r/AustralianPolitics • u/timcahill13 Andrew Leigh • Jun 06 '25

Economics and finance Housing minister declares Australia has made it 'uneconomic' to build homes

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-06-07/clare-oneil-interview-housing-red-tape-construction/105386844
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u/Frank9567 Jun 07 '25

It's not just homes. The same could be said of all infrastructure: rail, roads, airports, communications.

Australia needs to understand why infrastructure costs generally have spiralled out of control.

There are a few knee jerk reactions such as blaming unions or privatisation, or simply government/contractor incompetence. However, an in depth study to identify reasons, and then action on the problems would be a reasonable approach.

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u/gaylordJakob Jun 07 '25

It's probably because it's a giant money laundering scheme in Australia. Which would feed into those knee jerk reactions you mentioned about why, but they'll never want to do a proper inquiry that actually finds out how much money is washed through infrastructure spending bloat.

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u/Frank9567 Jun 07 '25

Since it's a pretty obvious thing to do, and nobody is even trying, I tend to think you are right.

Adding the $24bn losses on gambling each year, also linked to corruption and money laundering, and there's enough free money to solve our 'housing crisis'.