterloo and Sydenham on the Bankstown metro line. It’s not too late. Please.Tanya Plibersek,Member for Sydney
Is it not possible to return to two banking systems when it comes to loans (,February 15)? One for more humane interest rates on owner-occupier homes and the other for investment homes/ negative gearing? This goal would be to create a greater balance of sharing financial pain with the wealthy and prevent looming defaults.Roz Townsend,Queanbeyan East
Gay conversion therapy like torture
I am disgusted that there are some people in our society who think they can convert someone from being gay to being heterosexual (“”,February 15). This “therapy” should be legislated against as a criminal act like torture for instance. People who advocate this “therapy” just won’t recognise that homosexuality is just as natural as heterosexuality. People are born gay and some people are born heterosexual. The police should be involved as should human rights authorities. Dominic Perrottet should not hesitate in banning and criminalising gay conversion therapy. Perhaps there is another way to criminalise gay conversion therapy aside from the parliamentary process. What human being would advocate this therapy? There is no question that this “therapy” is a breach of human rights.Susan Dean,Ashfield
Premier Perrottet should not have to look into the detail of Alex Greenwich’s proposed bill on gay conversion therapy to be able to answer whether or not he supports the banning of a medieval practice that can only lead to misery,suffering and death (“”,February 15). Perrottet cannot continue to support the dismantling of one social evil while ignoring another because it might affect the sensibilities of some faith-based groups.Peter Cooper-Southam,Frenchs Forest
Politicians of faith who formulate policy based on that faith need to remember that only 43.9 per cent of Australians identified as Christian at the last census. This number will fall again at the next census as it has over the last 50 years. Of the 43.9 per cent who identify as Christian I’m sure there would be a large number who would not support the arcane process of gay conversion therapy. An individual’s sexuality is not a choice and the idea that some quackery can change it is preposterous and even worse dangerous.Mike Keene,Stanwell Park
Illustration:Cathy Wilcox
Not banning gay therapy and continuing to hope or imagine it would work is as ludicrous as trying to change one’s food taste preferences. You either like oysters or you don’t. No course of therapy would ever convince one to change. Let’s accept people as they are,and move on.Greg Vale,Kiama
Premier Perrottet,you have to ask yourself only one question:would you support “straight” conversion therapy?Richard Mason,Newtown
Being gay isn’t a choice but the encouragement of the church to self-hate is.Rod Tuck,Katoomba
Kean can’t have a bob each way on climate action
New fossil fuel projects are not compatible with a safe climate future. Yet,last month,Matt Kean authorised for gas giant Santos to progress the controversial Narrabri gas project by allowing pipeline surveys on private land. Now,when threatened by climate-focused independent candidates on Sydney’s north shore,Kean promises to introduce legislation to ban offshore fossil fuel production in NSW (“”,February 15). Kean can’t have a bob each way on climate. The public is fed up with politicians playing Russian roulette with our children’s futures.Amy Hiller,Kew (VIC)
How unsurprising that Kean is trumpeting the Coalition’s decision to ban PEP11 exploration just weeks out from the state election. Never has there been a more powerful indicator that pressure from teals makes a difference on issues that matter to their communities,both at federal and state level. The Coalition is running scared and making election-eve declarations in the full knowledge that the Pittwater and Manly independent candidates’ first bills in parliament would stop PEP11 for good. Northern beaches constituents have every right to be concerned about offshore mining and
every right to be proud of their independents standing up to the big boys.Joy Nason,Mona Vale
Honest gamblers
If only our politicians had the courage of the three problem gamblers who honestly shared their miserable experiences in your article (“‘”,February 15). Thousands more people like Kate,Tim and Ben will suffer while all parties choose to posture and procrastinate.Lorraine Hickey,Green Point
No fare unfair
The lobby group Business Sydney is trying to rob Peter to pay Paul (“”,February 15). Citing data showing surges in spending across Sydney’s CBD corresponding to the fare-free days,the lobby group is calling for free public transport on public holidays and major events. What about the suburban shops and businesses which had lost,and will lose,business to the CBD correspondingly?Kim Woo,Mascot
Simple choice
The devil is in the detail (,February 15). Yes,sure,that’s often the case,but the Voice referendum later this year is about one thing only – whether Australians feel that our First Peoples warrant the courtesy of input into government decision-making. As they say,“No decision about us without us.” It’s not about whether there have been past injustices,or whether there should be a treaty,or sovereignty. In this case,parliament decides the detail,as it is elected to do. Support for this issue for Peter Dutton,and for all us,is about a simple acknowledgement of the right for input into legislation.Jane Tolman,Sandy Bay (Tas)
Education and morality
As perhaps the only Scots old boy to have worked directly for Tony Abbott,I feel I have some worthwhile contributions to make regarding his suitability to address a school assembly (“A”,February 15).
