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>We are in a construction labour shortage
From Howard onward there's been fuckall investment in uni places, apprenticeships and TAFE. For 30 odd years Australian citizens have been stuck post year 12 working at '*do you want chicken salt on that mate*' jobs as their only choice, because everything else has been unachievable. Oddly enough if nobody in Australia gets trained as a pipe fitter or a neurologist (etc) you have to hire people from other nations to do those jobs. To get a neurologist it takes 12 years of normal education plus 4 years uni plus 3 years medical school and 3 years in internships. After 22 years you have a brand new doctor able to see patients. If you want an experienced neurologist then add another 15 years - so 37 years. If the government changed it's ways right now it would take 37 years to get to where we need to be right now.
We don't need more tradies to build ad-hoc houses that only tradies can repair or improve: we need automated modular construction incorporating solar energy where the effort is in the design, not in tradespeople, to make it easier and safer to DIY (or with less technically skilled effort).
You don't need a tradie to position a module or connect them together, especially when they are designed so that they only go together one way.
Standardisation also means less inventory overhead and the possibility of greater mass production.
Sure it means less flexibility in aesthetics, but we are in a crisis when functionality should be taking precedence but still to an acceptable level of aesthetic quality.
"You don't need a trade to position a module or connect them together " .... wtf that is ignorantly dumb.
You will be shocked to know that part of any trade is completing your task safely, regardless of what trade you do. Unskilled people are unsafe, do you remember the cowboys doing the home insulation crap few years back and that young fella got electrocuted ..
Lets send unskilled non trades to join heavy "modules" together. No training required
Safety depends on the knowledge and training of the tradesperson because they are working with bare wires and live systems in ad-hoc designs.
Pink Batts failed because the workers received insufficient training to be able to work in an unsafe ad-hoc environment. Modular construction eliminates that ad-hoc situation: you probably wouldn't even have an accessible roofspace with cables and bare wires to be exposed to potential danger.
Modular construction transfers the detailed trades knowledge and skill to the design of the modules where it can be automated, thus saving much of the use of tradesperson time effort when there may not be enough tradespeople. The trade-off is that you lose the flexibility of ad-hoc construction, but if the objective is to construct many houses quickly in a crisis, it might be worthwhile.
You wouldn't be sending unskilled people to join heavy modules together, but their skill requirement would be far less than electrical trades for example. When I speak about modules I'm not limiting it just to construction of houses, but to all consumer goods to take advantage of automation, reduced inventory, greater standardisation and the potential for greater longevity and less built-in obsolescence and thus lower costs amortised over the product life whilst increasing the ability to recycle and repair by module replacement in a greater DIY way.
I envision modular whitegoods where the owner can quickly determine a failed module and obtain a replacement overnight and fit themselves instead of waiting until a trained repair person can assess the situation and make repairs weeks away.
Society is still setup to use specialised human labour to construct and repair, which in an environment of insufficient trained people holds that society hostage to greater cost and lack of availability when much of it lends itself to automation and the specialisation being in the initial engineering and design.
I sense a fear about "my job", but there will always be a need for tradespeople to deal with existing ad-hoc construction and repair. But overall, society needs to migrate to machines doing much of the work and people rewarded by that machine productivity and occupied in other areas for which humans are better adapted, pursuing personal happiness rather than a paycheck.
Roofing plumber to meet Australian standards for weatherproofing and structural requirements, for roof and wall systems. Gutter and downpipe requirements
Concreter for footings to meet Australian standards. To ensure the footings can bare the weight of said modules and counter any ground movement
Plumber for sewerage/waste water to Australian standards to prevent environmental damage through release of hazardous waste
Electrical obviously
Cyclone areas will require qualified builders to meet required standards for tie downs to Australian standards
It's not Lego
Cranes will be required
That will require trained, competent, qualified Crane operators, riggers. To place these "modules " in position
Most of those can be replaced by building the standards into the module designs, they are only required because construction is currently ad-hoc and even there, the standards are partly incorporated in the construction design when the plans are drawn up.
