Housing prices skyrocketing, but not just in Australia.

We have heard in the press and TV media that foreigners with money or with cheap interest rates available are buying up in our market and forcing up prices and making the Australian Dream of owning ones own home almost a fairy tale.

Realistically it's quite possible that this is indeed the case as we've just gone through a few of the fastest growth years for house building, immigration and availability of finance.

Young people trying to get into their first home took advantage recently of a boosted First home owners grant which when it first came out could be the total deposit for the purchase of an owner occupied first home.

That is not the case now, and even as the boost to the grant was cut down to half and then no boost at all numbers of applicants were becoming lower as house prices spiralled upwards and out of the reach of those young buyers due to inability to service the higher loan amount as well as lenders getting twitchy and mortgage insurers almost point blank refusing to guarantee more than 95% of the loan amount (in traditional loan scenarios)

Funny though, sales have been doing OK and they seem to be pushing auctions and there are usually some phone bidders pushing the prices up until local interest wains, . . . .so what's going on?


Today, a very small news item has appeared, and I recalled reading a while ago that China's richest woman has made her wealth from (apart from the inherited money from her father; millions) by buying up as much property as she possibly can and then reselling it at a marked profit.

Beijing city limits home buyers to one new apartment

THE city of Beijing has issued rules limiting families to one new apartment purchase as authorities try to rein in rampant property speculation and soaring prices, China's state media reported today.
The order by the capital's authority is the latest in a series of moves it has taken as it tries to reduce the risk of the red-hot real estate market overheating and derailing the booming economy

Ok I know this blog has ended up being a bit of a mixed bag, but I wanted to make a point that while we are constantly being told that our interest rates need to go much higher to control spending which increases inflation, what seems to have happened is that it has revealed our market to a buyer who can access money at a far cheaper interest rate that we can.

Further, if buyers in other countries cannot get property in their own country, they will quite probably look elsewhere, you can never have enough money , can you?


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The future for Logan, . . it's bad bad news for the old North Beaudesert.

I was shocked and dismayed to see the front page of a Local free paper telling me the future is here, stunned in fact because the cartoon adorning the article shows so many things that many locals have been constantly seeking answers to, as recently as a month or so ago at the information sessions for the Park Ridge Major Development Area information sessions, and have been told that there is no such information available because those things are 20 to 30 years into the future.

Keeping the community in the dark seems to be the MO for Logan and always has, but this time I believe they have gone too far and are now actually deliberately keeping what should be available to the community from them.

Unfortunately the thinkers in Logan all have ideas that are formed in the last century, and I mean in the middle of it. They cannot grasp concepts like limitations on resources, like peak oil, like traffic congestion, like carbon footprint or like sustainability; worse is that they have very good people in the community who know a great deal about the environment at a local level, about flora and fauna and about conservation, saving our river systems and sustainable planning.

Logan's media personalities are of course at it, flat out blowing their own trumpet and telling us how it's going to be with State member telling us about transport hubs we can walk to and commercial areas, industrial areas and improved infrastructure spreading west and south as far as Logan's jurisdiction extends.

We know that Logan was given our area because of the Beaudesert Shire Town Plan which was restrictive of ad hoc development which includes master planned satellite types plonked indiscriminately here and there where no infrastructure or services exist and we know that Logan has always had a develop at any cost mentality with out rules or even consideration of the existing communities wants and needs, let alone the removal of their amenity or the natural surroundings.

John Mickel, the State Representative, typically tells us all he can. it's old school blundering through with promises of new highways, some shops and some jobs way out west with maybe a school or hospital thrown in later. His ideas are in the realm of prehistoric, he doesn't even have the ability to think in the modern world he is just pushing what he knows from when land was plentiful and so was fuel, resources and everything else.We know John has been given a retirement role in the Government where he doesn't affect decision making any more, but he is definitely showing his age in these comments.

To read a report on the net by a councillor was like reading something my grandfather would have said to me when I was a young child, it was obvious that even the younger representatives are either so involved with development or so dependent on old people for their information that they just don't have anything new to say, or even credible in my opinion except to continue the raising of everything in our rural area and the building of more urban sprawl, with a few trinkets like a cinema to keep the new residents happy.

