Discussion Random Discussion

[Yawkey way]

Warnings About Processed Meat Fail the Test of Science — Diet Doctor

A new re-analysis of the science concerning links between processed meat and chronic disease indicates that studies showing a relationship between the two are very low quality.

www.dietdoctor.com

Good news considering I eat according to the five food group principle:
1. Bacon
2. Ham
3. Salami
4. Sausages
5. Jerky

I love them all but eat them sparingly, sometimes I think I’m going to loose the plot if I see another piece of skinless chicken breast.

 

[Yawkey way]

CBD is old fashioned thinking. I'm not saying that its suitable for ALL businesses and agencies to relocate. But many of the traditional reasons for locating in a city are gone.

These are just a few redundant reasons i can think of offhand.
Of course there are other intangibles like Prestige. Maybe some people ( gullible ) really do bank with ANZ instead of Bendigo or ING direct,
There are also other issues, such as availability of experienced staff.


1: Proximity to the Port.
That's why Melbourne is there. But now its a liability having the Port in town.
Trucks hauling containers are using some of the busiest roads around the city, yet very few of their good would be delivered in close proximity.
It would be better for those in the City if the Port was elsewhere, and it would be better for the Port if it wasn't in the City center.

2: Communication between government/financial departments.
You don't need to run down the road to the Office of Superfluous Bureaucracy with all your forms filled in anymore.

3: Location close to clients and customers.
Cities are a massive sprawl, unless very specialised , its not uncommon for clients and customers to be an hour or more away. The city is a massive bottleneck, and any advantage to the central location is offset by the extra traffic.


I'm not a massive fan of the way the city planners have allowed the apartment revolution. To me a lot of the apartments built on the cheap and the town planners haven't been particularly active in doing anything apart from allowing developers to do what they want.
For example , the closing in of the spaces around Marvel Stadium, to me is pretty crappy.
You just need to go to places like Hong Kong to see how shitty apartments can look once they get 20 or 30 years on them.

Planning here has been appalling and unfortunately I don’t see it improving much.

It depends on the business but arbitrarily moving parts of departments into your electorate is absolutely insane, you loose staff and expertise just for starters. Let’s face it there’s very little reason to live in regional towns and that’s not likely to change.

 

[gringo2011]

Planning here has been appalling and unfortunately I don’t see it improving much.

It depends on the business but arbitrarily moving parts of departments into your electorate is absolutely insane, you loose staff and expertise just for starters. Let’s face it there’s very little reason to live in regional towns and that’s not likely to change.

Yep without legitimate industry there is little to no reason to live there. Even farming isn't small scale any more. Most of my extended family were in farming and no-one does it any more. The scale has to be massive or it's not worth doing. Gippsland was so massively linked into power production that once it started to go it became a welfare class dumping ground instead.

If they found a way to make mass employment initiatives there would be a chance to revive the towns. We lost auto and general manufacturing and what's left is as good as automated so I don't know what can be done. They should try to build government funded solar desalination plants close to the sea and in desert regions. Sell the tech overseas and make linked farming land close by that could be irrigated, Kind of like a tech- kibbutz. Find ways to produce things from waste like decking made of recycled plastics and government fund them. Grow mass agriculture in the same area. Private enterprise is not benefitted from mass employment, government is.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Yep without legitimate industry there is little to no reason to live there. Even farming isn't small scale any more. Most of my extended family were in farming and no-one does it any more. The scale has to be massive or it's not worth doing. Gippsland was so massively linked into power production that once it started to go it became a welfare class dumping ground instead.

If they found a way to make mass employment initiatives there would be a chance to revive the towns. We lost auto and general manufacturing and what's left is as good as automated so I don't know what can be done. They should try to build government funded solar desalination plants close to the sea and in desert regions. Sell the tech overseas and make linked farming land close by that could be irrigated, Kind of like a tech- kibbutz. Find ways to produce things from waste like decking made of recycled plastics and government fund them. Grow mass agriculture in the same area. Private enterprise is not benefitted from mass employment, government is.

Wooden Decking is Carbon Storage.
The negative aspects of "landfill" are greatly exaggerated IMO.

We don't have the tech for desal plants, they are commonly built overseas , far cheaper and with less fuss than our corrupt industy allowed.

There is no reason for anything in Europe to be outside the large cities either, yet there it is...why? Because there is no reason why not.

 

[gringo2011]

Wooden Decking is Carbon Storage.
The negative aspects of "landfill" are greatly exaggerated IMO.

We don't have the tech for desal plants, they are commonly built overseas , far cheaper and with less fuss than our corrupt industy allowed.