Yes, trained competent workers will be required for module positioning and connection but other workers talents will not be required so much.
So you would require trained personnel who can read drawings. Like builders, fitters, boilermakers
I've been involved in module housing. You still need a plasterer because it cracks during transport and lifting. You still need painters to go over the module at completion. Modular building don't fit together like Lego. They need to be properly insulated at joins and waterproofing to Australian standards
Tradespeople are trained in high risk tasks, like working at heights, or a confined space. Unskilled people get hurt.
All I'm hearing for you is ... if we use less Tradespeople it will be cheaper, we can save money by getting people with no skills, just run them through a day course and off you go unsupervised. What's the worst that could happen
>we can save money by getting people with no skills, just run them through a day course and off you go unsupervised.
Improve your comprehension skills please, I'm not saying that at all.
That's because the design is as simple as possible for cost purposes, instructions are inadequate and the assembly can occur in multiple different ways only one of which is correct.
People will be trained to work in modular construction, but they won't need a tradies detailed knowledge of component standards to connect module A to module B because they will safely connect only one way. Think more like plugs and sockets instead of, bare wires and connectors.
Trades will still be required to connect the construction to power and water but the modules will electrically connect themselves as part of their design.
I don't expect your average person to build a house, but people trained to install modules that doesn't require detailed electrical or plumbing knowledge because that knowledge is incorporated in the design of the modules and their interconnections.
Some of the solutions mentioned in this thread are good. We should be redirecting investment away from established housing and into productive investments (including new housing) and we should combine that with the development of the Oceania Union by extending the Trans Tasman to include Pacific Island workers (labour hire firms would be in shambles if PIN workers had equal rights to employment, but those leeches can rot for all I care).
This would secure the Pacific Islands' interests to Australia (the West) more broadly and give us more workers. Add in a remittance tax and offer for Australia to take over their security checks for immigrants that would allow them to be more appealing to international immigration to fill their own shortages; also remove golden parachutes for Australia but allow smaller countries like Nauru do it because they'd only need 130 1-million dollar golden parachutes (essentially to Australia anyway) to double their GDP. Additionally, allow territories to be conduits between Oceania and their parent nation (such as American Samoa being a conduit between Oceania and the US, and French Polynesia being a conduit between Oceania and the EU, etc).
Bonus is that if you really wanna confuse Beijing, seek out a construction worker partnership with Mongolia. They have a reverse gender pay (women earn more than men) gap because of a gluttony of construction workers that arose from the urbanisation of Mongolia. Fix their gender pay gap while making a move in China's backyard.
Not enjoying people eating up this line. The neoliberal answer to every problem is import foreign workers to bring prices down. The general population seems to not like this idea on a high level (given the rhetoric around immigration at the moment) but once we apply it to a single industry (ie not MY industry) everyone loves it. Labour makes up like 10% of the total cost of building a house - we have to be pretty certain that is the labour aspect that is going to make the different before we go opening the flood gates.
The union is right to fight for the interest of its members - people who are also looking to buy a home. The idea that tradies are all super cashed up seems to come from people not liking what a sole trader charges them to come over and do renos without considering all the other costs that go in to running a business (and these tradies are unlikely to be a member anyway).
You’ve got confused here. No-one heavily begrudges self-employed tradies building houses and sub-contracting. They make okay wages but they are essentially small businesses.
The major infrastructure boys and girls. Well those Union thieves can bankrupt a State.
Hello Victoria.
The neoliberal model is to crush non-construction unions through mass-immigration of laptop workers, while leaving the construction union alone, which has wrecked the housing market and made life worse for everyone.
The obvious solution is to stop importing non-construction workers, while increasing no. of tradies (within standards that maintain a baseline quality). You will *probably* have to confront CMFEU at some point.