To read that Woodridge will become the next West End is just lunacy, to read (and I wonder what the West End residents would like to say about it) that a few years ago you wouldn't want to live in West End is crazy, the area has been highly sought after for more than 30 years by those in the know and for at least 20 years it has been one of the best examples of owners remaining to redevelop their own property and new owners rebuilding and renovating in the same style to maintain the character of the area which boasts high density urban development with units and medium rise spread across the area and with commercial and industrial areas remaining despite land costs. The Councillor's opinion is typically politically motivated and should be dismissed as irrelevant, uneducated and inconsistent with the environment, the community and the wants and needs of the general community.

Then we come to Mr. "Opinion for Hire" Bernard Salt, who appears with a 20 year old picture of himself, and calls rural land owners "hermits" unless they agree with his demographics which we have seen can be manipulated to suit any who wish to pay the man to get the results they want, that is the man who can provide figures that say interest rates are low, that population growth is wanted by the majority and that despite us having our own opinion, we are wrong to have it. He goes on to say , and it's in the same old fashioned realm as the two previous mentioned, that we are to develop on a model that was used to develop Canberra, yep you know when that was built don't you.

Canberra, by the way , has to be one of the most boring cities anywhere in the world, it is flat. wide spread urban sprawl with indistinguishable streets with similar homes and landscaping and nothing really that stands out at all and it's probably on the the easiest places to get lost in and the hardest to get around and find you r way because nothing is recognisable as different, it's depressing.

Bernard Salt wants to insult those who oppose becoming Australia's second Canberra, and tells us we should go to Toowoomba to escape, but what he really means is shut up stop trying to put logical reasons and good knowledge up in opposition to stupid, old fashioned planning, and just go away , somewhere , anywhere, you're hermits , don't bother us, who will be making a hell of a lot of money out of this all.

Please have your say, don't let these few lowbrow, little Hitlers, who want to be your dictators tell you to shut up and leave, you have a rights, get together with locals put up some good arguments and protect your rural investment, your amenity and our local flora and fauna from these idiots.


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Did the Police orchistrate the "HIT" on carl Williams ?

Consider a territory was where one of the gangs is sanctioned by the government, one gang has been known to run drugs, launder cash, beat people, and go even further with the sanctioning by having power over all citizens without having another body to limit their activities or even keep the bastards honest.

Such a gang does exist, it was virtually called that, a gang, in the documents from the Fitzgerald enquiry into corruption, many years ago; that gang is called "the police"

Gangs often have turf wars and often they get it wrong and an innocent gets in the way and a tragedy occurs, often its just a series of eye for an eye killings from two rival gangs that make headlines, and the media just loves it because it sells.

The arrest of Carl Williams took a long time, a lot of investigation, and at the end of the day, someone to grass him it seems, because the police are really either not up to actually catching criminals, or just can't be bothered most of the time and rely really on unequivocal evidence from someone to get the job done.

Carl Williams used body guards when he was a free man, they went everywhere with him, he knew he was a target and a big one, so once arrested he was kept in maximum security, for his own protection and further his accompanying inmates were screened very carefully .

But why was he being treated so specially, and so well in prison?

Well a spokesperson, one would have to guess from the police, leaked to the press that they(the police) were paying Carl William's child's school fees, and a considerable amount to his ex wife and to him possibly as well.

That was Sunday.

With the news that Carl was getting money from the cops hitting the newspapers, within a day he was dead, and the rumours were that he had done a deal, assumed that he was inside for the rest of his life, and wanted to look after his kin and was giving information to the police in exchange for cash.

Now the police have been in the crime business for a while, and you'd reasonably expect them to know that the eventuating or releasing information to the press that someone was assisting them with names would be lethal to that person, no doubt about that.

Further consider that Carl had no more names to give, or that his price had become too high, or that he was thinking the risk of giving more information was becoming too high, whatever; or even that the police just didn't want to pay any more money.

It's simple to use the system you're in, the criminal system or the underworld as they call it, to do the job you can't be seen doing, and that is to remove the problem, that way you don't have to deal with it.

So it's a big question, but a reasonable one, the police must have known that by releasing details of financial dealings with an inmate would lead to further consequences, or in underworld terms, a HIT.



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The Biggest backflip, sheer desperation.

As Bligh's popularity plummets to depths not seen since the end of the Joh era, it seem there is, in her mind, one safety rope still dangling down to her from the edge of the abyss, Daylight savings.

