Phil Tarrant and Liam Garman unpack the Greens-aligned proposal for publicly owned supermarkets, the fallout from the credit card surcharge changes, and what shifting voter preferences could mean for housing policy. They also warn about the rush into commercial property, particularly inside self-managed super funds, and flag that roughly a quarter of listings are now sitting on the market for six months.
Twenty-five billion dollars of taxpayer money to compulsorily acquire 200 Coles and Woolworths stores and build another 400: that is the Greens proposal Phil Tarrant and Liam Garman take apart, and neither of them buys the maths. Getting there takes a detour through Perth, where Phil spent a single night for a critical infrastructure event, saw the suburban sprawl from the plane window and admitted he got no further than the walk between his hotel and the convention centre. Liam's counter is that Fremantle is the better argument for the city, sunsets over the water and all.
The politics segment is where the pair spend real time. Phil points listeners to his recent Smart Property Investment interview with Andrew Bragg, the Coalition's housing spokesperson, as the clearest read on opposition policy. Liam's argument is that the pace of political change is the story: Anthony Albanese polling at historic lows, the Coalition ahead on two-party preferred but nowhere near enough seats, and One Nation rising. Both agree the next federal election, roughly 18 months out, is a battle of second preferences, not first. Liam expects traditional Labor seats in the Hunter, Cessnock among them, to preference away.
On immigration, Phil notes the Coalition's call to cut the intake to 100,000 and backs the move to stop spouses and children accompanying student visa holders, his reasoning being that dependants signal an intention to stay. Liam calls the government's own response cheeky: people asked for lower immigration and got a cut to backpackers, who are temporary by definition and spend foreign-earned money here. Phil throws in a stat he openly flags as unreliable, that roughly one in 10 Australians is on a temporary visa, with Liam putting that near 2.8 million people.
Phil's beef of the week is the credit card surcharge ban, which he says he called as a bad idea last week and which is now generating pushback. Businesses are being told to absorb merchant fees while the government has simply stopped accepting credit cards for tax, and local councils are following. Liam's point lands hardest on fixed-price retail: a newsagent selling a scratchie or a copy of the SMH cannot lift the price by 1.5 per cent to cover the cost. If government bodies claim they cannot wear a couple of hundred million dollars, he asks, how is a small business meant to?
That sets up the supermarket discussion. Phil frames former Greens housing spokesperson Max Chandler-Mather, who lost his seat at the last election, as an example of how fringe ideas become policy over time. Liam, stating plainly that he is not running a supermarket defence, puts Coles and Woolworths net margins at two to two and a half per cent, which makes the promised 30 per cent discount on essentials implausible. Phil's worry is procurement politics: tomatoes bought from a Labor-held electorate, sugar cane sourced from Fiji for diplomatic reasons, and every agricultural supply chain politicised.
The property payoff is the new six-part post-budget guide to commercial property investing, written by Liam with Phil and Victor Kumar. Liam's warning is blunt: buyer's agents who have never worked in commercial are now flogging it on Instagram, yield is a reflection of risk, and a Karratha or Broome shopfront at nine per cent can go to zero when the local mine stops. He flags fake leases, a $200,000 HVAC bill landing on an owner, and vacancies up and down Military Road in North Sydney. Phil's bigger concern is people buying commercial inside their super with a $200,000 to $300,000 deposit, eroding retirement savings and inviting regulators in. With a quarter of listings sitting six months and Australia carrying the second highest rates in the developed world, patience and due diligence are doing more work right now than momentum.
Speaker 1: This is a Momentum Media production.
Speaker 2: G'day and we're live. Phil Tarrant, Friday morning. Property buzz where we get stuck into debriefing on the week that was and getting everyone set for the week ahead. A lot of people, the feedback we get is they tune into this when they're out there on the way to auctions or looking at properties, whether or not there's a lot of that going on at the moment. I don't know. Some of the reports I'm seeing out there at the moment would say that property is sitting on the market. for quite a long period of time. We're going to have a chat about that today, amongst a whole bunch of other things. If you want to give us any... we haven't really done a particularly good job on this link. Um, my co-host, how are you going? You well? You good this
Speaker 3: good, good. Well, what have we not done a good
Speaker 2: i
Speaker 3: job
Speaker 2: don't
Speaker 3: on i'd
Speaker 2: like to start with the negative, but yeah
Speaker 3: like to think we do a good job on a lot of stuff, yeah.
Speaker 2: We do a lot. This is one of the criticisms I get about myself, um, whether it's work or, um, personal stuff, whatever, is that I always talk about the things that aren't right rather than all the things that are right. And so, so I will preface this with: we do a lot of good stuff. Let's just assume that we do a lot of good stuff for us, so
Speaker 3: assume yeah
Speaker 2: so I've got to work hard to find things that aren't that
Speaker 3: okay
Speaker 2: good. And uh, what we haven't done that good is being a lot more connected and interactive with our audience.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you're getting me very worried for a second. I didn't know what you're gonna say.
Speaker 2: And I'm blaming you. venue for
Speaker 3: okay
Speaker 2: That, um, you see that? That's good leadership, by the way, everyone. You see what I did there? Always
Speaker 3: it's about delegation.
Speaker 2: Yeah, delegate down and blame. Delegate down and blame. Yeah, no, no, no, we're doing
Speaker 3: and
Speaker 2: a really good
Speaker 3: if
Speaker 2: job
Speaker 3: you do. If you put all the blame on one person, it's... yeah, that's
Speaker 2: that's
Speaker 3: christ's
Speaker 2: good yeah
Speaker 3: line, they take the blame of everyone else.
Speaker 2: It's just, you just keep pushing and prodding until you break him, right? That's what, that's what they tell you on the, on the leadership things. But I want to do more Q A stuff. I want people to be, you know, and we're wide in, we're doing this live and probably, to be fair, that's my fault. I'm not that prepared, but uh, we want to answer questions on the fly from people out there, uh,
Speaker 3: you
Speaker 2: so
Speaker 3: and I were
Speaker 2: that's
Speaker 3: so gas
Speaker 2: the reason why
Speaker 3: bagging
Speaker 2: we don't, we
Speaker 3: for about 30
Speaker 2: were minutes, we're trying to work out what we're going to talk about.
Speaker 3: I'm also going to announce something as well, um, and your heart rate's probably jumped. And we should have covered this before, um, we went live. So I was, um, I'm co-host of SPI as well, outside of Property Buzz, and I was musing on an SPI the other day, on an SPI show the other day, that I want people to Email me, liam.garman, G-A-R-M-A-N at momentomedia.com.au because what I want to start doing.
Speaker 2: By the way, you need a much easier email address for people for a call to action. Let's just create something now.
Speaker 3: shoot us an email.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: what
Speaker 2: yeah.
Speaker 3: we'll do is one thing that I wanted to. I've got a few friends that work in property down the shore. We'll do a meetup with our listeners down in Crinola RSL, have a few beers, talk
Speaker 2: Northeath?
