EDITORIAL: ALP treads fine line on housing amid melon malaise
Deny, deflect, spin — the Labor hypocrisy about Mr Albanese’s demeaning comments about women on a podcast is breathtaking in its shamelessness.
No doubt home loan borrowers breathed a sigh of relief when the Reserve Bank of Australia left cash rates on hold on Tuesday.
The cash rate was left unchanged at 4.35 per cent despite headline and underlying inflation both being above the RBA’s 2-3 per cent target for almost a year.
While that was good news for borrowers, RBA governor Michele Bullock hinted the bank could still hike rates with inflation expected to remain high until the middle of next year.
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By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.And in another development, evidence continues to mount that housing prices are firmly on the way down — blamed mostly on the impact of the three interest rate rises this year already and the Federal Budget’s housing tax changes.
The ANZ bank is now forecasting significant falls in house prices, with a peak-to-trough fall of 14.5 per cent in Sydney, a drop of 12.8 per cent in Melbourne, a 9.8 per cent plunge in Adelaide, 7.9 per cent fall in Brisbane and a drop in Perth values of 5.2 per cent from this year’s peak.
The cold hard truth is that millions of households face seeing their biggest asset — their home — losing value.
And some who bought a home in recent months face the possibility of negative equity — where they owe the bank more than their home is worth.
Creating the conditions in which first-homebuyers could compete against investors was the stated aim of the Budget housing tax changes and the Albanese Government so far has been almost jubilant that prices were falling.
Whether it holds that line in a crashing housing market remains to be seen.
It is also busy dealing with the continued fallout from the podcast gaffe by Mr Albanese so beneath the status of prime minister it must have some of the cabinet privately shaking their heads in disbelief.
During his now infamous appearance on the Bush Deep podcast, the Prime Minister made comments about his sex life, participated in a game of “shag, marry, date” in which he chose Kylie Minogue to “shag” and was part of crude jokes about melons given to him by Japan’s first female Prime Minister Sanae Takaichi.
This week Japan’s former ambassador in Canberra, Shingo Yamagami, wrote that Mr Albanese’s “insulting joke of likening the carefully chosen gift of two melons to a woman’s chest” also betrayed his “ignorance” about the highly prized fruit.
And Tomohiko Taniguchi, an adviser to former Japanese leader Shinzo Abe, said Mr Albanese’s comments were “unsophisticated” and risked offending the Japanese people.
One after another, Labor ministers lined up to back Mr Albanese, who said he rejected an assertion of disrespectful behaviour in a Liberal call to apologise to Ms Takaichi, saying she “is a friend of Australia and a friend of mine”.
Deny, deflect, spin.
The Labor hypocrisy about Mr Albanese’s demeaning comments about women on the podcast is breathtaking in its shamelessness.
One can only imagine the backlash had such comments been made by a Liberal leader.
But the Albanese Government should be warned.
Recent poor polling numbers are giving the indication the voters are onto it.