There is no reason for anything in Europe to be outside the large cities either, yet there it is...why? Because there is no reason why not.

European cities have very defined boundaries usually. There is no sprawl so you have to move to another town or pay up.

Desal could be easily done through evaporation or through solar treatment if we wanted to. Fresh water will be worth investing in.

 

[sunny3193]

For the problem solvers:
My dog is 12 and a half old.
This year is his fourteenth summer.
Why?
First correct reply wins a Love emoj.

 

[gringo2011]

For the problem solvers:
My dog is 12 and a half old.
This year is his fourteenth summer.
Why?
First correct reply wins a Love emoj.

Took him overseas a couple of times?

 

[pebblesofsand]

Supply and Demand doesn't function properly in Australia when one person can own 5 houses. That massively reduces the supply of available houses to buy, hence massively increasing the demand when there are unoccupied houses everywhere. Negative Gearing was one of the worst if not the worst policy for the economy ever introduced.

Yep - over 10% of houses unoccupied simply because the capital gain itself exceeds the return (and the stress of renting) nothing will change.

Progressive return to the principal purpose of housing to be provide accommodation for people rather than being an investment strategy for the minority should be a priority of any sensible govt.

Let the art market become the principal ponzi scheme and stop stuffing with the fundamentals of people lives.

 

[pebblesofsand]

Yes it is a measure in some studies and a stated goal of a majority of renters, it has benefits and drawbacks.

I’m not sure how you conclude the cost of building a house is getting cheaper to produce given what we pay our tradies. I can tell you from personal experience that even a relatively minor extension and renovation runs into the hundreds of thousands.

Private rentals are currently providing our rental housing stock so unless you want a massive investment in public housing then you’re stuck with negative gearing and generous capital gains treatment. Hawke and Keating briefly ended negative gearing and introduced a capital gains tax. Rents shot up and negative gearing was restored even though Keating had described it as an outrageous rort. It’s also something that whilst boomers may have been in the vanguard everyone else since has also joined the party. I’m sorry to break it to you crusty but it’s not just the wealthy, my postie was telling me about his various investment properties, not one we’re taking several.

Personally I’d be happy for it to be reined in along with the capital gains tax concessions but only after a reasonable debate and some independent modelling. I’m not signing up for get some cane toads that will fix the problem solutions. I have four kids and no investment properties so I have no skin in the the game other than to hope we don’t do something that brings on a property crash or a housing shortfall.

"Hawke and Keating briefly ended negative gearing and introduced a capital gains tax. Rents shot up...."

Urban myth - rents increased in some cities (Sydney), remained the same in others (Melbourne) and went down in others (Adelaide/Brisbane) which confirms that local factors (supply & demand) were more an influence than the tax policy.

 

[CursingFijian]

For the problem solvers:
My dog is 12 and a half old.
This year is his fourteenth summer.
Why?
First correct reply wins a Love emoj.

He was born on 01st December (summer).

 

[SaintsSeptember]

"Hawke and Keating briefly ended negative gearing and introduced a capital gains tax. Rents shot up...."

Urban myth - rents increased in some cities (Sydney), remained the same in others (Melbourne) and went down in others (Adelaide/Brisbane) which confirms that local factors (supply & demand) were more an influence than the tax policy.

Its always going to be supply and demand.
Logic suggests that with such a tax, less people would invest in housing.
There would therefore be less rental available and owners would want more rent because.. a) they can ( availability ) b) their costs are higher ( no neg gearing).

But at the same time, overall property values should be lower due to less demand from investors. That means that if you do invest , you shouldn't need to pay as much, and similarly there should be more homes available to buy for people wanting their own home.

Its not just property is it? Can you also negative gear shares?

 

[pebblesofsand]

Its always going to be supply and demand.
Logic suggests that with such a tax, less people would invest in housing.
There would therefore be less rental available and owners would want more rent because.. a) they can ( availability ) b) their costs are higher ( no neg gearing).

But at the same time, overall property values should be lower due to less demand from investors. That means that if you do invest , you shouldn't need to pay as much, and similarly there should be more homes available to buy for people wanting their own home.

Its not just property is it? Can you also negative gear shares?

"Its always going to be supply and demand."

No its not - but once you introduce negative gearing & capital gains concessions then conditions exist for the market dynamics to be manipulated for economic return.

Withholding "supply" (ie over 10% of properties remain vacant) creates an artificial demand which increases the value of the property and the rental potential. 18 councils in Victoria introduced a "vacancy" tax last year of 1% of CIV. Feds did it in 2017 but in typical gutless manner only applied it to overseas owners.

"Its not just property is it? Can you also negative gear shares?"

