CLANCY OVERELL | Editor | CONTACT
A local property investor has today solved the number one issue plaguing Australian politics: The housing crisis.
“The housing crisis was bound to happen” he says to a likeminded acquaintance with similarly sized portfolio of close or more negatively-geared investment properties than any family would ever need to live in.
With Labor bleeding votes to the Greens in inner-city and coastal electorates and the Liberals looking unlikely to return to power in any mainland government for the next decade, Gordon Delamothe-Knox (65) has had to have a long and hard think about this.
After begrudgingly expanding his mind beyond former Liberal Treasurer Joe Hockey’s infamous political theory that young families simply aren’t working hard enough to earn 19-times what his generation had to save to buy their first home at 22-years-old on a single university graduate salary, Gordon now concedes that it probably isn’t that easy to enter the market.
“I feel for the young people, honestly I do”
“It’s not their fault…”
While this lifelong Coalition voter’s new and enlightened decision to humanise first-home-buyers speaks to the current identity crisis tearing the wealth-hoarding Liberal party membership apart, Gordon insists he has no intention on voting for a Teal independent in his efforts to build a better future for the generations that will come after him.
“The teals are part of the problem, mate” he says.
“I heard a new term the other day, NIMBY. Not in my backyard. Isn’t that great? Says it all really”
“They love patting themselves on the back talking about a housing crisis, but they’ll kick and scream if anyone ever suggests letting Harry Triguboff build a couple 30-floor Meriton towers on Bondi beach”
“The problem is supply”
With one in ten Australian properties sitting empty as land banking investments, Gordon maintains that the only way forward is to build more houses… But by houses, he means rushed high-rise developments of luxury apartments with no parking options and very little transports infrastructure. Or, quarter acre McMansions the outskirts of the city, hours away from any major services or employment options.
“We need more homes. But no one wants to talk about that” says Gordon, as he reaches for his 5 iron.
It appears lost on Gordon that this conversation is taking place on one of the city’s seven different 160-acre 18-hole private golf courses that maintain strict membership criteria based on gender, religion and accent.
“Heaven forbid these NIMBYs have to give up their beloved National Parks to give shelter to some young families”
