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Well, it’s finally here. The recession we really have to have. And it won’t be over for a while. There’s a lot of talk about how Australia will ‘probably’ have a ‘relatively soft’ landing – but there’s an elephant in the room.
Property.
By and large Australians don’t invest in stocks and shares unless they’re forced to, for example, via superannuation. They prefer to invest in bricks and mortar.
And for a long time we’ve done very well at it. From 1986 – 2007 property rpices rose an average of 400%, while incomes only rose 120%
And the boom has only recently come to a halt – prices in the suburb where I own an investment property rose 23% in the 12 months to September this year.
The trouble is, those sort of prices are unsustainable. We've speculated property prices up so far, no-one can actually afford to use the stuff any more.
As a general rule most experts agree that for housing to be affordable and prices to be sustainable in the long term, prices need to be sitting at about 3-3.5 times median income.
Right now it’s averaging around 7-7.5 times annual income across Australia. We’re in an asset price bubble, and it’s about to burst.
Tasmania has the most affordable housing, at around 5-6 times annual income. The major capitals are sitting on around 8-9 times, with parts of Sydney up at 11 times.
A massive correction is overdue.
In 2007 the IMF predicted prices would fall around 20%. AMP is a little doomier, predicting a 25% fall, with no recovery until after 2011.
Speaking on ABC’s Counterpoint programme on 22 September, Steve Keen, an economist at the University of Western Sydney and Hugh Pavletich, a former property developer in Christchurch, New Zealand and co-author of the Demographia International Housing Affordability Survey agreed they expected an AVERAGE fall of 40% over the same period.
None of the experts could foresee when prices might return to current levels, but none expected it within the next 10-15 years.
The message to property owners is: if you own property outright, with no mortgage, sit tight. It’s only a paper loss.
If you have a mortgage:
Step one, cut up all your credit cards and pay them off. Buy nothing you can’t afford to pay for with cash.
Step two, pay off any other debt you have as fast as you can.
Step three, put all your available money into paying off your mortgage as fast as you can.
If you must sell your property, because you can no longer afford it, you’re about to retire, or whatever reason, be prepared to accept much less than you were expecting. There will be a lot of people like you, such a baby boomers retiring, leading to a glut on the market.
If you can hang on, remember that things will probably only BEGIN to turn around in 2012, and the current peak may not be reached again until well after 2022. Adjust your plan accordingly.
Naturally some areas will hold their value better than others, while some will suffer a dramatic slide. McMansions in outer suburbs with poor public transport, and rundown properties in poorer inner city areas, to take a couple of examples, will probably do worst.
Solid well-maintained properties in near-city suburbs with good infrastructure will probably not fall more than about 20%.
But the Australian love affair with property investment is about to come to a nasty end. 
This won't hurt a bit
The specialist was brisk, breezy and confident.
“Oh yes, soon have that fixed, I’ve a slot next Wednesday…..”
“Er, excuse me, but what method will you use?”
His eyes widen in surprise.
“Just the usual way, of course,” he says crossly. “Now you do have private medical insurance, I see, but there will be a . . . . ”
“Sorry to interrupt, but do you mean open surgery and then staple across the incision? Doesn’t a laparascopic repair using a plug and mesh system have a much shorter recovery time?”
He stares at me.
“You don’t want to go believing everything you read on the internet,” he sneers.
“I’m aware of that. But isn’t it true the traditional method can actually weaken the area, meaning the repair often has to be repeated within a few years?”
He rolls his eyes, sighs, and then says, slowly and with heavy emphasis, “Look, these clinics that advertise on the internet, they have a vested interest in selling you their system, you can’t rely on their advice, it’s hardly unbiased. I don’t use mesh because I don’t like leaving foreign material inside patients, it can cause complications further down the track, get in the way of subsequent medical procedures and so forth.”
For a moment I feel a fool. He is, after all, supposed to be the expert, plus he seems to be trying hard not to lose his temper. And he’s a pretty imposing sort of bloke. But it’s my gut he’s proposing to slice open.
And I am not a fool. I knew those clinics were commercial operations. And I knew they weren’t telling me the full story. So I also looked up the British Medical Journal and the New England Journal of Medicine, and there I found articles confirming their claims, and dismissing my doctors objections. I take a deep breath and tell him.
Now he’s really in a huff. For a moment I think he’s going to shout at me. His face actually darkens. But he’s not about to see a fee slip out of his grasp if he can help it.
“Well,” he says, through gritted teeth, “I suppose if you’ve made your mind up, I can do a mesh repair.”
