Our way of life lost as house prices keep rising

Credit:Illustration: Andrew Dyson

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Home affordability

Thank you, Ross Gittins (“Do not pass go, do not own a house”, 15/2), for trying to move discussions to about how we got to this position regarding housing affordability and the underlying causes that need to be addressed. The fundamental problem is that house prices went up too much and too fast. All of us who had houses at the start of the massive escalation of property values saw our “wealth” climb rapidly – and now cannot even contemplate the thought of losing that wealth.

I always thought that one of the great attractions and strengths of Australia was the high level of home ownership – but in recent years we have watched that fall. Similarly, over a generation or so we have moved from a society in which one wage could support a house and a family to one where both parents must work, childcare has to be subsidised, and a house is still out of reach. What exactly is our long-term objective – and who is setting it?
Keith Wilson, Rye

Generation blame game
Ross Gittins, when you were born, the pre-war babies had a monopoly on housing, followed by the war babies then the Baby Boomers. When the Boomers are gone, people will complain that GenX has a monopoly on housing, then Gen Y, then the Millennials. As Mike and the Mechanics sang, “Every generation blames the one before”.
Lance Wilson, Brighton East

Crisis demands drastic measures
Ross Gittins eloquently explains the housing affordability and rental stress crisis in Australia. If we continue with the present policies, it will remain a permanent crisis. In Victoria, rental availability is at an all-time low of 0.2 per cent. In many parts of Melbourne, rents increased by more than 20 per cent last year. This crisis can only be contained by direct Commonwealth and state government intervention.

For a start, we need a five-year freeze on rent increases and for subsequent increases to be pegged to CPI. Tax concessions for property investors and landlords should be abolished, the Vacant Residential Land Tax doubled, and there should be a ban on the state government selling public housing and land to private property developers. Rent control exists in France, Germany, Ireland and a number of other places including New York. Why not in Australia?
Michael Naismith, Clifton Hill

Effects felt across the generations
The shortage of housing, and the fact that homes have become unaffordable for so many hurts every age group. In the early ’90s, when the interest rate was at 17 per cent, there were Boomers who would have liked to have children, but felt they could not both pay the mortgage and raise children. They now approach old age alone.

Thirty years later, house prices are so high that many start families before they can acquire a home. Plus, under a privatised aged care system, each elderly person needing care has to find half a million dollars as a residential accommodation deposit to use one room in an aged care facility. It is no wonder that Australia has reached the point where there is public demand for reforms.
Ruth Farr, Blackburn South

Scarce supply
Your correspondent (Letters, 14/2) wants to use super to buy a house, but this would just increase the price of housing. Many people want a terrace within 15 kilometres of the CBD and they aren’t making them any more. There is your problem.
Murray Horne, Cressy

Tax vacant second homes
Many people have two homes, one they live in permanently and one they use occasionally. Maybe it’s a city pad or a country holiday house. A tax (of say 3 per cent p.a. of capital value) on homes beyond your principal residence that are not leased for periods of six months or more could fund the construction of new properties or release some properties back onto the rental market.
Glenn Luckie, Traralgon

THE FORUM

Crying wolves
If the Night Wolves feel so strongly about Russia and Vladimir Putin (“How storm over Djokovic’s dad uncovered Melbourne’s pro-Putin Night Wolves”, 14/2), why don’t they support the country and its president by moving to Russia instead of howling from afar. It seems a bit false when they are living a Western lifestyle of freedom of speech and democracy, yet espousing the wonders of the Russian regime.

Walk the walk and talk the talk.
Joan Johnson, Camberwell

Case for a ban
Your article on the pro-Putin Night Wolves is an eye-opener. It explains how Russian foreign policy has managed to infiltrate Australia. How the Night Wolves, a paramilitary and radical nationalist movement, have flown under the radar. It justifies the All England Club’s decision to ban Russian and Belarusian players. It also justifies a group of 35 nations including Australia, the United States and Germany calling on the IOC to shut the door on athletes from Russia and Belarus competing in the Paris Olympics.

It may be time for Tennis Australia to follow suit.
G. Jaworsky, Wollert

First step to treaty
Jack Latimore’s explanation of the different concepts of sovereignty in The Sunday Age deserves the widest possible readership. It clarifies the confusion around the term “sovereignty” and shows that the proposed Voice to parliament and recognition in the Constitution does not extinguish Indigenous sovereignty.

