With nearly every pollster in the game having pitched in last week, a quiet period looms. The weekly Roy Morgan should be along later today as always, and DemosAU is about due for one of its big-sample MRP projections. On the broader electoral front, there is the following to report:
• The Weekend Australian had the quarterly Newspoll detailed breakdowns from its four polls conducted in April, May and June. The state results show movement towards One Nation and away from Labor clearly evident in Victoria and South Australia, less evident in New South Wales, and not at all evident in Queensland and Western Australia, with Labor gaining three points in the former case. Breakdowns by education are distinctive in that One Nation is up six among those with technical qualifications, but effectively unchanged for everyone else. Voting intention is barely changed among 18-to-34s, whereas One Nation are up significantly among the older cohorts. Presumably inspired by the budget tax measures, the breakdowns now include housing tenure, as commonly featured by other pollsters. To commemorate the occasion, I have added tabs for these results to the BludgerTrack poll data features (keep clicking the “more” tab until you see them).
• The Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters has published an interim report from its routine inquiry into the last election, which notably focuses on aggressive behaviour at polling booths. The majority report cites data on public complaints received by the AEC, and recommended that “election participants” be required to register and observe a code of conduct. The AEC, whose bailiwick currently ends six metres from the entrance, would enforce this code within a “campaign zone” around the polling place, in which signage limits would also apply. The report argued that much of the offending behaviour “seemed to involve third parties”, and while it didn’t name names, committee chair Jerome Laxale told parliament while tabling the report of “an assault by third parties identified in submissions like the Plymouth Brethren and Advance”.
• Certainly the Plymouth Brethren angle had been divined by the committee’s Coalition members, who headlined their dissenting report “less inquiry, more hyperpartisan witch hunt” – the latter having been directed against “Australians based on their religious faith”. While acknowledging aggressive behaviour was an issue, their own volunteers having been “targets for intimidation by unions and other third party organisations on polling booths for many elections”, the Coalition members forcefully rejected the recommendations as burdensome, open to abuse and possibly unconstitutional. Also in the Coalition report was a call for the early voting period, already truncated from three weeks to two before the 2022 election, to be reduced to one week, and for the AEC to be “more strident on ensuring that people accessing pre-poll are doing so for one of the reasons prescribed in the Act”.
• The official determination of how many seats each state and territory will be entitled to at the next election, which is calculated a year into each parliamentary term, will be made later this month. Antony Green has done their work for them based on the latest Australian Bureau of Statistics population data, and concludes there will be no change from the status quo, Queensland having recorded not quite enough growth to get it over the line for a thirty-first seat. Queensland will nonetheless get a redistribution under the seven-year rule, which is now overdue after being twice delayed: first because of the election, and then because there was no point commencing the process until it was clear how many seats the state would have. Proposed boundaries were published in March for South Australia, Tasmania and the Australian Capital Territory, final boundaries for which are expected later this month.
• Wendy Askew has brought forward the retirement she recently announced for the end of her term in mid-2028, now to take effect in a “few weeks”. This means two vacancies are now available for Tasmanian Liberal Senate seats, together with that created by Jonathan Duniam’s surprise retirement announcement last month.
Pi
Removing NG from existing apartments will push up rents as landlords can no longer write off the costs.
LoTY
You said ‘if’.
You knew it was not ‘if’
I am not sure why your telling 250,000 fibs.
But there it is.
Whinging is acceptable, indeed encouraged under a Coalition government. Whinging under a Labor government is a despicable practice.
Page 1 of the Stooge Handbook
China has between 60 million and 80 million empty apartments. The rent is bugger all in those condos. Why suffer in Australia when there are empty homes going begging in the workers’ paradise where half of heaven is held up by women?
Pi:
Apologies, I will try harder from now on not to be a whiny little git and instead adopt your calm and relaxed demeanor.
Boerwar
It’s an if because there are many factors influencing the behaviour of a market, and lower immigration equals lower demand. Look at country towns after years of population decline.
LotY: “Removing NG from existing apartments will push up rents as landlords can no longer right off the costs.”
They’ll be forced to sell their properties, which will decrease the cost of housing, and reduce the amount of capital needed to buy investment housing. When landlords can no longer suck at the teat of the taxpayer, they’ll actually need to get people into their houses to rent them, instead of leaving them empty because they only care about the capital growth. Which is exactly what has happened. Which means more housing available for renting. And if you can’t make money with a house without the taxpayer funding you, you suck at investing, and you should find something more useful to do with your time.
Modi and Albanese have signed a major uranium supply deal.
Win win.
Meanwhile, Taylor has condemned those seeking to mount an anti-migration protest targeting Modi.
He thinks there might be other ways of debating migration policy than sticking it up the noses of migrants as has been his wont.