What!? Ten seconds ago he was telling me he didn’t do them because they were dangerous!!
I actually feel afraid of this man, but I have to ask, “Have you done many of them before?”
“Look, I told you I don’t normally do them,” he spits, “but I’m perfectly competent to do one if that’s what you insist on.”
I take a deep breath.
“No offence, doctor, but I think I’d prefer someone who has some experience in the area.”
He stares at me for a second as if he can’t believe his ears, then storms out without a word.
Score one for patient power!
I wasn’t in a life-threatening situation. The operation wasn’t urgent. And I’d done my homework, so I knew he was wrong. Plus I’m generally a pretty confident bloke. But standing up to him was still very stressful. He’s the doctor, the expert, confident and assertive. Who was I to question his judgement?
I thought about that this week when I heard about some doctors who won’t help a woman have an abortion, or refer them to another doctor who might, even when her life is in danger, because abortion offends their consciences.
I wonder how many women have been browbeaten into going through with unwanted pregnancies by confident, self-righteous doctors and nurses like that?
Already in America we’ve seen these conscience-stricken doctors refusing to provide IVF treatment to single women and lesbians, and pharmacists refusing to dispense contraceptive pills (even when they’re the only pharmacist in town) because it’s against their religion.
Well sorry darlings, but if your morals get in the way of your job, you’re in the wrong job.
The Catholic Church agrees. They said if the abortion law, passed they’d have to close down their maternity wards. Well, it passed. Your move, Monsignor.
You don’t go to a priest for medical assistance, and you don’t go to a doctor for moral guidance. Render unto Caesar, and all that. In a clash between doctor rights and patient rights, patient rights always win.
We’ll now see the same kind of fight over the assisted reproduction bill. Doctors who don’t like rainbow families will find all kinds of ‘moral’ excuses as to why they should be allowed to stay in business while continuing to discriminate against us.
You may not see what all this has to do with you. You’re a man, so you’ll never need an abortion. You are a woman, but you’ve no intention of ever having children. But allowing people to refuse medical treatment simply because they don’t approve of the patient – which is what these people want – sets a very dangerous precedent. What treatment might one of them decide you don’t deserve?
I So ain't gonna be yo' bro' no mo' - pic thanks ABC
Now that John So’s decided he ain’t gonna be our bro’ no mo’, and Jeff Kennett’s decided to stay home with the grandkids, would-be Melbourne Mayors are popping up like weeds. And weeds is the operative term.
Ineffectual former Liberal state leader Robert ‘Popeye’ Doyle – who in a “Sarah Palin moment” was once blessed by the fundamentalist ‘Catch The Fire’ Ministries - has been annointed front runner by the press, even though he hasn’t even said if he’ll definitely stand yet.
Long-time So associate (and wife of one of Ted Baillieu’s advisors, so I guess we can put her in the Liberal camp, too) Catherine Ng reckons it’s her turn at the top. She probably read Peter Costello’s memoirs and decided that if she didn’t give So a shove she too might turn into a political Miss Haversham.
Her decision to back herself instead of our incomprehensible but oddly popular mayor allegedly persuaded him to stand down. She’s rumoured to be something of a Dragon Lady - insiders call her ‘combative’ and ‘odd’, and that’s when they’re being nice; she calls herself “The City’s Mother”, which could illustrate either a high degree of self-delusion (not necessarily handicap for a politician – just look at Eva Peron) or simply a profound cultural gulf.
If you’re in no rush to collect another mother, how about a (slightly used) wife? Liberal power broker Michael Kroger’s other half, Anne Peacock and Jeff Kennett’s spouse Felicity are definite maybes. Rich businessmen are apt to buy up little businesses to give their wives something to do, but I’m not sure I want Town Hall put into that category.
Thankfully the former Premier himself – you know, the one who confuses gays with paedophiles, and likes to dress up in brown and yellow - decided not to run, a decision which generated such a deep sigh of relief in Bourke Street that that the Bureau of Meteorology issued a strong wind warning.
Meanwhile Labour, ever the friend of the working man, is offering us two “champagne socialists”: official (serial) candidate Peter McMullin, heir apparent to the Spotless Group, and multi-millionaire Will Fowles of Fowles Auction Group.
Spotless Group make their millions employing hordes of workers on minimum wages, many of who work on - surprise, surprise – servicing city owned properties and venues.
Not exactly the most inspiring group of contenders.