In 1991, many Australians – white and black – sang along to Yothu Yindi’s lyric, “Treaty yeah, treaty now”, but more than three decades on, still there is no treaty. This year, all Australians have the opportunity to respond positively to the Uluru Statement from the Heart and create a Voice to parliament: the first step towards a treaty and truth-telling.

Those who vote against the Voice will set back the chance for a treaty by another three decades. If the proposed referendum is lost, then what hope is there for negotiations over a treaty to begin?
Phil Johnson, Box Hill

Right path not clear
Your correspondent (15/2) is one of many commentators who are equating support for the Voice with being on “the right side of history”. The Voice might or might not be a good idea, but the concept of a “right side of history” represents the fallacy of historicism. Cautionary examples of progressives who were, at the time, convinced that they were on “the right side of history” include supporters of Stalin’s Soviet Union (hence the paraphrase “Marxism is the opiate of the intellectuals”), and proponents of eugenics.
Bill James, Frankston

Debate would cast light
I would love to see a live, televised and moderated debate on the Indigenous Voice to parliament with some key First Nations politicians. Such a debate, perhaps including Linda Burney, Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, Ken Wyatt, Jacqui Lambie and Lidia Thorpe, would clarify the positions of those of our parliamentary representatives most politically influential and affected by the outcome of the referendum.
Paul Humphries, East Albury, NSW

Pursuit of happiness
Liam Mannix (“The pursuit of happiness is not a race”, 15/2) certainly got me thinking as he pondered the imponderables. But why the emphasis on scientists’ opinions on the topic of happiness? Not one philosopher or ethics expert was consulted for this discussion on hedonistic versus eudaimonic. I certainly do not profess to be an expert on the topic but on my life’s journey have discovered that striving to do something that is meaningful (eudaimonic) is far more rewarding than (hedonistic) self-indulgent choices.

The story’s final paragraph should have been the first: “Focus on the positives because the more you look for them, the more you will find.” Sadly, many people need guidance on how to achieve this and scientists don’t have the answers. But philosophy does help us ask the relevant questions of ourselves. To quote Aristotle: “Happiness is a quality of the soul, not a function of one’s material circumstances.”
Sally Davis, Malvern East

Inconvenient realities
As Julie Szego suggests, Tar, is not a film for people who like all the baddies to wear black hats and the goodies to wear white ones (“Tarnishing the #MeToo movement”, 15/2). Many advocates of cancel culture and identity politics seem offended by any hint of nuance or ambiguity in the portrayal of their burning issue. They believe that the struggle for justice by oppressed groups has so far to go that anything which poses difficult or inconvenient questions, as Tar definitely does, are unhelpful, even dangerous.

But we get frequent reminders that the world is not as black and white as we might like it to be. Rather, it’s a messy place in which black policemen in Memphis kill another black man. In which some Indigenous Australians advocate a No vote in the Voice referendum. And a place in which some women are just as ruthless in the pursuit of power and privilege as the most despicable men.
Rod Wise, Surrey Hills

Nature impinged
Nick Toscano (The Age, 15/2) reports that $147 million of Santos’ $470 million writedown of its global fossil-fuel reserves is due to earlier than anticipated water ingress into its Spar-Halyard gas fields in WA. What goes unmentioned is that the huge amount of water moving into the space previously occupied by the withdrawn gas is coming from underground aquifers, rendering this water unavailable for the natural processes in which this precious resource is involved. It would be difficult to find a better example of serious interference with the natural order.
Maurie Trewhella, Hoppers Crossing

Unwelcome spotlight
Re “‘Nightmare’ over for Bol as ban lifted”: Why was a sports drug test result widely publicised before the second sample had even been checked? Bol maintained his innocence from the start but has had to endure suspension and weeks of an unwelcome spotlight of condemnation, before the B sample was even unlocked, tested and now found to be clear.

Why does the sports authority not move more quickly to resolve the question? More importantly, shouldn’t these matters stay behind closed doors until the B sample has been tested?
John Boyce, Richmond

Protect the niceties
Your “Got a minute” Q&A (“How do I give good feedback?”, 15/2) includes a question about staff who have no willpower to stop eating from their colleagues’ sweet jar. The advice is to “shower your friend with love and flowers” and then basically be rude to tell her maybe she could replace the sweets with something healthy.