And there lies the problem. The "rationale" behind the introduction of negative gearing for property was that the facility (negative gearing) was available for other investment strategies and therefore it was inconsistent not to apply it to housing.

Howard and Costello completely neglected the fact that the primary reason for housing should be to provide housing to the population they should be supporting.

The Labor policy of grandfathering existing investments and restricting new investment to new houses only was sensible compromise position that was undone by a fear campaign.

 

[Crusty Undies]

I’m sure you don’t really believe you can buy a liveable house in the US for $30,000, a large coastal city like San Francisco could easily top 1 million US.

Yes you can look at what other countries do but you have to remember that it’s not a clean slate. If there is a better system we have to figure out how we get from here to there without creating carnage.

We suffer to some extent because we don’t have the same choices that say the US and the UK have, there’s really not much outside of our capital cities and that’s not likely to change.

Home ownership in Australia - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

I don’t usually put much faith in Wikipedia but this is a decent entry with some very good links.

I obviously wasn't talking about one of the most desired living locations in the world which, btw, is still significantly cheaper than buying property in Melbourne or Sydney. Rural towns in Victoria still sell houses for upwards of 500k, rural towns in America have incredibly cheap housing. Having an uncle who lives in the USA and who has confirmed housing can be as cheap as a good second hand car makes me pretty confident there actually are places where you can buy for 30k. And so what? So what if it's not a clean slate? Does that mean we shouldn't at least be attempting to make life better for people? Nah just chuck it in the too hard basket along with climate change, tertiary education costs, renewables, public transport and every other initiative the Libs deem unprofitable for Murdoch or Rinehart.

 

[sunny3193]

Took him overseas a couple of times?

You win the love emoji!
He had an American summer in mid 2014 and a New Zealand summer later the same year.

 

[sunny3193]

He was born on 01st December (summer).

Sorry, Gringo won the love emoji.
He had two summers in 2014: the first in the States and the second in NZ.

 

[SaintsSeptember]

"Its always going to be supply and demand."

No its not - but once you introduce negative gearing & capital gains concessions then conditions exist for the market dynamics to be manipulated for economic return.

Withholding "supply" (ie over 10% of properties remain vacant) creates an artificial demand which increases the value of the property and the rental potential. 18 councils in Victoria introduced a "vacancy" tax last year of 1% of CIV. Feds did it in 2017 but in typical gutless manner only applied it to overseas owners.

"Its not just property is it? Can you also negative gear shares?"

And there lies the problem. The "rationale" behind the introduction of negative gearing for property was that the facility (negative gearing) was available for other investment strategies and therefore it was inconsistent not to apply it to housing.

Howard and Costello completely neglected the fact that the primary reason for housing should be to provide housing to the population they should be supporting.

The Labor policy of grandfathering existing investments and restricting new investment to new houses only was sensible compromise position that was undone by a fear campaign.

You seem very politically motivated with your response, and you state it as a fact. It doesn't hold up under investigatiion.
Woopeee, you can buy that million dollar property for just $990 000.

Why a vacancy tax won't solve Australia's empty houses problem

A tax on empty homes will make a modest difference to housing affordability. The sheer wastefulness of our housing system calls for something much more ambitious, writes Hal Pawson from UNSW.

www.abc.net.au

------------------------------
Census figures are useful mainly because they indicate trends over time, but they substantially overstate the true number of long-term vacant habitable properties because they include temporarily empty dwellings (including second homes).

Using Victorian water records, Prosper Australia estimates about half of Melbourne's census-recorded vacant properties are long-term "speculative vacancies". That's 82,000 homes.

Applying a similar "conversion factor" to Sydney's census numbers would indicate around 68,000 speculative vacancies.

According to University of Queensland real estate economics expert Cameron Murray, a national tax that entirely eliminated this glut might moderate the price of housing by 1-2 per cent.
Therefore, although worthwhile, dealing with this element of our inefficient use of land and property would provide only a small easing of Australia's broader affordability problem.
-------------------------------

 

[Mat Mann]

Planning here has been appalling and unfortunately I don’t see it improving much.

It depends on the business but arbitrarily moving parts of departments into your electorate is absolutely insane, you loose staff and expertise just for starters. Let’s face it there’s very little reason to live in regional towns and that’s not likely to change.

there are heaps of reasons to live in Regional towns, QOL prime among them, but alas, our Melbourne centric government shuns the benefits of the larger regional towns like Bendigo, Ballarat Moe/Morwell/Traralgon through it insane policies.

