Opinion
Is there anything that a government scheme can’t make worse? The roster of government “remedies” making bad situations infinitely worse is so long that only a few of the most recent examples need suffice. Kiwibuild. Covid. The GFC. The NDIS. Climate Change. I think we get the picture.
On the latter front, in particular, the Albanese government seems determined to outdo itself. It’s own Net Zero Australia admits that its mad schemes will cost at least $9 trillion over the next few decades: the government would have to spend as much as it did on defence at the peak of WWI… for forty years. Just four years of the Great War nearly bankrupted the nation.
“Hold my skinny soy latte,” says Anthony Albanese.
Australia’s residential building sector and civil contractors are warning Anthony Albanese’s flagship Made in Australia agenda will exacerbate housing shortages and hamper the nation’s ability to meet its pledge to build 1.2 million homes.
Wait, a government plan is not only not going to fix a problem, but make it worse? Whoever heard of such a thing!
The Housing Industry Association and the Civil Contractors Federation, Australia’s peak voice for the civil construction industry, say there is broad concern that workforce shortages in the sector would be exacerbated by the government’s pledge to bolster the domestic manufacturing industry through billions of dollars in subsidies and underwritten loans.
Which they’ll “fix” by importing millions more migrants, all looking for houses, too.
The warnings come as new research found building costs rose 6.2 per cent in the first quarter of the year as skilled tradies remain in short supply, with bricklayers, ceramic tilers, plasterers, carpenters and roofers the hardest tradespeople to find.
We’ve got no shortage of Uber drivers, though.
With escalating demand for tradespeople outside residential home building, HIA chief executive Jocelyn Martin told The Australian the government’s Made in Australia policy may detract apprentices seeking to enter residential construction.
Ms Martin warned Labor’s manufacturing agenda – expected to be a centrepiece of the government’s May 14 budget – lacked substance and urged Mr Albanese to “genuinely” support manufacturing industries amid concern existing subsidies were already creating perverse outcomes for businesses in NSW.
Just as the NDIS — possibly the worst government policy in living memory — is sucking up workers from health and aged care provision, thus driving up costs in both even as its own budget becomes the single biggest black hole on the government’s books.
Not that big business is any slouch at making disastrous decisions — not least its never-ending dependency on the sugar hit of mass migration.
Ahead of the budget, the HIA has called on the government to address skilled workforce shortages by supporting more apprentices to take up residential construction work and increase the number of skilled workers coming from overseas by creating a trade-specific visa program.
“To achieve a level of new housing supply that puts sustained downward pressure on housing costs we must boost the capacity of the construction labour force,” the submission said.
Because importing millions of people isn’t the single biggest contributor to the housing crisis already.
Opposition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar said it was “no surprise” the Made in Australia policy would exacerbate housing shortages, and warned Labor would fall “far short” of its promise to build 1.2 million homes.
The Australian
Oh, come now — I’m sure it will be every bit as successful as Kiwibuild.
Ronald Reagan was right.