Landlord of the Year says:
Thursday, July 9, 2026 at 4:05 pm
Boerwar
It’s an if if…
You were caught trolling migration so that we could have a ‘debate’ about it. You were lying. Big time. You have zero credibility.
Be careful with all this discussion of the word “If”, it might all be part of the Master’s ploy to trap us on Castrovalva.
Pi
The assumption being the renter buys, if they can’t, they face higher rents or worse, homelessness.
LotY: The assumption being
Don’t try to verbal me ya muppet. I explained my assumptions.
Boerwar
I didn’t start the conversation but thanks for the credit.
Pi
What’s your assumption about what happens to the renter when landlords sell.
Read slower.
Pi
Yes, and your assumption is the price falls.
Nath:
What are you talking about? Nobody here ever whinged about the government or the state of the country during the last Coalition government.
We all just accepted that life was much better under Abbott and Turnbull and Morrison than it was during the Great Depression and the 70s oil shock and the late 80s / early 90s recession, and whenever someone made a snide remark about Abbott eating an onion or Turnbull suggesting people struggling to buy a house get help from their parents or Morrison needing his wife to explain to him why rape was bad, we called them out as anti-Liberal slaggers and wrote a long list of all the great things those governments were doing.
LotY: “assumption”
You seem to have reading comprehension problems, and I got no time for that. So I’ll repeat it for you:
> They’ll be forced to sell their properties, which will decrease the cost of housing, and reduce the amount of capital needed to buy investment housing. When landlords can no longer suck at the teat of the taxpayer, they’ll actually need to get people into their houses to rent them, instead of leaving them empty because they only care about the capital growth. Which is exactly what has happened. Which means more housing available for renting. And if you can’t make money with a house without the taxpayer funding you, you suck at investing, and you should find something more useful to do with your time.
Rents fell over the COVID lockdown and border closure period, quarter to quarter there was some volatility, but nothing like what happened when the borders re-opened:
CPI rent % growth quarter to quarter:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release
Most capitals saw actual fall in $ rents. Where they increased (especially in regional areas) reflected people who escaped the east coast infected zones:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/detailed-methodology-information/information-papers/new-insights-rental-market#regional-versus-capital-city-rents
But there are no more supply solutions available – construction costs alone are up 40% since the pandemic:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/producer-price-indexes-australia/latest-release#construction
Construction times were already increasing pre-pandemic:
https://www.abs.gov.au/articles/average-dwelling-completion-times
And the construction sector itself is so fucked, that it is plausible that each additional construction worker actually makes construction times longer:
https://www.pc.gov.au/inquiries-and-research/housing-construction/
“the number of dwellings completed per hour worked by housing construction workers has declined by 53% (physical productivity)”
“gross value added per hour worked – a more comprehensive measure that controls for quality
improvements and increases in the size of housing – has declined by 12% (labour productivity)”
“In contrast, labour productivity in the broader economy has increased by 49% over the same period”
So we have vacancy rates in free-fall, there are no more spare rentals to be had. We just saw massive structural tax changes in the sector yet to wash through, despite all the promises that rents would not be affected. Construction costs are skyrocketing, construction times are becoming longer, and each additional worker is more use as stimulus to the local food van than actually building a dwelling. And we have between 250k and 300k people arriving over the next 12 months.
So why is it so controversial to suggest that maybe cooling demand a little could help the situation?
Pi
We talking about different things, I am talking about existing tenanted apartments.
I agree with Bizzcan. I’m not opposed to migration in principle, but a temporary reduction in immigration rates to further reduce housing and rental demand seems a sensible idea to me.
Bizzcan: “why is it so controversial to suggest that maybe cooling demand a little could help the situation?”
Because it ignores the actual cause of rents and house price increases; loose monetary policy and free access to capital for investors, and ignores the actual effects of immigration decreasing: Inflation. Guess which one the murdoch sewer media is against? They program people to whinge about that stuff, and that’s what they whinge about.
That’s the way social media engagement algorithms work. Get people addicted to whingeing, and then serve them never-ending content that triggers them. That’s the true effect of covid. Everyone sitting at home on social media whingeing about everything. They’re STILL whingeing about Dan Andrews. Which is why the social media whingeing base cohort skews old and low educational attainment.
Yeah… rents went down during covid, NOT.
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/detailed-methodology-information/information-papers/new-insights-rental-market
Pi
The free cost of capital and too much of it has fuelled inflation and property prices but rents are also influenced by immigration as immigrants usually rent before they buy.
Immigration is also internal immigration.
One for Soc and A-E
Binkov on the China v US nuclear submarine race:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9pNM2Ow_Ytg
Oh, look. Climate change affects Idaho farmers:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xsjIty-rQ38
The present housing situation is the result of a variety of different factors: negative gearing and other tax concessions, rising construction costs, higher standards in what a person expects in their home, the refusal by many to countenance the idea of high-density housing and apartments where we build up instead of out, increasing inflation and general cost-of-living making it that more difficult to save up for a deposit or keep up with a mortgage, and, yeah, I would say immigration has played its played a part as well.
