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Australia has a housing crisis and it's easy to point the finger at immigrants, primarily because of the record amounts arriving here, but also accurate. The problem is it's not just their fault, although housing all of them is clearly a key driver of the problem. Some people complain that it's because of negative gearing, but that's an ignorant argument, the real problem is the capital gains discount treatment and increasing population with decreasing ability to met the commensurate demand.
On that last point it occurred to me that the insistence on making children remain in school until they're 17/18 and go to university to get a useless degree (with associated debt) has resulted in less people doing trades. Less tradespeople, more work and we're confused as to how properties cost more? And then how our tax treatment encourages this unproductive speculation?
Housing hornets' nest