Housing catastrophe? Beware the government with a vision for the people

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Does Gen Z have all the answers to our housing problem?

A recent newspaper article asked university students how they would solve the current housing crisis. The article suggested that we were heading towards a housing ‘catastrophe’, but Gen Z had the answer. However, an economist mate of mine pointed to the HILDA data and suggested people found it harder to pay their rent or their mortgage in the early 2000s than today. Never let a good political ‘narrative’ get in the way of social engineering. It’s hard, but hardly a catastrophe.

Writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall had this to say:

We hear a lot about the housing crisis from the nation’s young people, but, as Michael de Percy writes today, it has always taken a lot of work and sacrifice to acquire property. ‘I have had two mortgaged houses, and home ownership is something I prioritise over almost everything else.’ Wanting the government to provide housing is a pattern of thought we need to be very careful of because we all know what happens when private property rights are devalued.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Housing catastrophe? Beware the government with a vision for the people.

Disinformation and the tyranny of officialdom

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Tony Abbott meeting Australian troops at Exercise Talisman Soldier in 2015 [Public Domain]

Tony Abbott recently warned us that ‘conservatives must resist [the] tyranny of officialdom’.

This proved timely, as I’ve just experienced unelected and anonymous bureaucrats at the Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) publicly endorsing the view that my political opinion constituted ‘disinformation’.

After I urged conservative voters not to splinter the conservative vote at the coming election, the AEC endorsed the labelling of my political opinion as "disinformation" even though what I had to say was not according to their own definition... This is my response.

Writing in the Morning Double Shot newsletter, Terry Barnes had this to say:

As he writes, Michael de Percy is a political scientist. Electoral systems are his business. He made a public statement of the bleeding obvious: because Labor benefits more from Greens and other Left preferences, the higher the Coalition’s primary vote means the better Peter Dutton’s chance of rolling Anthony Albanese. Determined to protect the myth that all preferences matter, the Australian Electoral Commission accused our resident Bearded Wonder of political disinformation. There is something very wrong when unelected officials themselves spout disinformation to ‘combat’ what they deem misinformation – and we dodged a huge bullet late last year, when legislation to entrench such madness was voted down in the Senate.

Meanwhile, writing in the Unfiltered newsletter, Alexandra Marshall had this to say:

How much power should the AEC have over the conversation? At some point they elected themselves as Australia’s digital police, suffocating Twitter and Facebook with their ‘disinformation’ labels. Well, Michael de Percy isn’t very happy with them, referring to the ‘tyranny of officialdom’.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Disinformation and the tyranny of officialdom.

Our Anglican tradition, and a bit with a possum

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St George's Anglican Church in Lisbon

As I prepared to write this article, I went to pour a glass of wine. When I returned to my study, my television had turned itself on. In a black and white movie, the actor was playing a violin, surrounded by children singing, Hark! The Herald Angels Sing. I immediately retold the story to my local padre, an Anglican priest and army chaplain who leads our RSL services. He remarked that it was clearly a sign that I must not be a doubter and that I must tell my story truly and well.

My latest in The Spectator Australia, Our Anglican tradition, and a bit with a possum.

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