Housing price stimulation only reinforces inequality
February 19, 2021 â 12.05am
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Credit:The Age
The governmentâs insistence on doing everything possible to stimulate housing prices certainly bolsters its electoral chances but, in the process, it is accentuating and cementing inequality (âHow to stop the house price madnessâ, February 18). Clearly, those homeowners who own their homes outright and have good income are able to help their children enter the housing market.
On the other side, an increasing proportion of low-income households are being locked out of homeownership and are being forced into becoming life-long private renters with all the attendant insecurity and anxiety. Alternatively, they are purchasing homes which they can ill-afford and spending a considerable proportion of their income on servicing the mortgage. According to the ABS, at least a million low-income households were in housing stress (spending more than 30 pe
Enough shrugging: party donation rorts must end
February 2, 2021 12.05am
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A report reveals vested interests keep donating millions of dollars to political parties to play their political games (“Secretive donors give $1 billion to political parties”, February 1).
The federal disclosure scheme is not working. We have become a nation of shruggers. Politicians shrug off this and their lack of integrity and accountability. Voters shrug this off as they know that is just what politicians do. Enough of shrugging. We want changes to this system and perhaps action on the problems of climate change will happen.
Bea Hodgson, Gerringong
Risky SCG decision puts health advice to the Test
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Risky SCG decision puts health advice to the Test
January 4, 2021 12.10am
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The Premier reassures us that the health advice is that the SCG cricket Test can be held safely with 24,000 people attending at one time ( No open and shut case , January 2-3). This advice presumably comes from the same origin as the advice that the Ruby Princess was low risk , and could safely dock and disgorge its passengers without quarantine. That advice resulted in the infection of over 900 people and the death of at least 28. Many epidemiologists and infectious diseases specialists are now saying that allowing the Test to proceed with this crowd could be a super-spreader event. If the Premier chooses to allow the Test to proceed, any resultant surge in cases will be entirely her responsibility. -