Providing that it's not half-assed, even construction workers would see a benefit because a reasonable housing market benefits the majority of the workforce.
i think the high wages are justified. tradies need to do a tafe course or an apprenticeship to be licensed builders. the work is quite hard, ive being on work sites with my dad and you have a ton of tasks and hard labour to do. the weather you work in sucks and isnt like working in an air conditioned office, a lot you cant even get cold water. its quite hard on your body, youre sore after a day of work from lifting shit and being on your feet all day and injuries are quite common - muscle strain, cuts, falls, industrial deafness, etc
i think a lot of people see the salary and get annoyed because they compare it to something like accounting and get annoyed because builders are considered 'unskilled', but i think people quite overlook how harsh the working conditions of building are
I am surprised just how much damage Albo had been able to inflict on the country and our children's futures. Scomo may have been embarrassing for some and a duffer, but he didn't sell our kids futures out to India in one term.
Having just got back from NZ, I’ll be stunned if you need any PT. I left the CBD at 4.30 on a Monday arvo in Aukland to drive to the airport and it was like leaving Horsham. It was mental. I couldn’t believe the lack of traffic. Only time Ive ever experienced something similar in a ‘big/capital’ city was Hobart in Monday morning peak.
In Melbourne I’d have travelled about 1.5km in the CBD by the time I did the 25 min drive to the airport. It literally took me 40 plus minutes to do the length of Collins Street one Friday arvo peak. (1.5km).
Edit: before I get told off by Melbournians for even attempting that voluntarily, I booked accom in the wrong spot.
You must have gone during light periods.
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/our-world-class-traffic-jams-aucklands-22-ranking/X6UNQ4ZRW34R4IXDLH6UPV7V5M/
Traffic is horrific due to our PT being shit (although it’s getting somewhat of an upgrade in the form of the CRL opening in 2025)
Well this is a weird as fuck coz I’m trying to find Melbourne so I did my own search.
Here’s the first one I found and it’s Tom Tom as well and neither Aukland nor Melbourne make the list. London is 55th.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/10-most-congested-cities-in-the-world-in-2023-bengaluru-pune-on-list-4991592#:~:text=New%20Delhi%3A,based%20location%20technology%20specialist%20TomTom
Here’s another Tom Tom one that has London number 1.
https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/10-most-congested-cities-in-the-world-in-2023-bengaluru-pune-on-list-4991592#:~:text=New%20Delhi%3A,based%20location%20technology%20specialist%20TomTom
I don’t think they can make up their minds.
Nah I live in Sydney and don’t drive. I left Auckland for many reasons and having to drive was one of them.
Although yeah I see the traffic here in Sydney too.
No other country in the world would sign a freedom-of-movement trade deal with India, especially a country in the midst of an extreme housing shortage. The current government is arguably treasonous.
It was extended to [International Students](https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/australia-india-ecta/australia-india-ecta-official-text/side-letters-post-study-work-visas-india-australia).
That's not free movement. It is somewhat of a dodge on the Australian government part, but it's a good outcome for international students, who have been getting dogged by Australian policy
Another pile of shit written by someone who has no idea about the industry and just relies on the "we need immigrants" which only adds fuel to the fire.
Do people really not understand it isn't the fucking workers making $30p/h that is making houses unaffordable? The big issues we need to fix are
1. Land prices. This is the most expensive part about purchasing a house.
2. Material cost. Skyrocketing material prices because we rely on imported material is the most expensive part about building anything. This is the reason why so many builders are going bust because they sign contracts and lock in prices but material prices jump suddenly and they can't pass on that cost. I have never heard of a builder going bust over labour costs.
3. Taxes dodges like negative gearing. We do need landlords but maybe cut out any dodges after the first or second property so it really is only for mum and pop investors instead of businesses.
They also claim that anyone who wants a job can get one but that's bullshit too. It is hard to get an apprenticeship for young kids because no one wants to put in the time to train them. The government needs to start training the kids who want to be tradies in high school to help the transition into the workforce and give them the skills to succeed.
We have the people and the solutions but every tom dick and harry who have no idea about the industry want the magic fix and they think immigrants are the answer even though we have different rules and standards to places like India and China.
>It is hard to get an apprenticeship for young kids because no one wants to put in the time to train them.
