Read this, and use it as ammunition against the SC idiots when
they whine about life outside Singapore being 'better' :
February 22, 2008 09:27am
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THOUSANDS of people
across the country are skipping meals to pay rising rents, a
housing affordability conference has been told.
And housing experts warn the home affordability crisis threatens
to destabilise the economy and drive the country into
recession.
Experts told a housing conference in Sydney yesterday that
Australia faced great social unrest and human suffering as well as
chronic labour shortages without affordable housing.
Do you skip meals to meet
rent or mortgage payments? Tell us about it
Professor Terry Burke of the Australian Housing and Urban Research
Unit presented the research, which showed 26 per cent of
low-income renters sometimes go without food and 42 per cent of
low-income renters cannot afford school excursions, Fairfax
reported.
Professor Rachel Gatt, an affordable housing policy expert from
Tufts University, Massachusetts, said the housing affordability
equation was brutally simple.
"Either wages have to stay high enough so people can afford to
buy housing on the private market or if the private market is not
able to meet the housing challenge then you need to have government
subsidies," she told reporters.
"If you don't have affordable housing, and if your wages don't
keep pace with the cost of housing, you are going to find people
doubling up with relatives, turning into homeless people and
creating a great deal of social unrest and human suffering than
what you have now."
Stamp out duties
The
federal opposition has called on federal and state governments to
cut land tax and stamp duty to help boost rental stock.
Opposition frontbencher Greg Hunt today said this week's
national housing conference was an ideal opportunity for federal
Housing Minister Tanya Plibersek to address land tax and stamp
duty, to lessen the burden and help increase the stock of homes
available for rent.
"These are killers for people and what they do is decrease the
rental stock," Mr Hunt, opposition spokesman for Climate Change,
Environment and Urban Water, told the Seven Network.
"A lot of people have said we're not willing to pay the cost of
holding a rental property if we're whacked with a huge land tax or
we have to deal with stamp duty and today is the day, Tanya, stamp
duty, land tax and more land releases - you have a great
opportunity."
First time help
Ms Plibersek said a lot of people had taken money out of
investment property and put it into superannuation when favourable
tax treatment was introduced last year under the previous
government.
She said the Rudd government had committed to introducing the
first home saver account to help people into their first house.
"We know that as a proportion of all home buyers, first home
buyers have shrunk as a proportion, so we want to help them save
through a superannuation-style savings account," Ms Plibersek told
the Seven Network.
"We've also got a national rental affordability scheme, 50,000
new rental properties, because there is a terrible shortage all
around the country."
Labor says the Howard government failed to acknowledge the
rental crisis, despite knowing more than two years ago that more
than one third of renters were suffering from rental stress
Despite this, inflation rates are set to rise yet AGAIN, for the
5th or 6th time in two years! 
Mortgage rates will increase as a result, which means, less
disposable income for all.