Consider for a moment that ALL victorians paid for the DeSal plant and ALL victorians continue to pay for its non use and then the realisation that Bendigo lies a tad less than 2 hours away has been on permanent water savings for near on a decade whilst the DeSal plant lies unused. Melbourne grows at an unsustainable rate, whilst our regional brethren are ignored by our government of Melbourne.

If I could I'd move in a heart beat. Those larger regional cities lose nothing in terms of essential services and amenities
If the Government were better these cities would be connected by high speed transport by now

 

[SaintsSeptember]

there are heaps of reasons to live in Regional towns, QOL prime among them, but alas, our Melbourne centric government shuns the benefits of the larger regional towns like Bendigo, Ballarat Moe/Morwell/Traralgon through it insane policies.

Consider for a moment that ALL victorians paid for the DeSal plant and ALL victorians continue to pay for its non use and then the realisation that Bendigo lies a tad less than 2 hours away has been on permanent water savings for near on a decade whilst the DeSal plant lies unused. Melbourne grows at an unsustainable rate, whilst our regional brethren are ignored by our government of Melbourne.

If I could I'd move in a heart beat. Those larger regional cities lose nothing in terms of essential services and amenities
If the Government were better these cities would be connected by high speed transport by now

Ballarat is a great location.
If you wanted to set up a greenfield factory/industry somewhere and you chose the outskirts of Ballarat.

You are around 1 1/4 to 1 /12 hours from the airport. :: No real disadvantage to Metro based.
Similar distance for items going to /from the Port. :: No real cost or disadvantage to Metro based.
Your land would cost a fraction of metropolitan land. :: Return on assets improved.
Staff who chose to live on the opposite side of Ballarat would have a commute time of around 20 minutes. :: Workforce happier than those who have 2hours plus in the car each day, reduced transport costs, means pay shouldn't need to be as high as a metro based company.
If you were selling a house in an inner melbourne Suburb to go there, you would have your choice of mansions. Happy Staff.
If you were starting from scratch, you get a neat place for $300 000, renovators delights and units can be much cheaper. Happy Staff.
Fast public transport to Melbourne City.

Not too far from Marvel Stadium.

 

[Yawkey way]

I obviously wasn't talking about one of the most desired living locations in the world which, btw, is still significantly cheaper than buying property in Melbourne or Sydney. Rural towns in Victoria still sell houses for upwards of 500k, rural towns in America have incredibly cheap housing. Having an uncle who lives in the USA and who has confirmed housing can be as cheap as a good second hand car makes me pretty confident there actually are places where you can buy for 30k. And so what? So what if it's not a clean slate? Does that mean we shouldn't at least be attempting to make life better for people? Nah just chuck it in the too hard basket along with climate change, tertiary education costs, renewables, public transport and every other initiative the Libs deem unprofitable for Murdoch or Rinehart.

No San Francisco is a lot more expensive than Melbourne and no you can’t get what we would consider a liveable house for $30,000.

Yes the US has plenty of affordable housing it goes with the water and the industry, take a quick look around we live on the fringes of the driest continent with the poorest quality soil.

It’s not about the too hard basket, you want cheap housing and I’m telling you that a far greater number are locked into a high price structure than are locked out so where does that leave us. You’re entitled to ask and the majority are entitled to say no. Climate change didn’t rate on the list of things voters were concerned about and tertiary education despite the debt is as accessible as its ever been. Did you think it was always free? Maybe a bit of research will put that to bed.

I’m an advocate of affordable education, public transport, public housing and a liveable wage, I’m also pragmatic enough to realise that you have to take the majority with you, what’s the point of policy’s that can’t garner popular support.

 

[Yawkey way]

We're the only country in the world with negative gearing the way it is. We don't need to run advanced statistical models we can just look at every other first world society that is richer than ours and notice that their housing is still astronomically cheaper. You can buy a house in the US for 30 grand, you couldn't buy a shoebox in the gutter for 30 grand here. The reason your extensions are so expensive are a by-product of the housing market because builders know they can charge that much becauseyou can't just love house. The materials and time required to producr housing have gotten cheaper and cheaper and cheaper and housing prices still go up. It's a completely fabricated lie that we need negative gearing otherwise no one can have anything but government housing.

Of course you need to model it, you have to accept the reality of where we are and the cost of getting to where we want to be.

You want to inflict pain on those that you perceive as having benefited from the system to your own advantage, hows that any different than the current situation.

 

[Yawkey way]

"Hawke and Keating briefly ended negative gearing and introduced a capital gains tax. Rents shot up...."

Urban myth - rents increased in some cities (Sydney), remained the same in others (Melbourne) and went down in others (Adelaide/Brisbane) which confirms that local factors (supply & demand) were more an influence than the tax policy.