So with the kind of backflip you'd expect from someone with far longer legs, she has donned the athletics gear and announced a referendum on daylight savings in a couple of time zones and wants the public to discuss it at length and form their own opinions about it.

You see, Daylight savings has seemed popular in the city area of South east Queensland where Labor has always got nearly all of its seats, and it's now become a bandwagon that a desperate Bligh cannot resist just one quick ride on.

Of course there are skeptics out there who would say the very idea of putting forward an idea that you have previously and often dismissed outright as never going to happen is now there to hide things like the failings in the health care of Queensland and of course the fire sale of almost every income producing asset owned by the people of Queensland without their consent.

And I have to say it appears to be working too, with everyone either supporting or denouncing the idea, and vigorously too.

I honestly don't believe industry and retail who claim they are missing out on millions by being out of sync with the southern states, if it is that critical that you align your business to the times used interstate then that's what you do, you don't need to change your clock to do it either, if it's that important you just get up an hour earlier and get it done.

To those who impassioned that they will utilise the extra hour of evening to go to the beach etc, you can do it now, except you just start and hour earlier (beating the traffic) and knock off an hour earlier (again beating the traffic) and do it.
My guess though is that if you need everyone else to have to change times because you're too lazy to start and finish an hour earlier then you're probably too lazy to even get off the couch and go anyway.

The ones I feel sorry for are those who start early already, and those with young kids. Th ones who start very early and work outdoors actually benefit from an extra hour early in the day with less direct overhead sun, but they probably can't get to sleep early enough because it's still light and hot. Similarly those with kids, it's hell, and I've been there.

At the end of the day this is just a smokescreen, designed to get a sector of the community, lets call them the lazy selfish ones, to think she's actually going to do this for them and not for her own salvation.

WWF . . . what the hell are they thinking?

The blundering and loose lipped buffoon voted into a safe seat due mainly to a high profile 80's singing career even after stating on a national high rated TV current affairs type show that he'd never keep any of the promises made before the election after Labor wins it, has been given another award he does not in my opinion, deserve.

FEDERAL Environment Protection Minister Peter Garrett has received an award for his "life's passion and work" from international environment group World Wildlife Fund with WWF Australia chief executive Greg Bourne saying Mr Garrett received the Leaders for a Living Planet award for his environmental work both before he entered politics and since he became a minister.

Good lord, are the WWF mad?

Did they just give an environment award to the man who approved a pulp mill, known to be of the worst type of polluters in existence, for one of Tasmania's pristine areas and which it seems will allow the harvest of old growth trees until plantation timber is of useful size.

And did they just give this award to the man who approved the pressurised pumping of acid down bore holes into uranium deposits to dissolve the radioactive mineral which can then be pumped to the surface and harvested, meanwhile acid and radioactive material has the potential to pollute the fragile water table of South Australia

And did they just give this award because Garrett has allowed use of his name and profile to other environmental groups (including WWF)

yes to all the above.

This is a real slap in the face to real fair dinkum hard working hands on conservationists who are working hard with very limited or self generated resources to achieve some very good results.

This pathetic award almost seems to be out of step with the expectations of those who donate to WWF either time or money and worse seems to make environmental activity seem pointless if awards and recognition are given to those who cause more environmental damage then the real environmentalists can put back.

We'll never fix the forests in Tasmania and well never fix the water table in South Australia, not in a million years.

I can only assume this is a politically motivated award since it's not too long until the election and Labor are not doing too well and they probably want to assure the Minister for " Batts are burning" doesn't get the boot and have to reform Midnight "foil"


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Why become a federal politician, a million good reasons.

We all sit back and wonder why someone who seems to "hate" so much, seems to be using position and influence to hurt community and seems to be so unhappy with themselves that they are resorting to any and all means to alter themselves.

I'm not going into "haters" in this story, or community bullying and manipulation and certainly not even touching enhancement or removal of ones own self, at all, because even with all of that which you'd probably love to hear about, there are a million other reasons to become a federal politician, all of them . . . . Dollars.

Yep it's all about greed. cutting the BS and the glib lies about serving the community, it's about filling the back pocket, end of story.