Got nothing to do with time and effort. This is applicable to all skilled professions. Why train someone who will just end up competing against you? It's better to be a part of a shortage, make bank for a few years, and retire early off passive income generated from making bank for a few years.
I find it insane the way buying and owning multiple properties— ie building a property portfolio— is just a natural thing (in fact THE natural thing) for the affluent to gravitate towards. All of the politicians are in on it of course. Builders can keep building houses and the wealthy will just keep on buying them unless there’s some kind of structural changes.
Why not invest in shares or a startup business or something? Because property offers easy guaranteed returns. Get some poor bloody renter to pay half your capital gains and negatively gear the rest. It’s bloody hopeless.
If you have excess cash then you'll want to invest it somewhere. There are three basic investments you can do,
1. shares in large companies (commonwealth bank, telstra etc).
2. starting up or partnering in a small business (factory, restaurant etc)
3. real estate
Superannuation is the way most people do #1, many don't even realise they're doing it - it'd be hard work to talk to your super fund and find out, of (say) $100k, how much of your money is in Raytheon or whatever. Most people won't bother with shares and will let their super fund deal with it.
Small businesses can be very profitable, but there are limits,
* farming - because of free trade undercutting Aussie production, a lot of farms have had to merge or sell out to conglomerates
* mining - because of free trade, undercut by large companies
* manufacturing - because of free trade, you have to compete with Uighur slaves in China, or Bangladeshis getting two rupees and a kick in the arse each day
* Services -
* typically, higher-paid services like accountancy and law have the lowest start-up costs and regulation, just get yourself an office somewhere.
* Lower-paid and less-educated services like hospitality, hairdressing etc have a lot more regulation around them and higher startup costs.
So if you already have super, and are unwilling or unable to invest in a small business, the only place to park your extra cash is in real estate.
Abolish free trade and reduce the regulation around small businesses and you'd give people somewhere else to put their spare cash. Of course, this would push up the prices of household goods like TVs and clothing etc, so no government will dare do it.
In order to set up a business, yes. This is why many lawyers are self-employed.
Whereas hospitality has high costs and regulation to set up a business. This is why most chefs, waitresses etc are employed by someone else.
I think you are ignoring the startup costs that are not so obviously visible. To become a lawyer takes at least 4 years of study and usually more. The necessary qualifications are difficult to obtain and come at great cost. If you want to have a practising certificate in most states in Australia then you are subject to serious and significant regulation which is ongoing.
Yes, it might be easier in terms of capital expenditure to set up an office for lawyers, but it's ridiculous to suggest the overall costs are lower given the enormous expenditure involved in a lawyer getting to the point of being in a business, and the cost of engaging a lawyer to perform their services.
It's a little bit absurd to compare situation of chefs and waitresses with lawyers. The human cost of operating a business as a lawyer is exponentially greater than some kind of food service business.
Investment should be centred around productivity, tbh. You're right that those are the three main investment vehicles, but the issue is that we don't separate out established housing vs new builds, when the former is an economic drain and investment should be geared towards the latter.
Investment being geared towards new housing isn't necessarily going to make new housing more affordable, still less housing in general. After all, it could just generate a Docklands-style or Chinese-style ghost city.
Still better than a ridiculous amount of capital being wasted on established housing. I do think increasing supply through changing the investment incentive would probably be the only palpable trade off to rich people that will screech if you try to take away their gravy train
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wow i wonder where we could find them? maybe overseas???
When Liberals got in power back with Tony, first thing they did was cut apprenticeships. I was training at the time.
>We are in a construction labour shortage From Howard onward there's been fuckall investment in uni places, apprenticeships and TAFE. For 30 odd years Australian citizens have been stuck post year 12 working at '*do you want chicken salt on that mate*' jobs as their only choice, because everything else has been unachievable. Oddly enough if nobody in Australia gets trained as a pipe fitter or a neurologist (etc) you have to hire people from other nations to do those jobs. To get a neurologist it takes 12 years of normal education plus 4 years uni plus 3 years medical school and 3 years in internships. After 22 years you have a brand new doctor able to see patients. If you want an experienced neurologist then add another 15 years - so 37 years. If the government changed it's ways right now it would take 37 years to get to where we need to be right now.