Speaker 3: yeah, oh, well, I don't know if we can do Northies. I
Speaker 2: Mate,
Speaker 3: mean okay
Speaker 2: I'm only going crinola northies, bottom of bar.
Speaker 3: bit of a bubbler incident, um, I
Speaker 2: 20 schooners each, fifth point out the front, go get a Southern Cross tattoo.
Speaker 3: find
Speaker 2: Sorry,
Speaker 3: the uh
Speaker 2: guys.
Speaker 3: I find the 10 points a cheaper, um, but have a meetup like-minded people we can chat and i want people to email in and once i get a critical mass of a particular postcode a critical mass on a particular region go down have a chat have a yarn with everyone so if you're from i don't know the north shore we go up to hornsby we go to crinola we go out to blacktown we go out to paramatta with My my blacktown
Speaker 2: Blacktown workers.
Speaker 3: yep
Speaker 2: I want to go to Blacktown workers.
Speaker 3: yep
Speaker 2: I love Blacktown
Speaker 3: so
Speaker 2: workers.
Speaker 3: I want all, but that's only Sydney centric, um, um, you don't feel annoyed. We travel a lot, so if you're from Brisbane, we can, you know, we're in Brisbane quite frequently, we can do that there. But I want people to email in and we can create a community of like-minded people, so
Speaker 2: Yeah
Speaker 3: if I've got 10 people that want to meet up in the CBD on a Friday night, we can meet, we can bring something, our guests on Thursday.
Speaker 2: Thursday nights
Speaker 3: is that when we do it? Now, yeah.
Speaker 2: Thursday nights Thursday night Thursdays
Speaker 3: No hangover on the bosses time, um, hangover on the bosses time.
Speaker 2: the theme with this, with this, with this show.
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 3: why oh
Speaker 2: know
Speaker 3: We did a you know, once, you know
Speaker 2: i'd
Speaker 3: once yeah
Speaker 2: say I'm 50, but um
Speaker 3: well, you hold yourself very well, um, you hold yourself very... oh, maybe Thursday night then. But we will go
Speaker 2: Thursday night meetups. Oh
Speaker 3: yeah, and I think it'd be great. So, so
Speaker 2: you know what, I do this live at the pub
Speaker 3: yep
Speaker 2: for sure, because then actually we can just chat and riff with. Yeah, I'm all for that. Hello at propertybuzz.com.
Speaker 3: Hello,
Speaker 2: Let's start
Speaker 3: property.
Speaker 2: it. Let's just get one out of the
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: blog.
Speaker 3: So if Patty wants to email our people to make that ASAP, thank you.
Speaker 2: Talk about property. Talk
Speaker 3: Hello,
Speaker 2: about we do Trevor.
Speaker 3: propertybuzz
Speaker 2: We can
Speaker 3: .com.
Speaker 2: trouble.
Speaker 3: How you been?
Speaker 2: I've been traveling.
Speaker 3: You have been
Speaker 2: I have been traveling.
Speaker 3: to the US?
Speaker 2: Yes, yes. I was in Perth yesterday. I did a one night reconnaissance visit out there and I had my little head out the window looking at all the suburbs flying over. And it's good to, it's interesting, there was, you know, just this sprawl of suburbs now, I don't know. a lot of investors have been out there sort of giving a red hot crack, but um, I love Perth. I can see why people want to live there. To
Speaker 3: I do love to Perth,
Speaker 2: be fair though,
Speaker 3: it's
Speaker 2: I went to a hotel and then I walked to the convention center, then I walked back to the hotel, and
Speaker 3: not even
Speaker 2: um you
Speaker 3: not fancy
Speaker 2: know, I didn't
Speaker 3: people
Speaker 2: even go
Speaker 3: around
Speaker 2: up to
Speaker 3: that
Speaker 2: saint
Speaker 3: live
Speaker 2: george's
Speaker 3: around
Speaker 2: terrace it's
Speaker 3: there but I mean that's quite a limited part of the city now I very love
Speaker 2: limited
Speaker 3: Freemantle how good's Freemantle
Speaker 2: I saw it out the window when
Speaker 3: I was, yeah
Speaker 2: in the plane. I've
Speaker 3: I think it's fantastic um
Speaker 2: been there once, uh was low, could have
Speaker 3: like the
Speaker 2: beach, another beach words, yeah
Speaker 3: it's fantastic. And I think the thing that wigs me out is that the sun going down on the wrong side. Do you ever get that when you go there? It's like the afternoon and the sun's setting into the water. Oh, it's weird.
Speaker 2: i didn't
Speaker 3: it just wigs
Speaker 2: i was
Speaker 3: me out
Speaker 2: I was inside talking
Speaker 3: always, yeah, with
Speaker 2: talking about stuff, um
Speaker 3: actually
Speaker 2: i
Speaker 3: doing business, yeah
Speaker 2: was actually good. Now, I was in, I was there, um, uh, for... if you don't know that, where Property Buzz lives in, inside of my mental media, it sort of works across a whole bunch of different areas. One of them is, um, national security and critical infrastructure where I where I play a role um and uh the critical infrastructure aspect of it all is my ongoing thesis around probably being the most critical of critical infrastructure and and I was asked by a member of parliament while I was out there he went how'd you go with Andrew Bragg the other day on uh on podcast with him so we we uh if you haven't tuned into that yeah Andrew Bragg who is the position spokesperson
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: for housing
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 3: -hmm.
Speaker 2: I think it was homelessness and something Probably yeah
Speaker 3: a few others.
Speaker 2: a few other things, um had a chat with him the other week and then we put it up on smart property investments so go and tune into that so that was good chat as expected um he had some views and opinions on on the real estate sector and i see uh there's sort of debates on sunrise that you get now with like katie gallagher and you know other folks Do there's
Speaker 3: You watch this?
Speaker 2: no
Speaker 3: morning?
Speaker 2: I did watch this morning. Do you know who I did see though? Is that bloke that we spoke, I can't remember his name, Daoud, who played tennis with the PM? You know, the broker, you know, the guy. Yeah, sorry. Yeah, yeah, you know how I'm talking about,
Speaker 3: i do
Speaker 2: I can't remember his name.
Speaker 3: Hold, tread water while
Speaker 2: trade
Speaker 3: i get
Speaker 2: right
Speaker 3: it up
Speaker 2: water. Yeah, and uh, and he was talking about his game of tennis with the Prime Minister, which he is a mortgage broker. Yeah, Joseph, yeah, yeah, yeah, so it's right. Yeah, g'day Joseph, how you going mate? Um, uh, yeah, he played, um, tennis with a pan me board at the Midwinter Ball,
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: which you can do, it's like a charity thing. And he reckons it was a stitch up. He reckons that they already had a pre-planned score line, and and that was all released. And he goes, yeah, you know, I didn't realize he's a member of the Liberal Party. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Deep state, deep.
