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On the next tranche of the housing wars

On the next tranche of the housing wars

Housing has jumped to the front of the political queue again, thanks to the leadership ructions in the conservative parties that in large part rest on the anti immigration sentiment that’s blamed for high prices. Another thing that will soon take centre stage in the housing wars is the mooted rise in capital gains tax. Sign up for our free ...
A tale of two housing markets: Australia and Canada

A tale of two housing markets: Australia and Canada

“The national project to make housing more affordable is focused entirely on increasing supply [and] … The plan for meeting the supply target is to change planning laws and allow more density in middle suburbs…” So wrote revered Australian economic analyst, Alan Kohler, in 2025. Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact ...
Book Giveaway: A climate diplomat tells the COP story

Book Giveaway: A climate diplomat tells the COP story

This is a rich, incisive and informative book. You will learn a great deal from reading it. It is most of all a story about the world’s struggle to contain the epic threat of climate change, told by a peerless guide. This is a book that describes “what the risk of climate change is all about, how climate-change diplomacy developed from the late 1980s ...
PIA claps back at HIA; Design Matters & NatHERS; Sweltering Cities; Carter Williamson

PIA claps back at HIA; Design Matters & NatHERS; Sweltering Cities; Carter Williamson

This week, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) released its 2026 Planning Blueprint Scorecard, leading the Planning Institute of Australia to clap back on these “scores”, calling them out for putting out a confusing message that can be mistaken for actual planning system performance. The HIA “scorecard” called out states “stuck in a business as ...
Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 650

Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 650

There’s an old joke that marriage is picking the person you’ll spend forever asking, ‘Any thoughts on dinner?’ What to eat is just one of an estimated 35,000 decisions humans make each day. To make decisions more efficiently humans use heuristics or mental shortcuts. Heuristics are used to make inconsequential decisions but also to reduce the cognitive ...
55,000 extra social housing homes are being built. But a new study shows that boom still falls short

55,000 extra social housing homes are being built. But a new study shows that boom still falls short

Thanks to an unprecedented lift in public funding in the 2020s, an extra 55,000 new, good quality homes around Australia will be available to people on the lowest incomes by 2030. That’s almost triple the increase of 20,000 homes in the previous decade. Residents in these modern “social” homes will generally pay only 25 per cent of their income in ...

On the next tranche of the housing wars

On the next tranche of the housing wars
Housing has jumped to the front of the political queue again, thanks to the leadership ructions in the conservative parties that in large part rest on the anti immigration sentiment that’s blamed for high prices. Another thing that will soon take centre stage in the housing wars is the mooted rise in capital gains tax. Sign up for our free ...

A tale of two housing markets: Australia and Canada

A tale of two housing markets: Australia and Canada
“The national project to make housing more affordable is focused entirely on increasing supply [and] … The plan for meeting the supply target is to change planning laws and allow more density in middle suburbs…” So wrote revered Australian economic analyst, Alan Kohler, in 2025. Spinifex is an opinion column. If you would like to contribute, contact ...

Book Giveaway: A climate diplomat tells the COP story

Book Giveaway: A climate diplomat tells the COP story
This is a rich, incisive and informative book. You will learn a great deal from reading it. It is most of all a story about the world’s struggle to contain the epic threat of climate change, told by a peerless guide. This is a book that describes “what the risk of climate change is all about, how climate-change diplomacy developed from the late 1980s ...

PIA claps back at HIA; Design Matters & NatHERS; Sweltering Cities; Carter Williamson

PIA claps back at HIA; Design Matters & NatHERS; Sweltering Cities; Carter Williamson
This week, the Housing Industry Association (HIA) released its 2026 Planning Blueprint Scorecard, leading the Planning Institute of Australia to clap back on these “scores”, calling them out for putting out a confusing message that can be mistaken for actual planning system performance. The HIA “scorecard” called out states “stuck in a business as ...

Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 650

Welcome to Firstlinks Edition 650
There’s an old joke that marriage is picking the person you’ll spend forever asking, ‘Any thoughts on dinner?’ What to eat is just one of an estimated 35,000 decisions humans make each day. To make decisions more efficiently humans use heuristics or mental shortcuts. Heuristics are used to make inconsequential decisions but also to reduce the cognitive ...

55,000 extra social housing homes are being built. But a new study shows that boom still falls short

55,000 extra social housing homes are being built. But a new study shows that boom still falls short
Thanks to an unprecedented lift in public funding in the 2020s, an extra 55,000 new, good quality homes around Australia will be available to people on the lowest incomes by 2030. That’s almost triple the increase of 20,000 homes in the previous decade. Residents in these modern “social” homes will generally pay only 25 per cent of their income in ...