Does it matter who wins? You might think that a city like Melbourne ought to have one overarching strategic authority to deal with planning and infrastructure from Geelong to Sorrento, from the bay to Yea, but “Clown Hall” has only limited powers and responsibilities. It doesn’t run most of what we think of as ‘Melbourne’, just the CBD, Docklands, and a few inner suburbs.
On top of that, its decisions can be overridden by Spring Street, and if that doesn’t bring the councillors to heel, Spring Street can turf them out. Both have happened within recent memory. So it’s no wonder most of the cast of candidates look more like show ponies than workhorses.
Melbourne City Council may have less power and fewer responsibilities than the suburban councils around it, but it does have a power over our community. The power of money.
Thanks largely to the work of openly gay Deputy Lord Mayor Gary Singer, the city has tipped substantial amounts into Midsumma and OutGames (and elsewhere) in recent years, and given cheap CBD office space to Joy, ALSO, Switchboard and Queer Film.
But if Singer leaves at this election, all that becomes vulnerable. As the recession bites, a cash-strapped Council looking for budget cuts could find us a very easy and tempting target.
He has said he’s ‘considering’ a run, but high in the list of considerations must be the mauling he’d inevitably receive at the hands of the Herald Sun, which has never shirked from digging up dirt about him (and his partner) and throwing it around.
I can make no judgements about the quantity and quality of the dirt in question, compared to that available for flinging at other candidates, since to date the Herald Sun has not exactly been an equal opportunity muckraker.
For now we must give them the benefit of the doubt and acquit them of homophobia. The situation might be different if we had a decent broadsheet paper in the city , who I’m sure would delve into the dealings of all the candidates.
Instead of which Fairfax, owners of the Age, pursue a petulant policy of not touching any story already defiled by the hand of News Limited, thereby depriving us of much entertaining investigative journalism.
The money that has flowed from the Council to the rainbow community has underpinned a remarkable flourishing of Melbourne gay life, but to maintain it, we will need an advocate at City Hall, and of all the runners currently in the race, only the Greens have strong pro-diversity policies.
The signs are good. Adam Bandt, the Green candidate for Mayor, almost tipped Lindsay Tanner out of Melbourne at the general election, and is currently second favourite behind Doyle.
Another openly gay Melbournian, Andrew Heslop, recently quit his job in NSW and, after initially playing coy, now says he’s considering a run, and is looking around for a deputy. But he may have left it too late.
But unless Bandt, Singer or Heslop gets up, we could soon be dealing with a mayor’s nest.
Or possibly a dragons lair.
Adam Bandt and his deputy, Kathleen Maltzahn, are my guests on the Rainbow Report Thursday night October 9, on Joy 94.9 FM 7-8pm if you're in Melbourne, streaming live at www.joy.org.au if you're not. Podcast will be on the same site by the weekend. A version of this column first appeared in Southern Star, Melbourne's newest GLBTI newspaper, on the streets Thursdays.
It’s been a dramatic week in gay and lesbian publishing, with the collapse of bnews and the sudden emergence of two new gay media – Canvas, an arts and entertainment magazine from Evolution Publishing, and Southern Star, from Sydney Star Observer.
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September 29th 2008 06:34
Pic by mellowmonk.com
Apologies for not posting much lately. I endured a colonoscopy, a gastroscopy and the death of my laptop in the course of a single week, and I'm only just getting myself organised again
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September 27th 2008 08:49
This weekend I’ll be taking the Addam Stobbs seat on Allegro Non Troppo, Sunday 11.00am – 1.00pm. Although I’m not exactly ‘musical’, Addams longtime co-presenter Peter Fortey and producer Robert Brierley assure me they’ll get me through the first hour.
In the second hour, produced by Bianca Johnston, I’ll be looking at the issue of aged care for gay and lesbian seniors. A recent report by the Matrix Guild and Vintage men painted a disturbing picture of the situation for the retired members of our community and those approaching retirement
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September 23rd 2008 01:59
The arrogance of the Catholic Church is quite breathtaking. Once again the Vatican is using blackmail to try to get its own way.
In the US, Catholic politicians who won’t vote as they are told have been threatened with excommunication
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September 21st 2008 01:51
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September 19th 2008 11:33
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September 18th 2008 04:28
Back in the USSA
Funny isn’t it? US politics is entirely lacking a left wing – there is only a centre right, and an extreme right. Both parties believe in letting the market run free, don’t interfere with business, abhor public ownership . . . . .
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Comment by Doug Pollard
on Trust me, I'm a doctor
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