Speaker 2: didn't
Speaker 3: state um
Speaker 2: realize he was a member
Speaker 3: of but
Speaker 2: the Liberal Party.
Speaker 3: You know what, like, one thing that you, the crux of, I think, the Brag interview, and for people that haven't had the chance to watch it, go watch it. Um, it does outline the Coalition's plans now. You know, we're not here to look into a crystal ball, but what we can say, I think very fairly feel is the rate at which politics is changing is pretty rapid. You know, even 12 months ago, 12 months ago, we were in a pre-Bondi Australia, right? And Bondi was this really pivotal moment where politics changed forever. Now, a lot of people that have fractured since then, obviously we've had the growth of One Nation, but a lot of people, that was the turning point in the policy. You can see the literal point at which One Nation. The nations are going up, the coalitions are coming down. All of that to the side, it's very fair to say that it's changing so rapidly.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: And I think we highlighted this last week that Albanese is now the least popular prime minister since I think Gillard at the low ebb of Gillard where she was rolled by Rudd, who was notoriously unpopular when Gillard rolled him. And I think that there's only one other PM in history that's been that unpopular, you know, eating it. heating at Keating's low as well so he's at like historically low lows and when you factor in um the Lib versus Labour two-party preferred the Libs are ahead the Libs are ahead the challenge that the Libs are going to have is that they're not ahead in anywhere near enough seats to really to really give
Speaker 2: I
Speaker 3: them a
Speaker 2: think
Speaker 3: challenge
Speaker 2: I heard a lot about this and then when I was it's five hours to Perth four hours back but when you come back via Brisbane it turns into like an eight hour trip which I did last last night
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: Um, so the election's eight, eight months, call it
Speaker 3: 2028. Yeah,
Speaker 2: 2020
Speaker 3: 18 months.
Speaker 2: months. Um, I've been thinking about this, and I don't think it's going to come down to Who people vote for, number one. I think it's got to
Speaker 3: 100%.
Speaker 2: come down to who's going to be their number two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll be a battle of preferences.
Speaker 2: It's going to be a battle of preferences. And where I think it will land is you're not going to have a coalition which is going to be the Nats and the Libs and one nation.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: You're still going to have the coalition in its current traditional sense, but I think you're going to get a... minority government. and the Libs and
Speaker 3: and they've got
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 3: to supply, so
Speaker 2: there's going to be, it's going to be doing deals with with one
Speaker 3: if
Speaker 2: nation
Speaker 3: they're the
Speaker 2: the whole
Speaker 3: certainty
Speaker 2: way through. And and the Senate, I reckon they'll probably get five seats in the Senate, maybe one, one, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: More than that, I'd say. I
Speaker 2: five to six.
Speaker 3: think there's a subtlety. So Coalition is a formalized agreement where both parties sit in government, so the, well, there's actually more parties in the Coalition than the Libs, and that's just another simplification, because you've got the the LNP, which is in the state of Queensland,
Speaker 2: All
Speaker 3: a merger
Speaker 2: right.
Speaker 3: of the two, you know, there's multiple parties that's in the coalition room. That is one thing where there's a formalized agreement. A supply agreement is closer to what the Labor and Greens typically have, which is if Labor's in minority, you can pretty much assume that the Greens are going to vote stuff through with a give us a little bit and we'll vote your stuff through a bit more of a hand.
Speaker 4: Tactile and agreement.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I couldn't agree more. I couldn't agree more. And the reason I actually brought this up was the rate at which things have changed because the libs went backwards so dramatically. And why it's important that while the libs look like, you know, they're 20% in the polls, like that is not a threatening position to be in whatsoever. And you're completely correct with the number two vote, the challenge that the centre right will find as in the libs or the coalition. and one nation is that you might not even get to a point where the libs are in the top two for the preferences to flow to really knock labor out of government. We can park that to the side for a moment. But the reason why we need to look at things like as investors to know what the future is holding for us, the rate at which things have changed mean that while labor is ahead now, it might not last forever.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: The libs have come out promising to scrap it. Now, you're going to have to start factoring in what one nation's policies are on this as well, even if this is against the grain of what you believe, you have to start factoring this in as an investment. Supply might do it right. They've got policies on reducing GST for building goods. Kind of makes sense.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, when we're talking about the cost of a new bill being 40 taxes, a reintroduction of negative gearing but at tapered levels of two, when you look at the combined vote for non-Labor and Greens, it's like 55 plus percent of the country. You
Speaker 2: Yeah, I
Speaker 3: know like
Speaker 2: can't see that. Sorry, Paddy, have you teed up that video I sent through to the WhatsApp? Can you let me know when that's done? I sent it through about five minutes ago. It's related to what we're chatting about right now. I can't see many people voting One Nation to Labor, right? You know, you're going to get a thread.
Speaker 3: Well, I think, let's, there will be There will be because there are a lot of areas where there is significant economic deprivation where people are looking for alternatives.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: And these are traditional Labor voters. These are traditional Labor voters that have the goodness of what the Labor movement was still in their hearts.
Speaker 2: yeah
Speaker 3: Of, you know, the Labor movement of, let's say in the 60s, 70s, Green Band movement. Something that us in Sydney, you know, the fact that... the Rocks might have been knocked down, QVB might have been knocked down, and Labor Union said, we're not going to knock down the QVB or the, or the Rocks, that's, that's ridiculous. This is a good element of the Labor movement, right? But the people that still embody what is good, the Hunter, mate, when New South Wales election rolls around in March next year, and you've got areas like Sesnok, which, I don't have the data in front of me, probably would have been Labor for 100 plus years.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: That role these areas going to roll they're gonna be areas and they probably will do one one nation to labor
Speaker 2: Well, I think the issue you've got for Labor is that a lot of those historic Labor values which were a motive to blue-collar Australians working Australians is now getting echoed those sentiments are certainly going to echo within the one nation movement whereas Labor is now seen to be a voice of the left and all these sort of sort of woke agenda and anything interconnected with. The answer is why they're cozy up with the Greens, right? So who knows what's going to happen. But over the week, if you look at where attention needs to be spent, Albo and his crew are over in Fiji talking
Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
Speaker 2: about stuff. And there's, everyone's no doubt seen all the, the stuff on social media of bow and sitting there falling asleep, and everyone going, this cost us 20 million bucks, is this really worth it? You know, it sounds like, you know, You know, they look so disinterested out there and, you know, fair enough. So that's getting a lot of criticism. We've seen the immigration policies come out from the coalition and that's what they're looking to cut that at 100,000. But they've also detethered or is it the government has detethered this idea of spouse and children can't come out on student visas, right? You know, which I think is. pretty fair and reasonable,
Speaker 3: If
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 3: you're
Speaker 2: know.
Speaker 3: a student. you don't need the family with
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 3: you, like, and that is
Speaker 2: It
Speaker 3: that is
Speaker 2: means you're staying.
