Yes folks, it’s a list, and not just any old list. This one selects (just some) of the things that gave the writer an urge to pen ‘outraged father of one’ letters to newspapers in 2023. All are ongoing issues in 2024. Cash is King Kudos to our local Credit Union teller who happily counted bags of coins and deposited them in our respective bank accounts. Some banks are no longer providing such service options,…
The Cheeseparer family from Victoria, fed up with the overpopulated rat race, spent the school holidays cruising the south east Queensland coast, looking for a more ambient place to live than the far-flung commuter suburbs of greater Melbourne. Margolia and Basil Jnr are sick of Melbourne’s unpredictable weather, the traffic, the pollution, the high cost of living and the four-hour daily commutes (including dropping the kids off at school and picking them up from daycare)….
The inspiration to start writing (again) about housing affordability came from left field. I was sitting back enjoying an American roots band, The Brothers Comatose, at the Blue Mountains Music Festival in Katoomba. Lead singer and front man Ben Morrison introduced the band, saying they were from San Francisco but maybe not for long. “The price of houses is crazy there (man) and most of the musicians I know are moving out because they can’t…
Kiwis and Aussies aged 45 and over share one obsessive thought at this moment in time: how will our kids ever be able to afford their own home? Unless the housing bubble bursts, they probably never will be able to, even when the Boomers die off and leave their kids a residual estate. The housing market both here and in Aotearoa has got away from humble wage earners. On my all-too quick visit to the…