In an article, the local paper reveals:

THE cost of a keeping a single federal MP has become a million-dollar a year burden to taxpayers - the same price as a luxury Lamborghini supercar.
The average salary of MPs is now $180,000 a year, but the real cost is more than five times that - with a string of entitlements totalling $721,000 and a further $164,000 a year spent keeping tabs on the cost.

Entitlements federal politicians receive include airfares, chauffeur-driven vehicles, travel allowances, ministerial salary top-ups, electricity and electorate office rentals.

The politicians' entitlements have become so complex that 315 bureaucrats are now employed fulltime in the Department of Finance to make sure the country's 226 federal MPs are properly paid and equipped. This includes paying 1700 political staffers - nearly eight staff for each MP - costing taxpayers $99,000 each on average, or another $169 million, according to the Department of Finance.

They haven't even included the sumptuous surroundings in which federal MP's work or the catering, drinks, etc. or the provision of tools, electronics , software, publicity, and you can easily double the figure the get if you add these on.

There is a proposal to do away with some of the allowances because of the cost of monitoring the claims for them, (it seems that many politicians claim everything, and then just take what they can get away with, rather than only claim for what they do, so monitoring and checking needs to be done to keep the system honest and the checking costs a hell of a lot of money in itself. The replacement idea is to just give the pollies a lump sum and let then go buy a couple of investment homes with it, oops I mean use it in the way they best deem it needs to be spent, cut out the monitoring and save the taxpayer some big dollars.

But really, is this just pandering to the greed even more, I think so. Personally I think they should be punished severely if they claim something they're not entitled to, sacked perhaps, I mean they should set an example, we pay a lot of tax to keep them don't we?

So it turns out that all the pontification about helping the public, representing the community, and sacrificing for public life is a crock of shit, they're In it for the money and it's big big money. no wonder they are willing to take people to court with any and every allegation, to keep the hand in the public purse.


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The Reserve Bank , . . . again.

The last blog about the Reserve didn't seem to enthuse you much, but I'm just so annoyed at the arbitrary way we are treated, and how they make decisions which cannot be based on the reasons they tell us they are based on.

It is predicted that interest rates for Reserve Bank money will increase by another 25 basis points (a quarter of a percent) as a result of Tuesdays monthly meeting, and I feel , going on what I'm reading in the press that that is going to be the case.

The reasoning has been given that the housing market is beginning to grow and sales are yielding greatly increased prices and auction clearances are improving.

Bullshit!

Mr Glenn Stevens, has been in the press making statements in the last few days that are worrying to say the least, to me they reveal an agenda to exclude ordinary Australians from the housing market by allowing either prices to rise above affordability or interest rates to become unserviceable on basic wages and salaries.

A look at Auctions will tell anyone who's keen on property investment that the majority of lower and mid range properties have a plethora of phone bidders from overseas and many foreign buyers in the actual crowd and in the last 3 months those I've attended have in the majority been sold to a foreign buyer, this is backed up be recent reports by the real estate institute, and reports on network TV current affairs programs.

OK, so if it is the case that foreign investors are still buying, and bidding against each other, with easy to obtain, low interest overseas money, and driving the prices up in doing so, how can raising the local home loan rate do anything but keep Aussies out of the market?

Has the Reserve, Mr Stevens, or any of the board really, looked at the retail sector trend as opposed to credit card debt, to bank sector figures of debt repayment directly from credit cards, I think not.

Mr Stevens, it seems, is so out of touch, so insulated from what it's like to be a battler, and so engaged in doing the work of the government agenda he follows, that he doesn't care how many Aussie battlers have to give up their home, struggle to keep them , or even go without to do so, he doesn't give a tinkers cuss, after all he manages his mortgage pretty well on his million dollar salary.

Mr Stevens, it seems to me that you need to be sacked and replaced by someone who has Australia's interests at heart, by someone who is not a traitor (as I believe personally that you are) and by someone who can work out that if the community of Australians are forced out of home ownership and into renting from rich overseas investors, then by your own workings out, interest will continue to rise as they all have to furnish rental houses most likely on credit, but with significant increases to the retail sector, another one of your lame triggers for increasing rates.

It's time we had the reserve work for the good of the public, it's time our banks actually worked for the money they make in the billions, it's time our rates matched the rest of the world, and Aussie property was available to Aussies and affordable to them without the banks bleeding you dry to own it.

Sorry Mr Glenn Stevens, but in my opinion you are a traitor and a fool.