Speaker 3: yeah, you're uprooting, um,
Speaker 2: It means you're staying.
Speaker 3: and this is, you know what, like, it was such a cheek. And the only way I can describe this, cheeky, what, what the government did with their immigration policies the other week, which was people, uh, for very legitimate reasons, very legitimate reasons, calling for a reduction in immigration, and the answer to that is, yeah, yeah, we've got the answer, let's cut backpackers.
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: But mobile, like, no, like, because backpackers aren't the root of the problem, but by nature you're here temporarily, right?
Speaker 2: backpackers,
Speaker 3: No one's, you know, what's going for reduction, backpackers, they go out, they pick their fruit, they spend all their money earned overseas here. actually, like, a net positive. Um, and what a cheeky thing to do. It's almost like, um, hey, we gave you what you asked for, but in the opposite way, right? Like,
Speaker 2: I saw some stats coming through and everyone knows I'm probably buzzed, I'm probably 50% right 50% of the time of the stats that I always sprout so do not rely upon this at all but yes
Speaker 3: Anchorman, was it 60% of the time it works, like, 60% of the time, 100%.
Speaker 2: So like one in 10 Australians is
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: on a temporary visa, right?
Speaker 3: One in 10.
Speaker 2: Yeah. One in 10. And I saw these stats really quickly and I'm trying to remember
Speaker 3: 2
Speaker 2: them.
Speaker 3: .8 million people.
Speaker 2: And on a temporary visa and between the ages of like 19 and 26 or something, you know, this cohort of young people, people in their 20s, it's like a third.
Speaker 3: Really?
Speaker 2: yeah temporary
Speaker 3: That's a lot of people.
Speaker 2: visits, a lot of them are backpackers, right? But which is cool, and
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: that students and everything there and in between, right? So this, what's going, hey, going with that, Patty, you ready to roll? Uh, yeah. Okay, this, I don't know, this is, yeah, you
Speaker 3: um you know usually I'm so opinionated but now when I'm forced to now when I'm forced to talk it's um it's hard anyway um yeah everyone go back and put like this SPI
Speaker 2: sorry
Speaker 3: with Andrew
Speaker 2: oh god
Speaker 3: true, bro. Um, you know, look, it's, it's important for us as investors and people in property to know what the alternative is talking about, at the end
Speaker 2: this
Speaker 3: of the day, is, um,
Speaker 2: why I've got all this perfectly teed up now to play this thing. Hang,
Speaker 3: this your, is
Speaker 2: on
Speaker 3: this your favorite former member of the Greens? Oh,
Speaker 2: yes, it is, yeah.
Speaker 3: god don't
Speaker 2: Here we go, Patty.
Speaker 3: Start with Bill.
Speaker 2: Let's, let's go with that. It's on that, uh, but we have a WhatsApp for the Property Bugs, and maybe, how'd you go with that, the thing? Didn't you say you're going to set up a of WhatsApp for Property Buzz? Do you remember? I've
Speaker 3: I thought they were doing it.
Speaker 2: got it on record.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I didn't know what was it. Yes, mate. Yeah, it's made.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there we
Speaker 2: How do you
Speaker 3: go.
Speaker 2: what is it? How do you
Speaker 3: Well, there's just so much I look at me. Wait,
Speaker 2: this is the problem. And why do we get great ideas but poor execution?
Speaker 3: Oh, never execute a good idea. Gosh,
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: no, you open yourself up to never get
Speaker 2: Yeah,
Speaker 3: hope.
Speaker 2: We're going to do what's
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: up.
Speaker 3: we did. We'll go now, yeah.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 3: I'm
Speaker 2: So Hello at propertybuzz.com. You'll just remember that as well. This is.
Speaker 3: And that's where people can text in their locations for drinks.
Speaker 2: Yes. And other things and or the videos that they want to. one
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: is to respond and comment to. So yeah, lots, lots happening in politics. But this is not a
Speaker 3: political
Speaker 2: super cynical
Speaker 3: show.
Speaker 2: thing. I telegraphed this straight out of the bat last week, and everyone's picked up on it now, and maybe this is what I instantly thought. This credit card surcharge is causing quite a lot of push back
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: and, and the cool one, and I, I said it straight off the bat, I went, this is going to be a really, really bad thing for, to do is ban the payment of tax through credit cards. A lot of Australian businesses use it as, as cash flow future, five days since it's free if you put on a credit card, it's how they manage it. So, so the government has said, the government, well, they're going to say, well, the RBA told us to do this, I said it was a good idea, but they said it's an Australian Australian businesses need
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: to absorb
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: The um, the credit card uh surcharge payments as part of their, their delivery of services. So what it says, that's 10 bucks, when you pay for it it's 10 bucks, right? You've got to absorb the fee. And then they've also sort of put some requirements in and around, um, you know, how big those fees can be. But then the government's gone Well, the same thing doesn't apply to us. If you were to pay us with a credit card, you know, we're not allowing that anymore. So the government's not willing to absorb it.
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: So the big
Speaker 3: so ironic
Speaker 2: scam
Speaker 3: right
Speaker 2: in
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: town right now is that you can pay your tax for next two months with no fees,
Speaker 3: so the, so it's
Speaker 2: which everyone's just racking up points,
Speaker 3: good
Speaker 2: right?
Speaker 3: that's a good point, um, but I mean
Speaker 2: it's, which no doubt they did that because everyone's going
Speaker 3: oh
Speaker 2: oh, it's
Speaker 3: I mean, how many small businesses need to do this just to survive, to keep the doors open? And and you're so so right with this, because it's a case of you've now got government bodies out there. And today I was watching the uh, it's the Today Show, one of the morning shows, and they gave, yeah
Speaker 2: Sunrise? Sunrise is the one
Speaker 3: one
Speaker 2: with Koch.
Speaker 3: of them, one of them, um, and they're talking about how now local councils won't accept it either. So you've got government bodies, government institutions out there that are coming out saying, what, I think the ATK came out, like it's a couple hundred million dollars, we cannot as a government body afford these couple hundred million dollars. So if you've got government institutions that are backed up by the taxpayer with a recurring source of revenue,
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: that's coming out and saying the government's own policies will bankrupt us as a government body, how are small businesses meant to survive? How businesses meant to survive this? And I spoke about this last week, Phil, you know, we've got, you know, family that used to run news agency, and you've got these, these businesses out there that what they sell, their goods and services are at a fixed price, they're at a recommended retail price. Scratchy is a copy of the SMH, mate
Speaker 2: It doesn't make sense to sell papers no more if
Speaker 3: it doesn't
Speaker 2: people pay
Speaker 3: make for, but
Speaker 2: it on a credit card.
