ERROL PARKER | Editor-at-large | Contact
The Prime Minister has the nation buoyed this morning after sharing some of his trademark frankness that’s frequently mixed with unwavering optimism that things will get better for everyone.
On the issues of inflation, interest rates, housing affordability, housing supply, immigration, cost of living, energy prices, and wage growth, Anthony Albanese explained that fixing any of those issues would be political suicide at the moment, so he hopes they will just sort themselves out without the government having to do anything meaningful to combat them.
“Oh well, you know, inflation is a mix of supply chain issues and the massive stimulus packages from COVID. Not really much we can do about it right now. China, too, has a big role in that getting fixed. They need to make more, I guess. But they’re not, so what can we do about it? Right? China produces and Australia consumes,” he told reporters in Canberra.
“So do we lower wages and conditions so local manufacturers in Australia can compete with China? We could, but it’d do this government in if we did, so yeah, not touching that one. Or we could try to tell people they need to pay more for Australian-made things. They won’t like that, so yeah, I’m dodging that one too. Increase interest rates so people stop buying things, decreasing demand. Unpopular, but that’s the RBA’s call, not mine. Don’t come crying to me.”
“Nearly 70% of households own property in this country. I think. Don’t hold me to it. That’s quite a lot. Half of them have a mortgage. To make them more affordable for people who want them is not really going to fly with the majority, so you’ll just have to hope that it works out for you. Hope is strong, but yeah, I wouldn’t bank on it. No government will ever bin the majority to pacify a noisy minority. The world just doesn’t work like that. A lot of young people know they’re going to inherit property and money, so what do they care? It’s just a matter of time.”
“With housing supply? We’re trying to fix that, but the Greens are making it hard. Sure. We’re building flat out, but it just can’t keep up. But if the government disincentivizes private investment in property, people will stop paying for the increase in supply that we need. Who’s going to pay? The government? Get real. So, so many people have all their eggs in one basket. Australian property. We move the goalposts on those people, and they’re fucked beyond their wildest comprehension. We have a subprime mortgage crisis, and we go back 30 years to when we were just some appendix on the end of Asia that spoke English for some reason.”
“To decrease demand, we could just stop immigration? Pretty easy parallel to draw, right? Well, we need a workforce and everything is fucked so nobody is having kids. I suppose we could be content with having an economy that doesn’t need to grow each quarter year in year out. But that would be political suicide so we’re just going to have to build as quickly as we can. We need workers, we need taxpayers. So unfortunately, we’re just going to have to deal with the cost pressures until supply catches up. That’s just the way it is. Hope it sorts itself out.”
“When you try to please everyone, you end up upsetting everybody. So we’re trying to keep the majority of people who voted for us happy enough to vote for us again in a couple of years. My advice is to hope that things get better because that’s what I’m doing.”
More to come.