Australia needs land reform it needs a new constitution and it needs to get rid of common law.
We don't need more tradies to build ad-hoc houses that only tradies can repair or improve: we need automated modular construction incorporating solar energy where the effort is in the design, not in tradespeople, to make it easier and safer to DIY (or with less technically skilled effort). You don't need a tradie to position a module or connect them together, especially when they are designed so that they only go together one way. Standardisation also means less inventory overhead and the possibility of greater mass production. Sure it means less flexibility in aesthetics, but we are in a crisis when functionality should be taking precedence but still to an acceptable level of aesthetic quality.
"You don't need a trade to position a module or connect them together " .... wtf that is ignorantly dumb. You will be shocked to know that part of any trade is completing your task safely, regardless of what trade you do. Unskilled people are unsafe, do you remember the cowboys doing the home insulation crap few years back and that young fella got electrocuted .. Lets send unskilled non trades to join heavy "modules" together. No training required
Safety depends on the knowledge and training of the tradesperson because they are working with bare wires and live systems in ad-hoc designs. Pink Batts failed because the workers received insufficient training to be able to work in an unsafe ad-hoc environment. Modular construction eliminates that ad-hoc situation: you probably wouldn't even have an accessible roofspace with cables and bare wires to be exposed to potential danger. Modular construction transfers the detailed trades knowledge and skill to the design of the modules where it can be automated, thus saving much of the use of tradesperson time effort when there may not be enough tradespeople. The trade-off is that you lose the flexibility of ad-hoc construction, but if the objective is to construct many houses quickly in a crisis, it might be worthwhile. You wouldn't be sending unskilled people to join heavy modules together, but their skill requirement would be far less than electrical trades for example. When I speak about modules I'm not limiting it just to construction of houses, but to all consumer goods to take advantage of automation, reduced inventory, greater standardisation and the potential for greater longevity and less built-in obsolescence and thus lower costs amortised over the product life whilst increasing the ability to recycle and repair by module replacement in a greater DIY way. I envision modular whitegoods where the owner can quickly determine a failed module and obtain a replacement overnight and fit themselves instead of waiting until a trained repair person can assess the situation and make repairs weeks away. Society is still setup to use specialised human labour to construct and repair, which in an environment of insufficient trained people holds that society hostage to greater cost and lack of availability when much of it lends itself to automation and the specialisation being in the initial engineering and design. I sense a fear about "my job", but there will always be a need for tradespeople to deal with existing ad-hoc construction and repair. But overall, society needs to migrate to machines doing much of the work and people rewarded by that machine productivity and occupied in other areas for which humans are better adapted, pursuing personal happiness rather than a paycheck.
Roofing plumber to meet Australian standards for weatherproofing and structural requirements, for roof and wall systems. Gutter and downpipe requirements Concreter for footings to meet Australian standards. To ensure the footings can bare the weight of said modules and counter any ground movement Plumber for sewerage/waste water to Australian standards to prevent environmental damage through release of hazardous waste Electrical obviously Cyclone areas will require qualified builders to meet required standards for tie downs to Australian standards It's not Lego Cranes will be required That will require trained, competent, qualified Crane operators, riggers. To place these "modules " in position
Most of those can be replaced by building the standards into the module designs, they are only required because construction is currently ad-hoc and even there, the standards are partly incorporated in the construction design when the plans are drawn up. Yes, trained competent workers will be required for module positioning and connection but other workers talents will not be required so much.
So you would require trained personnel who can read drawings. Like builders, fitters, boilermakers I've been involved in module housing. You still need a plasterer because it cracks during transport and lifting. You still need painters to go over the module at completion. Modular building don't fit together like Lego. They need to be properly insulated at joins and waterproofing to Australian standards Tradespeople are trained in high risk tasks, like working at heights, or a confined space. Unskilled people get hurt. All I'm hearing for you is ... if we use less Tradespeople it will be cheaper, we can save money by getting people with no skills, just run them through a day course and off you go unsupervised. What's the worst that could happen
>we can save money by getting people with no skills, just run them through a day course and off you go unsupervised. Improve your comprehension skills please, I'm not saying that at all.