Solving this will require dealing with at least some or all of those issues in some capacity, and in the meantime, there will unfortunately be some who lose out as a result. There is no easy fix to an problem that has been well over thirty years in the making.
Re-posting chart that may have disappeared:
CPI rent % growth quarter to quarter:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/economy/price-indexes-and-inflation/consumer-price-index-australia/latest-release
_________
“Because it ignores the actual cause of rents and house price increases; loose monetary policy and free access to capital for investors, and ignores the actual effects of immigration decreasing: Inflation.”
So we now have tight monetary policy – rents are now up
So we no longer have free access to capital to investors – rents are going up
And “actual effects of immigration decreasing: Inflation” – we used to call that “wages growth”, but perhaps I’m not up with the latest progressive/left lingo that wages growth is a bad thing now…
Birds of a feather:
– SMH live blog.
I don’t believe in hell, but if there is one, there’s got to be at least one circle where people are forced to read an endless argument between LoTY, Boerwar, and Pi.
Tommy Robinson is a very good whinger and Pauline is right to get into political bed with him. Larissa could pick up some clues on how to whinge better from those two thought leaders.
Tingle in general on the oil supply situation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ho8iRnPucp8
Mavis – Hanson is not one for original ideas. She just copies what others do. It is why she drags up American cultural issues sometimes which don’t exactly have much context here.
How about just show the graph instead of the confusing mumbo jumbo Bizzcan:
https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/detailed-methodology-information/information-papers/new-insights-rental-market
Oh that’s right, it’s not telling the story you want to be told, is it? Not to mention the fact that immigration went BACKWARDS during covid, and construction including housing went gangbusters. More houses, less people. By your logic, rents should have moderated. Did they? No. They did not.
Bizzcan: “So we now have tight monetary policy – rents are now up”
Asinine nonsense. The removal of negative gearing and the capital gains discount is one month old.
The Indonesian Rupiah is approaching the record levels seen in early June. Bank Indonesia had to raise rates out of cycle then to strength the currency. Economically things are getting more difficult by the day. Although it used to be a major oil exporter, the country is now a major fuel importer, and the costs are starting to add up.
Just something to keep an eye on. We might see the protests get out of hand again.
Arky
At the moment, a ridiculous amount of our data goes to AI companies in the US and to a lesser extent China.
The privacy laws make it impossible to enforce anything as they are so complicated.
Thanks. Extremely dangerous. The price of cooking fuel is potential dynamite.
Iowa red wall fracturing?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vmvx-Ivh5w
How should we celebrate the recent rebound of Labor, and the fall of One Nation?
lol BW accusing another poster for lying.
Have to say enjoyed reading yet another diatribe from him about me this morning. What a mind reader he is. Suffice to say he completely misrepresents (euphemism for lying) my pov, values and just about everything I stand for.
Thomas:
We don’t. There’s still a long way to go until the next election.
Boerwar – There has not been the spike I was expecting in cooking oils yet. Generally they are up about 15 to 30% in YTD depending on the product. However, what happens after a lower than normal crop this year is yet to be seen.
“Modi and Albanese have signed a major uranium supply deal. Win win.”
I’m glad that you think that supplying uranium to a nuclear armed state is a good idea. I’m not so sure. And I know the argument that if we don’t do it, somebody else will.
I’m sure that in the olden days, the cool, tee shirt-wearing Albo would have agreed with me.
Rowe!!
Are we supplying it for weapons or domestic energy ?
I have no issues re selling uranium to India for zero emission domestic energy.
Opposition leader Angus Taylor has rubbished One Nation’s economic plan for the country.
He says just four of One Nation’s policies would cost the economy a trillion dollars over a decade and add $20,000 a year in interest to mortgages.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-07-09/angus-taylor-rubbishes-one-nation-economic-plan/106898244
Do we have another Liberal liar?
SA Police are trying to confirm the validity of claims made by a senior federal figure alleging an elderly South Australian died during yesterday’s Telstra outage.
Officers were seen attending Liberal Senator Kerrynne Liddle’s office in order to “get to the bottom of” the allegations she’s made, according to Police Minister Michael Brown.
Police have stressed they have not received reports of any deaths as a result of the disruption.
Looks like Angus has seen the light re ON’s threat to the Coalition’s existence.
Big Sister is watching you ABC and SBS. I wonder what the chances of her allowing the wider Jewish community to voice their thoughts rather than the Zionist factions she represents.
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2026/jul/09/abc-sbs-jillian-segel-israel-antisemitism-royal-commission-ntwnfb
I wish the Indonesian people living on the edge of poverty and hunger well.