Housing costs are a bigger policy headache than energy


Our energy problems are beyond the government’s immediate control but its plans in another area of high inflation will make things worse.

(Image: Gorkie/Private Media)

While energy prices have suddenly grabbed the, um, imaginations of political commentators, and the vexed issue of whether a global energy price spike caused by the biggest war in Europe in 75 years is a broken promise by Jim Chalmers, there are nastier problems in this week’s inflation figures for the September quarter.

Specifically, housing construction costs.

New dwelling prices rose 3.7% in the quarter alone, for an annual rise of over 20%. The 3.7% was actually a fall from the June quarter, because the residential construction sector started weakening under the lash of RBA rate rises.

Read more about the dire housing situation.

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