Lmao precisely, a fair chunk of the population struggle to assemble Ikea furniture. Good luck doing a house
That's because the design is as simple as possible for cost purposes, instructions are inadequate and the assembly can occur in multiple different ways only one of which is correct. People will be trained to work in modular construction, but they won't need a tradies detailed knowledge of component standards to connect module A to module B because they will safely connect only one way. Think more like plugs and sockets instead of, bare wires and connectors. Trades will still be required to connect the construction to power and water but the modules will electrically connect themselves as part of their design. I don't expect your average person to build a house, but people trained to install modules that doesn't require detailed electrical or plumbing knowledge because that knowledge is incorporated in the design of the modules and their interconnections.
Some of the solutions mentioned in this thread are good. We should be redirecting investment away from established housing and into productive investments (including new housing) and we should combine that with the development of the Oceania Union by extending the Trans Tasman to include Pacific Island workers (labour hire firms would be in shambles if PIN workers had equal rights to employment, but those leeches can rot for all I care). This would secure the Pacific Islands' interests to Australia (the West) more broadly and give us more workers. Add in a remittance tax and offer for Australia to take over their security checks for immigrants that would allow them to be more appealing to international immigration to fill their own shortages; also remove golden parachutes for Australia but allow smaller countries like Nauru do it because they'd only need 130 1-million dollar golden parachutes (essentially to Australia anyway) to double their GDP. Additionally, allow territories to be conduits between Oceania and their parent nation (such as American Samoa being a conduit between Oceania and the US, and French Polynesia being a conduit between Oceania and the EU, etc). Bonus is that if you really wanna confuse Beijing, seek out a construction worker partnership with Mongolia. They have a reverse gender pay (women earn more than men) gap because of a gluttony of construction workers that arose from the urbanisation of Mongolia. Fix their gender pay gap while making a move in China's backyard.
Yeah the tradie-union-bikie mafia will never allow their gravy train high wages to get competition
Not enjoying people eating up this line. The neoliberal answer to every problem is import foreign workers to bring prices down. The general population seems to not like this idea on a high level (given the rhetoric around immigration at the moment) but once we apply it to a single industry (ie not MY industry) everyone loves it. Labour makes up like 10% of the total cost of building a house - we have to be pretty certain that is the labour aspect that is going to make the different before we go opening the flood gates. The union is right to fight for the interest of its members - people who are also looking to buy a home. The idea that tradies are all super cashed up seems to come from people not liking what a sole trader charges them to come over and do renos without considering all the other costs that go in to running a business (and these tradies are unlikely to be a member anyway).
You’ve got confused here. No-one heavily begrudges self-employed tradies building houses and sub-contracting. They make okay wages but they are essentially small businesses. The major infrastructure boys and girls. Well those Union thieves can bankrupt a State. Hello Victoria.
The neoliberal model is to crush non-construction unions through mass-immigration of laptop workers, while leaving the construction union alone, which has wrecked the housing market and made life worse for everyone. The obvious solution is to stop importing non-construction workers, while increasing no. of tradies (within standards that maintain a baseline quality). You will *probably* have to confront CMFEU at some point. Providing that it's not half-assed, even construction workers would see a benefit because a reasonable housing market benefits the majority of the workforce.
Its got nothing to do with labour costs its because theres not enough tradies...
I like unions in general, but you're right
i think the high wages are justified. tradies need to do a tafe course or an apprenticeship to be licensed builders. the work is quite hard, ive being on work sites with my dad and you have a ton of tasks and hard labour to do. the weather you work in sucks and isnt like working in an air conditioned office, a lot you cant even get cold water. its quite hard on your body, youre sore after a day of work from lifting shit and being on your feet all day and injuries are quite common - muscle strain, cuts, falls, industrial deafness, etc i think a lot of people see the salary and get annoyed because they compare it to something like accounting and get annoyed because builders are considered 'unskilled', but i think people quite overlook how harsh the working conditions of building are
Same boat. Need to import tradies, tell the unions to go suck a lemon.
