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Government sticks to Treasury advice on cooling housing market
The finance minister, Katy Gallagher, has been tapped on the shoulder to do the media rounds this morning ahead of the RBA’s rates decision.
There are other factors that influence the housing market, including the interest rate increases that we have seen over the last few months … the Treasury advice to us was that house prices would continue to grow slightly slower. Our focus on the housing market is making those tax changes so that first home buyers can get into the housing market, but also focusing on supply to make sure we’re building enough houses for people to buy.
In 2017, when the last round of partial restrictions came in, the money just moved around. And for example, gambling ads after 8.30 more than doubled, increased 131%. And I suspect that that’s what we’re going to see here too: is the money moving around.
I think it is about the government listening to the money and the power, not the people. The gambling companies make big political donations. They are present lobbyists in this building. We’re hearing their talking points coming out of the prime minister’s mouth. And the media companies and the sports codes make a lot of money out of gambling too. Unfortunately, Australians pay the cost for that. And the average Australian household loses more in gambling than they pay for in electricity. So this is our blind spot.