The poor woman may give a brave face but inside her heart will be crushed. She is providing treats for people she obviously cares about, at her own expense with the wrong impression that her “friends” appreciate it.

Man up and get some willpower, people. You don’t have to eat the sweets. She might get the point that way. Maybe you could bring in some healthy treats and put them next to her jar and say, “let’s mix it up”. I think the staff here and the advice could be a lot kinder.
Andrew Ogge, Kew

Scary encounter
This morning, a middle-aged male was about to jaywalk, and he appeared not to be aware of my electric vehicle. I noted he had earbuds in and was carrying a cup of coffee, so I did a very light beep, not loud enough to alarm him just to let him know that he was about to run into an EV. I had my window down, as I had just left home and it was hot in the car.

What he did next left me in a state of disbelief. He turned around, looked me in the face, and threw his full coffee cup in my window. I am 73 years old. It went all over my shirt and the car seat – I was very lucky not to bear the brunt of it in the face.
Suzette Boyd, Hawthorn

Dismantling history
I am saddened to see yet another of our period homes being destroyed to make way for more high-density developments (“Push is on to save 141-year-old Hawthorn home”, 15/2). We flock to Europe to admire the fabulous old buildings that have remained both beautiful and functional for hundreds of years. Yet here, we are destroying our glorious architectural landscape to squeeze in more people to a single city when the bulk of our nation is so sparsely populated.

In 100 years, no one will be coming to Melbourne to admire the rash of flimsy apartment blocks that are steadily replacing the solid, old homes featuring high ceilings, solid, wood floors and big gardens. Once they are gone, they can never be replaced.

While there are plenty of large new development areas where these cookie-cutter homes (with their white and charcoal interiors, no backyards or big trees) can group together and complement each other, why should we allow the random destruction of historical and beautiful homes that give this city so much character?
Julie Christensen, Blackburn North

Changing names
A couple of things can be said about calling Turkey “Türkiye” and neither has anything to do with political correctness. First, we can all have fun listening to our newsreaders trying to get it right. It is not the equivalent of the German umlaut and should we trill the “r” or not?

More disturbing is the history of changes like this. Ask the peoples of Persia, Burma and Ceylon what their lives are like now.
Stefan Wozowczyk, Oakleigh South

Legitimate targets?
It’s good to see the comments from the Community Concussion Research Foundation to the Senate inquiry into brain injuries from Australian rules football (“Football must adapt, says concussion body”, 15/2). It raises the question why we allow combat sports, such as boxing, tae kwon do and kickboxing, to continue where the head is a legitimate contact target?
Brian Marshall, Ashburton

And another thing

Credit:Illustration: Matt Golding

Abbott’s school address
Re: CBD (14/2), what a pity a well-paid sinecure can’t be found for Tony Abbott. Instead he has to resort to the speaking circuit.
John Walsh, Watsonia

Banks
Two things used to be certain in life: death and taxes. Apparently there is now a third: banks making super profits.
Mark Kennedy, Sebastopol

The ultimate obscenity: the Big Four banks passing on interest rate rises while declaring massive profits.
Brian Morley, Donvale

Peter Dutton
Give Peter Dutton some slack over his mistake 15 years ago. He has proved he is thinking differently these days and we should be listening.
Diana Goetz, Mornington

While Peter Dutton is making apologies he shouldn’t forget his fear-mongering of asylum seekers and Melbourne’s African communities.
Henry Herzog, St Kilda East

Chinese relations
The Chinese balloons saga suggests the magicians’ ruse of getting the audience to “look over here” while the real trickery goes on somewhere else. Wonder where that is?
Stuart Gluth, Northcote

Suggestion to the US: to learn more about a strange object, shoot photos not missiles.
Ralph Böhmer, St Kilda West

Could these “experts” who confidently predict a war with China within two years please let me know the actual month the conflict will commence so I can plan my pre-war holiday.
Ken Mcleod, Williamstown

Furthermore
I wrote this letter using ChatGPT.
Jerome Otton, South Melbourne

Peter Hartcher (“Now that Thorpe’s gone, Greens can shed their virtuous impotence”, 11/2) is not the first one to criticise the Greens for not supporting the 2009 carbon reduction scheme and ignore that much better legislation was introduced less than a year later.
Barbara Trauer, Northcote

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