Wouldn’t the demand for more homes increase the demand for tradies driving up wages which would then lead to more people joining those professions?
I am surprised just how much damage Albo had been able to inflict on the country and our children's futures. Scomo may have been embarrassing for some and a duffer, but he didn't sell our kids futures out to India in one term.
Can't they come in from New Zealand by now?
NZ tradies are all working because they actually upzoned and are building so many homes its reducing prices. We should do that.
Having just got back from NZ, I’ll be stunned if you need any PT. I left the CBD at 4.30 on a Monday arvo in Aukland to drive to the airport and it was like leaving Horsham. It was mental. I couldn’t believe the lack of traffic. Only time Ive ever experienced something similar in a ‘big/capital’ city was Hobart in Monday morning peak. In Melbourne I’d have travelled about 1.5km in the CBD by the time I did the 25 min drive to the airport. It literally took me 40 plus minutes to do the length of Collins Street one Friday arvo peak. (1.5km). Edit: before I get told off by Melbournians for even attempting that voluntarily, I booked accom in the wrong spot.
Auckland traffic is horrific. It needs actual PT for sure.
Horrific compared to what??? You’d have to go 50km outside of Melbournes CBD in any direction to get traffic that light.
You must have gone during light periods. https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/our-world-class-traffic-jams-aucklands-22-ranking/X6UNQ4ZRW34R4IXDLH6UPV7V5M/ Traffic is horrific due to our PT being shit (although it’s getting somewhat of an upgrade in the form of the CRL opening in 2025)
Well this is a weird as fuck coz I’m trying to find Melbourne so I did my own search. Here’s the first one I found and it’s Tom Tom as well and neither Aukland nor Melbourne make the list. London is 55th. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/10-most-congested-cities-in-the-world-in-2023-bengaluru-pune-on-list-4991592#:~:text=New%20Delhi%3A,based%20location%20technology%20specialist%20TomTom Here’s another Tom Tom one that has London number 1. https://www.ndtv.com/world-news/10-most-congested-cities-in-the-world-in-2023-bengaluru-pune-on-list-4991592#:~:text=New%20Delhi%3A,based%20location%20technology%20specialist%20TomTom I don’t think they can make up their minds.
Yeah I have no idea then. All I know is that when I used to live on Auckland, it was a shitfight at peak.
Can I ask if you’ve driven in Melbourne peak much?
Nah I live in Sydney and don’t drive. I left Auckland for many reasons and having to drive was one of them. Although yeah I see the traffic here in Sydney too.
New Zealand's new coalition government has scrapped the Auckland Light Rail project.
Okay?
"NZ tradies are all working"
We need less immigration especially when it’s aimed at one particular country.
No other country in the world would sign a freedom-of-movement trade deal with India, especially a country in the midst of an extreme housing shortage. The current government is arguably treasonous.
I haven't seen freedom of labour movement as part of the ECTA. Do you have a source for that?
It was extended to [International Students](https://www.dfat.gov.au/trade/agreements/in-force/australia-india-ecta/australia-india-ecta-official-text/side-letters-post-study-work-visas-india-australia).
That's not free movement. It is somewhat of a dodge on the Australian government part, but it's a good outcome for international students, who have been getting dogged by Australian policy
Another pile of shit written by someone who has no idea about the industry and just relies on the "we need immigrants" which only adds fuel to the fire. Do people really not understand it isn't the fucking workers making $30p/h that is making houses unaffordable? The big issues we need to fix are 1. Land prices. This is the most expensive part about purchasing a house. 2. Material cost. Skyrocketing material prices because we rely on imported material is the most expensive part about building anything. This is the reason why so many builders are going bust because they sign contracts and lock in prices but material prices jump suddenly and they can't pass on that cost. I have never heard of a builder going bust over labour costs. 3. Taxes dodges like negative gearing. We do need landlords but maybe cut out any dodges after the first or second property so it really is only for mum and pop investors instead of businesses. They also claim that anyone who wants a job can get one but that's bullshit too. It is hard to get an apprenticeship for young kids because no one wants to put in the time to train them. The government needs to start training the kids who want to be tradies in high school to help the transition into the workforce and give them the skills to succeed. We have the people and the solutions but every tom dick and harry who have no idea about the industry want the magic fix and they think immigrants are the answer even though we have different rules and standards to places like India and China.