Speaker 3: yeah, well at that point, you know, you just lose one half percent, you know, you can't put up the price of these fixed products by one half percent. And they just clearly never thought through the second, third, fourth order impacts of what
Speaker 2: Well,
Speaker 3: this is
Speaker 2: that was my
Speaker 3: doing
Speaker 2: beef laugh, Tom, was an unintended consequence. So, Patty, play this and I want to make a point with this, but play it. I'm not going to take it up too much. Go for it, buddy.
Speaker 3: So we're proposing that the federal government establish a national network of publicly owned supermarkets that would cut out the profit and wasteful corporate spending billions of dollars that are usually spent by Coles and Woolworths on things like advertising. Investing in marketing, executive salaries, dividends to shareholders. It could provide a 30% discount on essentials and then a 22% saving across the entire shop. It would be achieved by the federal government investing about $25 billion upfront over the first five years to compulsorily acquire 200 Coles and Woolworths stores and then build just over 400 more.
Speaker 2: Why aren't we just encouraging people to shop at independent chains?
Speaker 3: Well, we tried that, didn't work. Why we're proposing this is because the... Because the private market has failed fundamentally to provide affordable food for ordinary Australians and thus we
Speaker 2: It's
Speaker 3: need
Speaker 2: probably
Speaker 3: public
Speaker 2: enough
Speaker 3: option
Speaker 2: that we
Speaker 3: intervention.
Speaker 2: get the point, Paddy. All right. So this is why I played this particular, right? So here we are talking about how. policies get created, and they typically come out of think tanks, and those think tanks are usually funded by someone, or their government committees.
Speaker 3: Are you saying that isn't his think tank called like the Green Institute or something?
Speaker 2: the Green Institute right so so this guy here Max Chandler Mather if if you all remember was Well, he's reinvented himself now as a supermarket guy, right? But if everyone remembers correctly, he was the spokesperson for the Greens on housing, who was really, really active and vocal in the run up to the most recent election. And he got punted. He didn't get voted back in. The Greens got walked pretty hard. And so he was some guy who was there telling the... the world and Australia, every man, he's talking Australia, all that's wrong about housing in Australia and how their policies were going to change the world and make everything right again. Well, he didn't get voted back in.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I can't see why not. And and now he's reinventing himself talking about supermarkets. So the point is, is that we have the centers of influence out there proposing ideas, and that's what typically happens about democracy, right? But the policies getting created today were originated with nascent ideas at a point in time that someone pushes through an agenda and gets out to there.
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: So we have all these changes that have taken place over the last period of time as a result of people like him,
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: right? And I would say his objective is to say the most topical thing he possibly can so he gets some coverage on the mainstream news and he's been all over the place. He's talking about nationalizing
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: supermarkets.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: compulsory
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: acquiring with taxpayers
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: money and then everyone's sort of going at the end of the day I think the margins are like one or two percent that
Speaker 3: i
Speaker 2: the supermarkets actually
Speaker 3: was actually
Speaker 2: make
Speaker 3: pulling, I was actually pulling up the data then, I was pulling up the data, because when he says the 30 reduction, it's wrong. Remember we went through the whole, um, the commission into, um, price gouging, remember that? And the findings were, and by the way, for anyone that's going to say that this is, um, you know, Coles from words propaganda I'm not here to bootleg. I'm not here to bootleg, but my position that I will state on this is stuff that the government usually touches gets a lot worse. That's my, that's going to be my position. Stuff that the government touches usually gets a lot worse. The maths ends up being around two to two and a half percent profit, two
Speaker 2: Okay, there you go, two to
Speaker 3: to
Speaker 2: two and a half.
Speaker 3: and a half percent profit. So the reason, and yeah, they make billions and billions and billions and billions of dollars in profit because because you and I go there multiple times a week, I go there to buy lunch, you know, you stop off for a Coke, you buy, you buy for a few hundred dollars. You guys actually have very cheap grocery prices, we spoke about this the other week. But it ends up being about two and two and a half percent Of course we want a 2% reduction, but are you going to be materially much better off? No. But the point is as well that this provides employment to tens of thousands of Australians. It provides the benefit of location, provides the benefit of scale. The economies of scale in being able to source these products in and of themselves allow you to get the products cheaper. But the maths broadly, the maths ends up being that Coles and West make on a good at the average averaged about two to two and a half percent.
Speaker 2: So the point is, is that Australian taxpayers, as people try to get ahead and craft their own journey through Australia, it's people like Max Chandler-Mather who are shaping decisioning around what these policies look like. So in a couple of. years time, 18 months time, everyone's got the opportunity to vote again, right?
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: You know, we need to be very clear that the vote matters and a vote counts, because if you have the right people in there sort of coming up with policy ideas, you're going to get some better outcomes on the other side of things. Imagine turning every single supermarket worker into a public servant. A public, they'd be a public servant, right? Public servant, nationalizing groceries in Australia.
Speaker 3: Mm
Speaker 2: You
Speaker 3: -hmm.
Speaker 2: know, the sophistication of these businesses around supply chain management, logistics is huge and off the chart. I just don't think we're going to have enough smart people in government to actually even do that. More bureaucrats, more red tape, you know, around
Speaker 3: Yeah,
Speaker 2: it, so, oh
Speaker 3: you're right because, I mean, there would be – I've never worked there, but there would be bloody high-rises of people that work in logistics, right?
Speaker 2: yeah, God, and
Speaker 3: Like, it makes sense.
Speaker 2: if they're chasing the two and a half to three percent margin, like, every
Speaker 3: little Yeah,
Speaker 2: thing matters, you
Speaker 3: you know, the only
Speaker 2: know
Speaker 3: time
Speaker 2: if you get a yeah. large s of government just sitting there going all right
Speaker 3: mate
Speaker 2: so we'll
Speaker 3: the only
Speaker 2: we'll buy bananas, we'll buy bananas off this, this guy over here because they're in the electorate. It's like, um, old Elbow getting his uh golf course fixed up, right? Like
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: or
Speaker 3: that's
Speaker 2: you
Speaker 3: true hey
Speaker 2: know, you go, you go back to these, these
Speaker 3: that raises a good point. For bloody tin tomatoes, do you need to go out for a tender? Because I'm very sure that there would be, I mean this isn't an accusation, but I'm very sure that there would be some element of favoritism. Now favoritism is not necessarily a bad thing in this case. Favoritism could be like, these tinto tomatoes taste better, that's a type of favoritism, right? Like, it's preference. How do you pick and choose? Yeah
Speaker 2: Just imagine this for a moment, right? So these, which again has got a lot of noise, right? These cultural grants that have, I think there was three and a half, 350 million bucks in these cultural grants. it's
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: went out
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I think the year before, or the last time I measured it, was like 30 million, right? Something like that. Again, my stats are a bit loose, but it's like
Speaker 3: Like
Speaker 2: that right
Speaker 3: a figure.
Speaker 2: and I'm trying to remember this, I just absorb stuff and I pull it out, and I'm probably wrong, but
Speaker 3: Jeep
Speaker 2: but it's
Speaker 3: ATV.
