patrick.net

It's not just the banks who have a vested interest in keeping the property bubble bouncing along.

Every layer of government has become addicted to the great Australian dream, which in the past 40 years has transformed from owning your own patch of dirt to making a motza from property.

The Federal Government needs rising property prices to maintain a stable economy while state and local governments feed off the enormous fees and taxes it generates.

Since the latest boom began in late 2012, a boom deliberately orchestrated by the Reserve Bank to absorb construction workers leaving the mining industry as the resource investment boom wound down, state and local governments have seen property revenues rise by 65 per cent.

A bar graph plotting the millions earned in tax revenue from property over the financial years
INFOGRAPHIC: A bar graph shows the increase in taxation revenue from property by state and local governments over the financial years. (Supplied)
So the next time you hear a politician talk about the need for affordable housing, don't believe a word of it. None of them offer any serious solutions primarily because they know there are only two options, neither of which are palatable.

Either property prices need to collapse, which would only occur as part of an apocalyptic economic event, or wages need to take off which no major party is likely to endorse. Everything else is just window dressing.