Briefs

The 2016 Census reveals the proportion of home owners (i.e. those who either owned their home outright or were still buying) dropped from 68.6 per cent of all households in 1991 to 65.5 per cent in 2016. The biggest change during this time period was a fall of 10 percentage points in outright home owners between 1991 and 2016, and an increase of nearly 7 percentage points in the proportion of households paying off their mortgage.

High house prices (particularly in Sydney and Melbourne) have led to calls for the easing of supply-side restrictions such as opening up more land for development and speeding up the planning approval process. But will increasing the supply of new homes lead to more affordable housing for low-income households?

Between 2006 and 2011, the rate of growth in Australia’s population (8.3%) was slightly lower than the rate that new households formed (8.6%). This indicates that although the population was increasing the new households kept forming at a faster rate, meaning that there were sufficient dwellings available and affordable for them to move in to and ‘form’ households in.

With the Australian Government issuing a discussion paper in late 2016 into ‘Using value capture to help deliver major land transport infrastructure’, it is important to understand what value capture is and how it might be levied.

The Australian Government’s City Deals are a way for governments, industry and local communities to ‘develop collective plans for growth and commit to the actions, investments, reforms and governance needed to implement them.’ By bringing together all levels of government, the private sector and the community, City Deals aim to provide a coordinated investment plan for capital cities and urban regions.