Speaker 2: like that, yeah. And but but the, the uh, talking about this, right? And and why you don't want government to be too big, right? Because of the machination government When they do all this mass and stuff, like of that 350 million, we'll there about call it that, like most of it went into labor held electorates, right? So imagine them sitting around going, all right. We're going to buy our tomatoes from this Labour minister's electorate because he needs to make sure that his local economy, which is driven by tomatoes,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Roma, is really strong. And then you've got this other mob over here who grow tastier tomatoes that Australians like, but they're in a
Speaker 3: In
Speaker 2: nat
Speaker 3: that seat.
Speaker 2: seat and they go, no, we're going to prioritise buying these things for our government. By the way. go back to, to Moscow 20 years ago and you see how, what nationalized supermarkets look like.
Speaker 3: Breadlines, yeah.
Speaker 2: Right, you know, like, come on, like why are we giving this, other, we're giving him airplay. But the point is, is that this is the madness of how policies are created. And going back to my point last week, second, third, for unintended consequences, a huge, that would be, that would be an unintended consequence of this. Yeah, everything would be, every single source of agri-manufacturing would be politicized.
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: We can't get our sugar cane from over here.
Speaker 3: Oh,
Speaker 2: Now we're going to get our sugar cane from our friends now over in Fiji because we're trying to do it with Fiji and we're trying to make sure there's no more coups there.
Speaker 3: 100%.
Speaker 2: So we're going to buy our sugar cane from over there and all your local blokes get it. Anyway, there you go. So these are the type of people who are shaping policies, not us. Get us down to Canberra, we'll work it out.
Speaker 3: I mean, I never even thought of the agriculture side, but yeah, it'd be like a tender
Speaker 2: Imagine, imagine.
Speaker 3: process, a pork barreling process, the geopolitics of it. picks of buying stuff from VG as an example but I mean you know we are in an interconnected world and what better way to win international friends by giving them a few underhanded contracts for
Speaker 2: who knows
Speaker 3: You
Speaker 2: who
Speaker 3: know,
Speaker 2: knows
Speaker 3: yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyway, this all comes back to property and real estate. So, um, the Post Budget Guide to Commercial Property Investing, tell me about that.
Speaker 3: Sorry, for, you'd be the best person to introduce
Speaker 2: no
Speaker 3: that,
Speaker 2: no, but you introduce your
Speaker 3: it. I'll introduce
Speaker 2: name
Speaker 3: it.
Speaker 2: on it, isn't it? Oh
Speaker 3: Oh, it is because I wrote your report. I
Speaker 2: okay
Speaker 3: wrote your report. So for our listeners at home, make sure you jump on sbismartpropertyinvestment.com.au because launch a new six-part series. A new six-part series of post-budget guide to... do commercial property investing, and it's quite a cool little concept. It's a cool concept. So what we've done is we've written a very lengthy report addressing six different key areas in commercial real estate from your intro to your vows to asset selection and everything in between written a report and you and Victor Kumar who from
Speaker 2: Director
Speaker 3: my property
Speaker 2: of property
Speaker 3: group
Speaker 2: group.
Speaker 3: it
Speaker 2: Yep,
Speaker 3: being a buys after decades decades like 20 17 years I
Speaker 2: now
Speaker 3: think 20
Speaker 2: they'd be 20, 20 something years
Speaker 3: something years, very big in commercial property. You go through and you pull apart part this, and it's, it's a very unique report because, and the thing that I took from it writing it was We start right from the basics. So we released part one of the report this week on Wednesday, saying right from the basics, which is, and I think it's fair to say for a lot of our listeners out there, you can't scroll through Instagram without seeing a buyer's agent trying to flog you commercial. Hey, you've got a lot of resi. Now it's time to move on to commercial. It is not that simple. I hear every day, and I'm not exaggerating this, maybe every day is an exaggeration, but multiple times a week. week a multiple times a week of people that have been flogged bad commercial property or they followed bad commercial advice and I hear that every day and I've heard just even in this week I've heard some shockers. At the crux of that is if you do it wrong, it's heads of back years.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: If you do it wrong, you can lose hundreds of thousands of dollars. And the examples that I've heard is, you know, lack of process and due diligence. Sometimes there are fake leases. You know, there might be, you go, there's actually not a business here. It is a fake lease. Not understanding that yield is a reflection of risk. You know, in... residential property, you're probably always going to have a tenant. And if you don't, you can probably reduce your rent by $10 to $20 a week and that's all it's going to take and people will be lining up outside the next open home. That's not the same in commercial property. I mean, You walk up and down some high streets and if we take retail, for example, you walk up and down Military Road in North Sydney and every shop is up for lease.
Speaker 2: Well, the pick a possum I saw was, sorry,
Speaker 3: One of
Speaker 2: yeah.
Speaker 3: the latest casualties. But I mean, this is an example where you might drop a lease, but you still might not have anyone coming. So the way that you have to approach commercial property is very different. So this first part of the six part series is a report. what on the basics is at the right time? Are you ready for it? And Victor's, you know, Victor's very frank and he says, you have to kind of earn your stripes.
Speaker 2: Yep.
Speaker 3: You have to earn your stripes to get into commercial property. You have to have your buffer because if you are untenanted for six months and that's how long it can be, right? It could be longer. You need to have the commercial buffers to do it. Even things like the valuation isn't just the building. The valuation isn't just a building. It's not just the location. It's the terms of the lease. So the terms of the lease, and I'm sure a lot of our listeners would be familiar with this, but in terms of valuing commercial property, a property management fees passed on to the business in the lease, upgrades passed on to the business as part of the lease. I've heard stories about people that the upgrades are incurred by the owner and in a large warehouse or industrial space, they've got a $200,000 HVAC bill because they need. for very big air conditioning units $200,000 incurred by the owner you have to know these things in the lease and one thing that you and Victor unpacked on this podcast which I thought was very insightful was the buildings one part of it but it's the lease yeah
Speaker 2: oh, the lease is critical. And we're talking about renovating, right? Renovating
Speaker 3: yeah renovating
Speaker 2: the lease, renovating
Speaker 3: the lease, renovating
Speaker 2: it's
Speaker 3: the lease. So yeah,
Speaker 2: a really good series, um, yeah
Speaker 3: and
Speaker 2: no
Speaker 3: you know I think that was did I do it justice you
Speaker 2: yeah, you know, did, yeah, the post Post-budget guide to commercial property investing and it's a good reason why it's a post-budget guide and I'm very careful I don't want to be contrarian with commercial and I was pretty clear on this podcast and Victor has a lot more significance in operating this area but we sort of said we don't want to be the guys talking down commercial property.
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 2: Just because you can do it doesn't necessarily mean that you should be doing it. And to those earlier points that you made, I have a view that you're going to see a lot of people making very bad decisions investing in commercial property inside of their super fund, right?
