City Futures Blog

By Hal Pawson A housing policy bonanza it most certainly was not, but related announcements in Budget 2023 included some modestly positive steps that supplement the Albanese Government’s existing array of housing initiatives. These included pledged new spending to ease cost of living pressures for hard-pressed renters, and to fund dwelling energy efficiency upgrades in […]

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By Hal Pawson The Albanese Government’s flagship housing legislation has stalled in the Senate, with the PM alarmingly flagging a risk that the package might be abandoned until the next election. To understand what’s going on here we need to wind the clock back to the ALP’s platform taken to the 2022 election. Let’s remember […]

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By Hal Pawson, UNSW Sydney. This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article. Whatever the result of the New South Wales election on March 25, rising housing stress is a problem the new state government will have to confront. Soaring rents and an extraordinary lack of rental […]

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On 15 March Prof Hal Pawson appeared at the Senate Economics Committee Inquiry on the Albanese Government’s package of housing legislation, entered into Parliament in February 2023. Reproduced below is his opening statement to the hearing. This draws on the Centre’s submission to the Australian Government on the draft bills as published in December 2022. […]

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By Dr Rupa Ganguli, City Futures Research Centre. Originally published by The Fifth Estate. In NSW, the Opal and Mascot Towers defects scandals have galvanised a wide ranging response on the issue of quality in apartment building. Together with the tragic fire in London’s Grenfell Tower, the shine has most certainly come off the so-called […]

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By Dr Fatemeh Aminpour, City Futures Research Centre. Originally published at The Conversation. Conflict is one of the main barriers to children’s play during school recess. Research has found students experience an average of one conflict at recess every three minutes. My own research shows how well-designed school grounds can reduce conflict and help vulnerable students take part in recess […]

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By Prof Hal Pawson. A version of this story was originally published in The Conversation. Read the original version here. Despite its prominence in the election, housing affordability campaign debate remained largely one-sided. Plenty was said about the very real challenges faced by first home buyers and by homeowners already mortgaged to the hilt. But […]

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By Hal Pawson; CFRC With newly released evidence of slowing house price inflation in early 2022, it may be that Australia’s latest property boom is subsiding. Especially with higher interest rates expected within months that seems highly likely. But any plateau or even gentle decline will be starting from property values dramatically higher than before […]

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By Hal Pawson. This story first appeared in the Fifth Estate – read the original story here. As tens of thousands prepare to take a financial hit with the end of COVID-related disaster payments, our new research shows that renters on low and modest incomes are already in the grip of a housing pincer, especially […]

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