Voting 101: Don't be an ass! Donkey votes are still valid!
Donkey voting is the term for when voters just number candidates in the order they're printed on the ballot. Often seen as a form of protest vote, there's a myth that these ballots don't count. In this episode of Voting 101, Guardian Australia's Matilda Boseley explains that that myth is absolutely not true – as long as every box is numbered, a donkey vote is a valid vote.
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The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Are Labor's proposed superannuation tax changes a super big deal?
Labor is proposing to double the earnings tax on superannuation balances above $3m, bringing the total tax rate to 30%. Guardian Australia's Matilda Boseley explains who the change would (and wouldn't) affect and how the current super tax breaks overwhelmingly benefit the wealthiest people in Australia
The Guardian
a day ago
- The Guardian
Building our way out of social housing unaffordability may no longer be possible
Few would deny that social and affordable housing is in short supply in Australia. The 'social' part of this refers to homes rented out by public housing departments and not-for-profit community housing providers to very low-income Australians, usually at 25% of the tenant's income. But, as highlighted by Guardian Australia, the growing class of 'affordable rental housing' is less clearly defined. In general terms, it is a product that targets the growing population of low-to-moderate-income workers earning above the rock bottom income eligibility thresholds for a social tenancy, but who are hard-pressed to find a suitable home in the private market. The main problem this product seeks to solve is that our private rental sector has been 'going upmarket' for decades. That is, generating fewer and fewer homes affordable to people in the lowest two-fifths of the income spectrum – including those in the second income quintile, ineligible for social housing. Census-based evidence shows that, as a result, Australia's national shortfall of affordable and available private rental dwellings for renters in the second income quintile almost doubled in the 15 years to 2021 – up from 87,000 dwellings to 152,000 dwellings. The problem has been exacerbated by a quarter of a century of negligible social housing growth, even as need for such accommodation has shot up thanks to rising population and inequality. Thus, as a share of our national housing stock, social housing has declined from more than 6% in the 1990s to barely 4% today. State and territory governments have been rationing remaining tenancies ever more tightly as a result, more or less restricting these to households reliant on social security payments. This is why the low-income workers essential to the operation of the modern urban economy nowadays have next to no chance of a public or community housing tenancy. It is also one reason that Australian governments have taken a growing interest in enabling an 'affordable rental housing' product that could make it possible for people in this situation to live reasonably near their work. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email At a big picture level, this is a problem that, according to conventional wisdom, can be tackled by expanding overall housing supply. But it is doubtful that 'building our way out of housing unaffordability' is even possible. And, without major complementary actions, it is unimaginable that such a strategy could significantly moderate market rents in the short-to-medium-term future. At least in the meantime, there is a case for governments to enable affordable rental housing construction as well as invest in expanding social housing. They can do this in one of two ways. The first is by directly subsidising housebuilding – such as under federal programs, including the Housing Australia Future Fund (Haff), which promises 20,000 new affordable rental homes by 2029. The second approach is the deployment of land-use planning or tax powers to require or incentivise private providers to include affordable rental units within market-price housing developments. The New South Wales and Victorian state governments, for example, have recently introduced or beefed up 'density bonus' schemes allowing developers to build higher and bigger, provided that projects include units renting at below-market prices. Using tax powers, the federal government has adopted a similar approach for Build to Rent projects. Under schemes of this type, affordable rents are typically defined relative to comparable market rents – often capped at 75-80% of local norms. When operated in high price areas like Sydney's Bondi, such a formula of course produces rents that sound outrageous outside that local context. Sign up to Breaking News Australia Get the most important news as it breaks after newsletter promotion Such homes might possibly assist the junior teachers, nurses and police officers so beloved of ministerial media statements, and there is an arguable case for policymaker attention to such housing needs. But this model is liable to produce rents far out of reach for low-income essential workers. And such units are, anyway, often required to be made available for only 10-15 years. But while it would be hard to justify directly funding 'affordable housing' of this kind, such homes are, in fact, generally produced through planning or tax concessions that represent only indirect government support. It is to be hoped that, on equity grounds, the directly subsidised affordable rental housing to be generated under the Haff and other ongoing federal programs will be subsidised sufficiently to produce units genuinely affordable to the low-income worker (or second income quintile) cohort. Equally, equity considerations dictate that the bulk of government financial support for social and affordable housing should be devoted to the former. It is only through expanding our minimal remaining stock of deeply subsidised housing that we can similarly expand access to secure and affordable homes for the most disadvantaged Australians. The bigger picture here is that, despite the expanded social and affordable housing investment committed under the Albanese government, Australia is still spending nowhere near enough to decisively reverse decades of neglect in this area. The case for phasing down private landlord tax breaks, with the resulting additional revenue redirected to expanding such investment, remains compelling. Hal Pawson is a professor of housing research and policy at the University of NSW and associate director of the UNSW City Futures Research Centre. He is the lead author of the Australian Homelessness Monitor series