Speaker 3: And that was another part you actually brought up on the report.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I reckon that's going to have some consequence where you're going to start. getting regulators and the bureaucracy looking into this because if you make an ill-informed decision outside of super. you need to deal with that.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: Right, and and for a lot of people investing in resi, resi property, to your point, is a lot more forgiving than commercial property. So if you made a, if you make a bad resi property decision, it can be pretty significant, right? It might slow you down, you might have missed opportunity costs and all this sort of stuff, right? Um, but you could probably work out how to get out of it easier, whatever.
Speaker 3: Drop rent by $10 for
Speaker 2: yeah um
Speaker 3: resi.
Speaker 2: you make a bad decision in commercial, in or out of super, has consequences. But if you do it inside a super, what that is going to do is erode people's retirement savings. And that's, and we are told that superannuation is a sovereign asset, right? And if people's superannuation style is saving start getting eroded and They end up in a situation where they can't service the debt inside of the super fund,
Speaker 3: Hmm.
Speaker 2: there's limited non-recourse borrowing, when the contributions don't support that, that's not going to be a good outcome. And you're going to have every single super fund, retail or industry fund in the nation, and no doubt their lobbyists are already in there saying, watch this, watch this, watch this, watch this, because everyone now is putting their money into. to commercial property inside of their super fund, they're going to be telling the government all the reasons why that is not good for Australia. And a lot of people will be making these bad decisions. So I would say they would probably rightfully have a pretty decent argument there. I'm calling it out now. I'm calling it out now. Just because you can invest in commercial property through leveraged borrowing doesn't mean you should do. And the sort of stuff that you're buying at the price points that people have inside of their super fund. fund, maybe 200, 300 000 bucks, you know, as a deposit. Like, you're not talking about prestige commercial, or you might be getting stuff that might yield better, but it's considerably more risky as a result of it. So, which we explore all these ideas. I have, I have commercial property and resi property. I think commercial is a really good asset class, but it's got to be done right. So the Post Budget Guide to Commercial Property Investing looks at commercial property investing through the lens of red tape, bureaucracy, policy settings, politics, everything but the inherent value of those asset class and how best to navigate it. So I would say it's going to be very, very popular, very
Speaker 3: popular It's a great series because you do look at it in a certain point of view.
Speaker 2: They
Speaker 3: And this isn't me pumping the tyres. Obviously, I wrote the report,
Speaker 2: shouldn't,
Speaker 3: but it
Speaker 2: pump it up.
Speaker 3: is – well, yeah, I mean it was good because it – People oversimplifying it, and I think that's a fair thing to say, with so many buyer's agents in this space. We don't necessarily need to relive it. You and I have spoken about it at length. Well, not since I've been back from Patleaf, so maybe we can do it again. But with so many buyers agents having a hard time in the resi space with the amount of investor loans dropping quite substantially, the amount of people coming through, again, look at Instagram. There are so many buyers agents that have never been in the world of commercial before now flogging commercial properties. My concern, my personal concern is that a lot of people haven't done it before. there are going to be a lot of regular Aussies to like what you're saying so a lot of regular Aussies trusting hand-on-heart some of the property advisor they're given that are given bad deals and unless you partner with people that do it well and people that know commercial
Speaker 2: And
Speaker 3: property
Speaker 2: there are some people that do it very well.
Speaker 3: Victor for example right um but it's a good chance to dispel the myths because where the buyer's agents on Instagram are like oh well you know you might get a net yield of two percent on this resi but I can get you a net would net yield a five and a half percent you touch on it it's very important it is a reflection of risk it's a reflection of risk and the best equivalent that we can give is if you want to go to Caratha or Broome sure you know you and I could probably source properties there with an eight nine ten percent yield we could probably do it you know anyone could do it go on realestate.com I'm very sure you will find why is why is raise a yield in Caratha or Broome Broom temp sent, it's a reflection of risk, because if the local gold mine or if the local port, if there's any local shock, you will be untenanted for a very long time. So the value of the assets lower, and such is the case there will be a lot of people out there that are tempted because things are too good to be true, and they will see things where yields are too high. And there are so many tricks of the trade. I know, um, uh, Victor actually gave the example of the mining towns where someone someone bought a row of shops
Speaker 2: It's
Speaker 3: that bang, went
Speaker 2: killing fast. Yeah, then it's went fast.
Speaker 3: 240k up a year down to zero essentially. He spoke about renovating the lease and people that were able to make money or manufacture the capital gains of a commercial asset, because the commercial asset is essentially, think of the bond market, right? The price of a bond is a function of its yield. It's a function of its yield. The price is lower if the yield is lower. Right. And that is essentially the asset is a function of the amount that you'll get from it. It's the exact same with this. It's the exact same with this. So you both talk about changing the lease, therefore the lease is renovated, therefore the price of the asset goes up. Fantastic series,
Speaker 2: That's
Speaker 3: make sure you go good. jump on.
Speaker 2: So just before we conclude, Liam, I saw a piece, 25%. of properties on the market.
Speaker 3: sitting there for six months, that's... it's a lot. It's
Speaker 2: aged stock. That's a lot. Are
Speaker 3: a lot, yeah.
Speaker 2: they just
Speaker 3: oh
Speaker 2: Phantom listings, you reckon? That's
Speaker 3: I don't know, I mean, yeah, I
Speaker 2: a, that's a big number, right? Like,
Speaker 3: don't know. I saw some, um, I don't know. You and I talk about bargains every now and then, Phil. I always change. I feel like this is in terms of the investing world. I'm fairly sure you're not meant to change your objective or your strategy every couple of days, but I get very ADHD changing my strategy. I'm seeing a lot of bargains out there at the moment, unfortunately, I guess. So fortunately, people are coming to the game. You know, people's ability to borrow is eroded. Are they musing something? Are they musing something? You and I have a very... maybe it's because we do this every week. Maybe it's one of those things that maybe we're one... we're right once out of every 20 times, so because we do this every week, that we're getting a good scorecard. But I was musing this week on interest rates and the fact that we have the second highest interest rates in the developed
Speaker 2: developed world
Speaker 3: world.
Speaker 2: Western
Speaker 3: I don't know if we're allowed to use that term anymore, but that's what I'm going to do these so no one can don't screenshot it, don't meme it.
Speaker 2: okay to call it developed. That's it, develop or developing. It's
Speaker 3: Okay, developed.
Speaker 2: called the, the
Speaker 3: Although,
Speaker 2: first
Speaker 3: you know, let's say first world. We're
Speaker 2: world because
Speaker 3: not allowed to say that. Anyway,
Speaker 2: because remember the thing is called International Development, is
Speaker 3: yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: it's about
Speaker 3: yeah, yeah. No,
Speaker 2: developing
Speaker 3: maybe it's first.
Speaker 2: As a developing
Speaker 3: well, you don't even know.
Speaker 2: nation,
Speaker 3: what that's saying.
Speaker 2: first of all.