Went up enough to to reverse the policy so enough said I think.

 

[pebblesofsand]

You seem very politically motivated with your response, and you state it as a fact. It doesn't hold up under investigatiion.
Woopeee, you can buy that million dollar property for just $990 000.

Why a vacancy tax won't solve Australia's empty houses problem

A tax on empty homes will make a modest difference to housing affordability. The sheer wastefulness of our housing system calls for something much more ambitious, writes Hal Pawson from UNSW.

www.abc.net.au

------------------------------
Census figures are useful mainly because they indicate trends over time, but they substantially overstate the true number of long-term vacant habitable properties because they include temporarily empty dwellings (including second homes).

Using Victorian water records, Prosper Australia estimates about half of Melbourne's census-recorded vacant properties are long-term "speculative vacancies". That's 82,000 homes.

Applying a similar "conversion factor" to Sydney's census numbers would indicate around 68,000 speculative vacancies.

According to University of Queensland real estate economics expert Cameron Murray, a national tax that entirely eliminated this glut might moderate the price of housing by 1-2 per cent.
Therefore, although worthwhile, dealing with this element of our inefficient use of land and property would provide only a small easing of Australia's broader affordability problem.
-------------------------------

Not sure of the point of your post unless you think that the housing affordability problem isn't really a problem.
2% is 2% $10k is $10k.

Can't see where I suggested "speculative" vacancies are the root cause of the problem. However they are symptom of poor policy.

Vacancy rates in the CBD of Melbourne have increased to nearly 13% - is that a positive or a negative?

 

[pebblesofsand]

Went up enough to to reverse the policy so enough said I think.

For you maybe but the facts don't support the supposition so I don't accept the supposition.

As for politicians - ha!!!!?

 

[SaintsSeptember]

Not sure of the point of your post unless you think that the housing affordability problem isn't really a problem.
2% is 2% $10k is $10k.

Can't see where I suggested "speculative" vacancies are the root cause of the problem. However they are symptom of poor policy.

Vacancy rates in the CBD of Melbourne have increased to nearly 13% - is that a positive or a negative?

My point was that the 1% doesn't come close to fixing the affordability issue.

Furthermore.
If i started a company. Acme Investments Pty Ltd. Without using the "gearing word " would i not be entitled to combine my income and deduct my expenses/losses "

Allowing negative gearing is just allowing those dirty middle class types the ability to get in on the good action. It should be taken off them, meaning that only we elite , who don't pay personal income tax can benefit.
Its bad enough they all buy shares these days.

26 Myths About Property Investing in Melbourne (Updated for 2025) - Klear Picture

When considering Melbourne property, realise that properties can generally be categorised into two groups: active or passive investments. The most common myths we see are ...

klearpicture.com.au

It’s easy to invest in Australia - Many countries have very restrictive foreign investment laws or banking regulations that make it difficult to invest. This isn’t the case in Australia:

• You don’t need to set up a company in Australia or buy with a citizen.
• Government approval for foreign citizens is simple, although additional taxes apply. Read about the rules below.
• Specialist mortgage brokers can assist you in qualifying for a foreigner mortgage.
• There’s strong and effective consumer protection legislation in Australia through the National Consumer Credit Protection Act 2009 (NCCP Act).
• Australia’s legal system is based on the UK system just like Hong Kong or Singapore, so it’s familiar to many overseas investors.
• There’s minimal political, social or economic instability in Australia.

 

[Yawkey way]

there are heaps of reasons to live in Regional towns, QOL prime among them, but alas, our Melbourne centric government shuns the benefits of the larger regional towns like Bendigo, Ballarat Moe/Morwell/Traralgon through it insane policies.

Consider for a moment that ALL victorians paid for the DeSal plant and ALL victorians continue to pay for its non use and then the realisation that Bendigo lies a tad less than 2 hours away has been on permanent water savings for near on a decade whilst the DeSal plant lies unused. Melbourne grows at an unsustainable rate, whilst our regional brethren are ignored by our government of Melbourne.

If I could I'd move in a heart beat. Those larger regional cities lose nothing in terms of essential services and amenities
If the Government were better these cities would be connected by high speed transport by now

I’m sorry but that just not accurate, yes all victorians pay but the desal plant was constructed to drought proof Melbourne.

Larger regional cities loose nothing in terms of essential services and amenities, really you and I both know that’s not true. I better tell my youngest daughter and her fiancée who have moved in with us from Bendigo or my mother and father in-law who travel from swan hill to Melbourne for treatment. The new hospital in Bendigo has been a boon for the region but there’s still only so much they do there.