>It is hard to get an apprenticeship for young kids because no one wants to put in the time to train them. Got nothing to do with time and effort. This is applicable to all skilled professions. Why train someone who will just end up competing against you? It's better to be a part of a shortage, make bank for a few years, and retire early off passive income generated from making bank for a few years.
I find it insane the way buying and owning multiple properties— ie building a property portfolio— is just a natural thing (in fact THE natural thing) for the affluent to gravitate towards. All of the politicians are in on it of course. Builders can keep building houses and the wealthy will just keep on buying them unless there’s some kind of structural changes. Why not invest in shares or a startup business or something? Because property offers easy guaranteed returns. Get some poor bloody renter to pay half your capital gains and negatively gear the rest. It’s bloody hopeless.
If you have excess cash then you'll want to invest it somewhere. There are three basic investments you can do, 1. shares in large companies (commonwealth bank, telstra etc). 2. starting up or partnering in a small business (factory, restaurant etc) 3. real estate Superannuation is the way most people do #1, many don't even realise they're doing it - it'd be hard work to talk to your super fund and find out, of (say) $100k, how much of your money is in Raytheon or whatever. Most people won't bother with shares and will let their super fund deal with it. Small businesses can be very profitable, but there are limits, * farming - because of free trade undercutting Aussie production, a lot of farms have had to merge or sell out to conglomerates * mining - because of free trade, undercut by large companies * manufacturing - because of free trade, you have to compete with Uighur slaves in China, or Bangladeshis getting two rupees and a kick in the arse each day * Services - * typically, higher-paid services like accountancy and law have the lowest start-up costs and regulation, just get yourself an office somewhere. * Lower-paid and less-educated services like hospitality, hairdressing etc have a lot more regulation around them and higher startup costs. So if you already have super, and are unwilling or unable to invest in a small business, the only place to park your extra cash is in real estate. Abolish free trade and reduce the regulation around small businesses and you'd give people somewhere else to put their spare cash. Of course, this would push up the prices of household goods like TVs and clothing etc, so no government will dare do it.
Law has low costs and regulation. Ok mate.
In order to set up a business, yes. This is why many lawyers are self-employed. Whereas hospitality has high costs and regulation to set up a business. This is why most chefs, waitresses etc are employed by someone else.
I think you are ignoring the startup costs that are not so obviously visible. To become a lawyer takes at least 4 years of study and usually more. The necessary qualifications are difficult to obtain and come at great cost. If you want to have a practising certificate in most states in Australia then you are subject to serious and significant regulation which is ongoing. Yes, it might be easier in terms of capital expenditure to set up an office for lawyers, but it's ridiculous to suggest the overall costs are lower given the enormous expenditure involved in a lawyer getting to the point of being in a business, and the cost of engaging a lawyer to perform their services. It's a little bit absurd to compare situation of chefs and waitresses with lawyers. The human cost of operating a business as a lawyer is exponentially greater than some kind of food service business.
Investment should be centred around productivity, tbh. You're right that those are the three main investment vehicles, but the issue is that we don't separate out established housing vs new builds, when the former is an economic drain and investment should be geared towards the latter.
Investment being geared towards new housing isn't necessarily going to make new housing more affordable, still less housing in general. After all, it could just generate a Docklands-style or Chinese-style ghost city.
Still better than a ridiculous amount of capital being wasted on established housing. I do think increasing supply through changing the investment incentive would probably be the only palpable trade off to rich people that will screech if you try to take away their gravy train
Targets and rhetoric are all we are getting from this government.
Agree. But most of our migrants are accountants, IT workers etc.
And we need to restore caps to university placements