Trevor Danos’ column revealed a central thesis:Abbott had positions so austere,so antiquated,so unacceptable,that the school had failed its students in a grave and unforgivable way by inviting him inside their hallowed gates. Moreover,this ill-considered invitation betrayed a dogmatic toxicity within the school administration.
Danos appears deeply uncomfortable about the desire of the school’s Presbyterian Church board,to shape and influence the spiritual development of its students. That’s despite the stated mission of the college to “extend boys into new territories;mentally,spiritually and physically,while equipping them with Christian values.” The focus on the development of these ideals is hardly hidden from parents who decide to spend tens of thousands of dollars a year on their child’s education.
Illustration:John ShakespeareSupplied
It’s also worth considering that this very focus on spiritual development is one of the reasons parents send their sons to Scots,rather than a reason not to.
Danos’s implication that Scots is failing to focus on preparing children for the world of the future doesn’t seem to withstand scrutiny. A summary look at the school’s website explains that today’s children “will have vastly different career paths to our own” and that “we are standing on the edge of the greatest shift in work since the industrial revolution.”
Maybe Danos is seeking a broader shift in the teaching of morality and education than he lets on.Andrew Blow,Mosman
I had thought it was only the authoritarian left who believed that those with opposing viewpoints should be neither seen nor heard. However,it appears that some mainstream progressives,represented by Trevor Danos,have caught the disease,too. In his attempt to banish Tony Abbott from speaking at Scots College,Danos obviously hasn’t read John Stuart Mills’ statement,“He who knows only his own side of the case knows little of that.”
If he believes those precious petals who are students at Scots can’t hear an alternative point of view from Abbott without going into conniptions of hurt and rage,then I worry how he thinks they will survive in the big,bad world. The fact that 38 per cent of Australians voted against same-sex marriage and there is actually a broad spectrum of climate change opinion must also mean that Danos himself is outraged that anybody could disagree with his own imperious and confident world view.Alan Wakeley, Dural
Captains’ pitch
England cricket captain Ben Stokes wants eight fast bowlers to choose from for the forthcoming Ashes (“‘”,February 15). Australian captain Pat Cummins may want eight spinners to choose from in the next Test against India at Delhi on Friday.Kersi Meher-Homji,St Ives
Multitasking pram pushing parents need a little help
I read Terry Orme’s letter to my daughter ( February 15). She tells me that prams commonly now have a holder for coffee. So only three arms are required pushing a pram while walking the dog. And if the pram makers include a mobile holder,problem solved.Maurie Stack,Taree
The dog and I are astonished at the abundance of grandparents now pushing prams. Full eye contact with the kids,talking,often singing and rarely immersed in those mobiles. Sometimes shrieks of laughter when daft grandad makes those silly faces. You’d think that nothing can be more important in life than their precious little cherubs.Ronald Elliott,Sandringham (Vic)
I,too,walk for pleasure and have also noticed a worrying trend. The number of parents,of both genders,with a bub in a pram or one of those forward-facing chest slings,who have all the protection for themselves,including sunnies,but the poor bub is staring straight into the sun with no eye protection at all. Are babies’ eyes much tougher than adults?Ron Wessel,Mount St Thomas
No one’s riding on the horses down to Taren Point
It’s a wonder the police in tow weren’t broadcasting Daryl Braithwaite during the Sans Souci muster (“”,February 15).Allan Gibson,Cherrybrook
Three horses darting down Rocky Point Road near the Captain Cook Bridge at Sans Souci.Jono Colovos/Facebook
The digital view
Online comment from one of the stories that attracted the most reader feedback yesterday on
FromRTP:″How about,as it seems businesses will profit greatly from the introduction of free public transport,they pay for it out of their extra profits? Capitalism today only works with a big chunk of socialism funded by the taxpayer,but the profits aren’t shared.″
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