The Guardian
2 days ago
- The Guardian
‘Torn between two worlds': Iranian-Australians caught up in Israel conflict
Mohammad Reza Azimi smiles at the camera before he takes one red ring from a pile in his hand and tosses it towards a spike. He is playing ring toss in Marivan, a town located in Iran near the Iraq border. The video was taken 13 days after he left Sydney to visit family in Iran, and three days since Israel launched its first attack on the country. 'It's hard to find even brief moments of happiness with everything going on here, but I try to hold on to the little things whenever I can,' he says in a caption on the video. An hour before he posted this video to his social media, he posted another of rockets lighting up the sky. 'I feel OK for now,' he told Guardian Australia on Monday. 'Although the situation remains unpredictable. I do my best not to focus too much on the tensions around me.' Azimi is one of potentially hundreds of Australian residents who are stuck in Iran, with foreign minister Penny Wong saying on Monday that at least 350 people have registered with the Australian government for help to leave the country. Another 300 have registered for help in Israel as the two countries continue to trade fire. Wong said there were 'a range of plans' to try to get people to safety, including a plan for assisted departures when the airspace is open and it's safe to do so. Azimi left Tehran where his parents and siblings live just a day before the attack and didn't even take his passport with him. He hasn't yet registered for help from the Australian government because he says he's unsure at this point what help they could provide. 'My family in Tehran has relocated temporarily to avoid the chaos. The area near their residence was among the places targeted, and I consider myself fortunate to have left when I did,' he said. Though he wants to get back to his family in Sydney, he describes in a recent social media post that his emotions are conflicted. 'No flights are available to return to Sydney. My wife and kids are waiting for me there. In Tehran, my parents and siblings,' he wrote on Sunday. 'What a painful dilemma — torn between two worlds, each pulling at the heart in its own way.' There are many others anxiously watching on from Australia who are also feeling personal toll of the turmoil deeply. Kambiz Razmara, the vice-president of the Australian-Iranian Society of Victoria, says that a member in their network in Melbourne had family members killed by Israeli strikes over the weekend. 'There are no drills, no shelters, nowhere for people to go, no sirens warning people of imminent threats of bombs, so it is an awful situation.' As the conflict entered its fourth day on Monday, more than 220 people had been killed, with 90% of those casualties reported to be civilians. Erfan, who moved to Melbourne from Tehran more than a decade ago, had hoped work might help to distract him from what's going on, but it hasn't. He sneaks glimpses of the news where he can – his mind racing with thoughts of his family who are in Iran and can hear Israel's bombs falling nearby. 'I just can't get my head out of it right now, no matter how hard I try to distract myself,' he says from work in Melbourne. He's also been struggling to sleep. This is not the first time Israel and Iran have traded fire since 7 October, but Erfan says now: 'I have a feeling of unknown. I don't really know what's going to happen this time. 'I'm really, really worried about the innocent people of Iran, because all this war and all of this conflict, all it does is affect innocent people.' Residents began to flee Tehran and head towards the countryside on Sunday as Israeli attacks on the Iranian capital escalated. Erfan's parents have not fled because they have nowhere to go: 'Where would they go? It could all be unsafe.' Shiva, who moved to Melbourne from Iran to study more than two years ago and is the president of the Iranian Student Society said there are hundreds of students from Iran studying in Australia. She's had a number of students raise concerns about how they'll pay their tuition fees that are due in the next few weeks if banks in Iran remain frozen. Asked what she is missing most about her home, she says: 'The people of Iran, they are so generous, are so kind and are so peaceful'. 'That's why our hearts are melting right now to see that Iran is in war because we not only care about our families, we care about our neighbours ad our people,' she adds. 'Every child lost feels like our own.' Razmara says most people in the Iranian diaspora and many inside Iran do not like the country's oppressive regime. He points to the death in custody of Mahsa Amini – a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, jailed for not wearing her hijab correctly and the morality laws that followed – as an example of this. However, he says that while people want change they are affronted by war and destruction without notice. People are torn because while they are 'desperate' for liberty and democracy, they don't think the attacks by Israel will bring about positive regime change. Azimi, who was due to return to Sydney on 4 July, says he is staying in Marivan while he assesses his next step. 'While it feels relatively calm during the day, the defense system is active from time to time, which is a constant reminder of the unstable environment,' he says.
