Pitch Engine
The Times Real Estate

.

Money for social housing, not home buyers grants, is the key to construction stimulus

  • Written by Brendan Coates, Program Director, Household Finances, Grattan Institute

There’s no doubt Australia’s construction industry is facing tough times. COVID-19 has caused migration to slow to a trickle. Some 2.6 million Australians have either lost their jobs or had their hours cut in the past two months. Many economists expect property prices to fall.

It all adds up to fewer homes being built in the coming...

Read more: Money for social housing, not home buyers grants, is the key to construction stimulus

More Articles ...

  1. Australia's first service sector recession will be unlike those that have gone before it
  2. Digital-only local newspapers will struggle to serve the communities that need them most
  3. A four-day working week could be the shot in the arm post-coronavirus tourism needs
  4. Morrison government invites unions to dance, but employer groups call the tune
  5. What COVID-19 means for the people making your clothes
  6. Morrison wants unions and business to 'put down the weapons' on IR. But real reform will not be easy.
  7. Why flour is still missing from supermarket shelves
  8. Open, honest and effective: what makes Jacinda Ardern an authentic leader
  9. Why the coronavirus shouldn't stand in the way of the next wage increase
  10. Performers and sole traders find it hard to get JobKeeper in part because they get behind on their paperwork
  11. Don't blame COVID-19: Target's decline is part of a deeper trend
  12. What defines casual work? Federal Court ruling highlights a fundamental flaw in Australian labour law
  13. Vital Signs: Australian barley growers are the victims of weaponised trade rules
  14. Rich and poor don't recover equally from epidemics. Rebuilding fairly will be a global challenge
  15. Tonight we riot? What Nintendo's 'revolutionary' video game misses about worker liberation
  16. Coronavirus has turned retail therapy into retail anxiety – keeping customers calm will be key to carrying on
  17. When the Coronavirus Supplement stops, JobSeeker needs to increase by $185 a week
  18. Recessions scar young people their entire lives, even into retirement
  19. The pieces of Australia post-coronavirus are falling into place
  20. China used anti-dumping rules against us because what goes around comes around
  21. Further to fall, harder to rise: Australia must outperform to come out even from COVID-19
  22. The big stimulus spending has just begun. Here's how to get it right, quickly
  23. How to survive a crisis: what Virgin Australia staff can learn from ex-Ansett workers
  24. Forget work-life balance – it's all about integration in the age of COVID-19
  25. Economists back social distancing 34-9 in new Economic Society-Conversation survey
  26. Self-employed Australians' hours have fallen 32% since coronavirus hit – double the impact on all employees
  27. The costs of the shutdown are overestimated -- they're outweighed by its $1 trillion benefit
  28. Vital Signs: rules are also signals, which is why easing social distancing is such a problem
  29. New Zealand's pandemic budget is all about saving and creating jobs. Now the hard work begins
  30. Will New Zealand's $50 billion budget boost Jacinda Ardern's chance of being re-elected?
  31. What'll happen when the money's snatched back? Our looming coronavirus support cliff
  32. Were it not for JobKeeper, unemployment would be 11.7%, up from 5.2% in one month. Here's how the numbers pan out
  33. We need to plan for life after JobKeeper now. We need to make it portable
  34. How to tweak JobKeeper, if we must
  35. Google and Facebook pay way less tax in New Zealand than in Australia – and we're paying the price
  36. Hide self: one tip on video conferencing good enough for Matthew McConaughey
  37. If we want workers to stay home when sick, we need paid leave for casuals
  38. In some places 40% of us may have downloaded COVIDSafe. Here's why the government should share what it knows
  39. The pandemic budget: moving New Zealand from critical care to long-term recovery
  40. The ghosts of budgets past haunt New Zealand's shot at economic recovery
  41. China might well refuse to take our barley, and there would be little we could do
  42. It's hard to know when to come out from under the doona. It'll be soon, but not yet
  43. Should we re-open pubs next week? The benefits seem to exceed the costs
  44. Australians want industry, and they'd like it green. Steel is the place to start
  45. The Reserve Bank thinks the recovery will look V-shaped. There are reasons to doubt it
  46. We should simplify our industrial relations system, but not in the way big business wants
  47. Past pandemics show how coronavirus budgets can drive faster economic recovery
  48. The calculus of death shows the COVID lock-down is clearly worth the cost
  49. Bank dividends are bare. Here's why some shareholders hate it more than they should
  50. Beyond travel, a trans-Tasman bubble is an opportunity for Australia and NZ to reduce dependence on China