Ben Phillips
@BenPhillips_ANU
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Economics, stats, social policy, tax/welfare microsimulation. Associate Professor at ANU Centre for Social Policy Research. Ex NATSEM@UC and ABS
Canberra
Joined September 2010
Australia’s emissions reduction target by 2035 of 62–70% below 2005 levels is?
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An on-going problem under the CPI’s bonnet is the lack of expenditure survey since 15/16 meaning we have limited info on the ‘weights’ for the basket. Eg how much do we spend on eggs vs veges vs holidays vs electricity etc
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Good to have the monthly CPI but we are getting a bit ADHD with economic statistics. No income survey since 19/20 or expenditure survey since 15/16 concerns me more telling us much more about society.
abs.gov.au
The Consumer Price Index (CPI) measures household inflation and includes statistics about price change for categories of household expenditure.
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Only 3 in 10 Veterans know about 0% down home loans. Join our mission to help veterans find their way home.
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An example of over-inflated housing cost analysis using 'hypotheticals' rather than actual households. The average income share* for mortgage payments - 24% pre-COVID, 21% peak-COVID and 29.5% now. Best to avoid comparisons with the artificial COVID world
Did you know the definition of ‘housing stress’ is when 30% of your household income is taken up by your rent or mortgage? This isn’t normal.
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Also worth remembering that dwelling growth has exceeded population growth (same as more relevant adult pop) for ~30 years.
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'Housing supply lagged well behind household formation'. I think we mean 'latent' household formation. It's not particularly clear though what 'latent household formation' is
abc.net.au
Amid global warnings of impending financial doom, APRA and the Reserve Bank are far more concerned about a home-grown bubble, one that's been taking in oxygen for almost three decades.
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Manuka is a batting paradise missed opportunity for the poms to hit a few out of the screws. That said Noosa is nice place to forget about your cricket limitations.
I am staggered that none of the England XI who turned out in Perth will play in this weekend’s Lions’ two-day, day-night pink ball game in Canberra against a PMs XI The only match ahead of the day-night Brisbane Test on 4 Dec Instead heading to Noosa for a ‘break’ 🏏 #Ashes
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Good piece here by @profholden on CGT - capital gains should be taxed at a discount to income tax. The elephant in the room is the 100% discount on owner occupier housing - rarely discussed by opponents of the current 50% discount on investor housing
afr.com
A large reduction in the capital gains tax discount would eventually hurt the budget not help it, and reduce business investment, productivity and wages growth.
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Also worth remembering that building homes is expensive (increasingly so with Covid building cost inflation), while existing housing is generally cheaper and ready to go.
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The other approach with public housing is just purchase existing/newly built dwellings. The impact of these programs against 11.3m dwellings is trivial and likely displace other new building to some extent anyway.
For 40 years, Australia hasn't been building enough #socialhousing. Spoiler alert: we are still still not doing that #Auspol #housing #incomebasedrentsetting
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Indirectly people tend to lengthen their loan/get a new loan by 'upgrading' to a bigger/better home later in life anyway.
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Standard homes loans in Australia are 25/30 year terms. This means a front-loaded payment schedule relative to income with most of the burden when families are young with higher cost of living and financial stress. Greater flexibility a good thing
Unhinged - describes a lot of the 'analysis' of 50 yr mortgages in the US. Australia doesn't have these: what of 1 million yr loans that never get paid off, reverse mortgages & other flexible options. The more flexibility for borrowers & lenders the better https://t.co/CwJFRamK3p
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Ideally an extra 100 homes in location x translates to an extra 100 homes but it's likely the case that some share or all of those 100 homes displace building elsewhere. Better located housing but unlikely the full impact of an extra 100 homes IMO.
Extra supply reduces the cost of OTHER houses. A new building with 100 extra dwellings takes 100 potential buyers or renters out of the market. Those 100 households are no longer bidding prices up elsewhere. With less demand, prices and rents on other dwellings fall. 2/5
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Share housing in later life is potentially not ideal but is uncommon. Fewer than 1% of older women and a bit over 1% for older men (50+) from 2021 ABS Census. Interesting to see if this changes in the 2026 Census - I would think not much but lets see. https://t.co/9tlun1TPwA
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Indexing tax thresholds feels right but politically would mean we would only ever decrease tax when in practice income tax sometimes needs to increase (unless we manage to find a way to increase other taxes)
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Presumably if we include ‘scope 3’ emissions (eg emissions from our export coal when burned) we need to exclude most of our transport emissions as petrol/diesel is imported. Otherwise massive double counting. #insiders
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