Speaker 3: So out of the first world country that developed countries, we have the second highest interest rates and, you know, Simply so, when you go to, and I've traveled both the UK and the US over recent years and things are brutally more expensive than Australia, brutally more expensive than Australia, wages are lower,
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: but brutally more expensive. We're very lucky in Australia. We're very lucky in Australia that we do have independent monetary policy because... We have an RBA and board members and governors out there that are subtly because they can't outright go out and cross that jurisdictional border and attack the government. They treat government spending as exogenous, as we spoke about last week. They can't go out and attack it because it has to be treated as a constant. But they're hinting.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: They're hinting very loudly to the best of their ability that we've got to get that under control. But we're very lucky. I know that there are a lot of families out there that are doing it very hard and my heart does go out to them because a lot of them are doing it very hard. We spoke about it before with some of the surcharges and there are some small business people out there that are counting pennies and this is going to push them over the line. We are fortunate in terms of our cost of goods in a basket. In a literal sense, it's cheaper than other nations. And we have to acknowledge that that is a good thing because we have an independent monetary policy. But things are probably going to get worse. When you look across the CPI goods or groups, I call them the CPI groups, it's baked in everywhere. I think secondary education has gone up like 6.5%, quite literally everything. I think the only thing that really kind of stayed stable. able, which undermines, um, undermines the government's argument. That's the war in Iran, and shipping is like FMCG and consumer goods and accessories actually kind of stay stable, so shipping hasn't gone up that much. But anyway, um, it's baiting right across, so it will get worse, um, and it will continue to grow worse in the future. And one thing that I've been musing on is we've seen the unions and people in the Labour Party, I think the Labour Caucus at one of their federal conventions, like it's the best way to put it, a few months ago, called to remove the independence of the RBA in terms of setting interest rates. Things are probably going to get worse. And I, while acknowledging it getting worse, the independence is important so we don't have a runaway market. At what point do you have some populist movement, a coalition between the Greens, Labor and the unions that say, okay, we acknowledge Aussies are doing really hard, so we're going to strip the independence of the RBA to set monetary policy and we're going to be more in line with other Western nations who have artificially low interest rates, even though they probably shouldn't, to artificially reduce people's interest on their mortgages and give them money back. incredibly inflationary, price of goods will go up substantially as a result of that, and I think people would be worse off. But given how erratic this government has been and given how knee-jerk governments have been over the last several years since COVID. Is it outside the realm of plausibility that in the next five to 10 years, a government will move to completely reduce the independence of the RBA? We saw kind of moves to it by appointing new governors, new board members two years ago.
Speaker 2: And a lot of that was questionable, right, about where the picks are. The thing
Speaker 3: Is
Speaker 2: now it is,
Speaker 3: a reasonable
Speaker 2: though, yeah,
Speaker 3: thing? I think that's
Speaker 2: although
Speaker 3: populism,
Speaker 2: it is,
Speaker 3: right?
Speaker 2: but, you know, the RBA is independent to be a safety net of stupidity.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: That's why it's there,
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: right? That's why the independence is key because it's easy for a government to manipulate the operating cadence of the department that operate within it because it's very politicized. It goes up to a minister. So the minister controls it. Independence of the RBA is actually critical, because despite some of the stupid decisions that do get made, and some of the people who are in power who are making those decisions, it's got to be there to catch it, um,
Speaker 3: Yep.
Speaker 2: and, and hence the reason why. So I, I cannot see the sort of melding of, no,
Speaker 3: fiscal, monetary policy, but
Speaker 2: I can't see I
Speaker 3: and the only reason, the
Speaker 2: as
Speaker 3: only reason, yeah.
Speaker 2: A governance, the governance structure is required, you know, just inside of business these days, is
Speaker 3: the
Speaker 2: is a reality.
Speaker 3: Only reason I raise it as a, and I'm not talking about this happening tomorrow obviously, but the only reason I raise it is, And I would be completely against removing any independence of the central bank.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But the fact that I think the Labor caucus or the membership rank and file voted for it, unions have called for it. There is an undercurrent. you know, how much, how far is populism going to go? You know, how far is populism going to go? Could there be whipped up into a frenzy? Could this be something five, ten years? I don't know. It's just, it's just, it's something I've been using.
Speaker 2: put
Speaker 3: on your, it
Speaker 2: money in property, and then when you get hyperinflation, and then it's all okay. Yeah, buddy, go, you know. Anyway,
Speaker 3: well, actually, and that's, that is a sarcastic way of saying what I was nodding to in terms of the value of the debt. It relatively will go down. It's
Speaker 2: yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: essentially quantitative easing. Well,
Speaker 2: anyway, it's a bit, except it's
Speaker 3: you know, if interest rates go down too much, and then you just, you know, actually, no, it'd be good
Speaker 2: i'm
Speaker 3: for people. Super, maybe their super, the super funds will push for it, yeah.
Speaker 2: sure yeah this is tonight yeah anyway uh hello at propertybuzz.com did we any you haven't even looked whether anyone's has anyone has anyone even given us a comment yet yeah um
Speaker 3: Hey,
Speaker 2: and
Speaker 3: Patty.
Speaker 2: I don't ask it. Should
Speaker 3: Well,
Speaker 2: be
Speaker 3: how – on the
Speaker 2: the youtube or wherever you watch we don't so we don't ask it all we've got to do it so much better i think we've just got to do a q a episode and market it better and yeah absolute jokers we don't do things we do things that we do do we do things by halves we do things by halves here on property bus that's the way and that's the reason why it works um all right i'm going to sign off Liam um thank you Philip no it's very very good uh by the way that sort of little sort of soliloquy of rant I had last week in relation to um age
Speaker 3: Aged care.
Speaker 2: at the, the, uh, eroding value of, uh, housing prices, uh, the consequence for age care. Yeah, it's a little
Speaker 3: feedback?
Speaker 2: people gone
Speaker 3: No, mathematically, I mean, if you're essentially using the capital in your house as a... guarantee, holding deposit.
Speaker 2: yeah
Speaker 3: for that's
Speaker 2: to get
Speaker 3: probably the
Speaker 2: okay
Speaker 3: Best way, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there's, yeah, you're swapping it out, right?
Speaker 3: swapping
Speaker 2: yeah
Speaker 3: it out, yeah.
Speaker 2: So, so the gap, there's going to be a gap anyway.
Speaker 3: There's going to be
Speaker 2: anyway
Speaker 3: yeah
Speaker 2: outside of this propertybuzz.com.au hello at propertybuzz.com.au thanks for tuning in everyone we'll see you again next time until then bye bye
Speaker 5: The information featured in this podcast is general in nature and does not take into consideration your financial situation or individual needs and should not be relied upon. Before making any investment, insurance, tax, property or financial planning decision, you should consult a licensed professional who can advise whether your decision is appropriate for you. Guests appearing on this podcast may have a commercial relationship with the companies mentioned.
