For more on why a National Settlement Strategy is at best a waste of time, and at worst a national disaster, you can read the @abundanthna submission to the Federal Productivity Inquiry:
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abundanthousing.org.au/docs/2603-Pr...
So what is the National Plan for Australia’s Growth? Well, as of this submission, I can tell you one thing: the PIA has shied away from calling it a National Settlement Strategy.
Because it’s definitely not about telling people where they should live.
The only time where things get dicey is in reference to an “alignment of migration” with regional development policy.
But since this document is not about telling people where they should live (remembering that migrants are people), we should not read into this.
There is a mention of how population growth in “constrained urban systems” places pressure on housing supply. The good news, as mentioned up top, is that the majority of these constraints are artificial! The PIA can work with local councils to remove these planning constraints.
In one or two places the document expresses a subtle distaste for how settlement patterns “emerge” rather than occurring “by design”.
But as they have reassured us over and over again, the National Settlement Strategy is not about designing settlement patterns. So no worries!
In the meantime we have the PIA’s submission to the Productivity Inquiry, calling for a National Settlement Strategy. The submission is, of course, toothless. It mainly does what the PIA does best, which is call for the creation of even more documents.
This would be a big change for the Planning Institute, who—as far as our research can dig—has never once condemned the restrictive and punitive planning actions of any local council. But it’s the change we’ll need to see if we want to start hitting these indicators!
The PIA should show leadership by helping local councils to remove restrictions on housing in areas with job access—policies that currently impact their chosen indicators negatively. They could start with councils like Woollahra, Mosman, and Bayside.
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The Planning Institute’s call for a National Settlement Strategy is finally live. They provide four indicators of success.
The good news for the PIA is that there is one clear way to improve all of these indicators: broad-based upzoning of all Australian inner-cities.
You can read Ryan’s article, and the rest of Inflection Points Issue 04 here: inflectionpoints.work/articles/the...
The problem, of course, is that our charitable giving laws have not kept up with our willingness to give—and are too tied up in the priorities of yesterday, rather than the challenges of today.
I’m very lucky to run publication that continues to go from the strength to strength, primarily on the back of the brilliant Australians who are willing to write for us.
This is because Australians are generous—something Ryan has (generously) written about for us here.
Absolutely delighted to publish Ryan Ginard on Australia’s urgent need for charitable giving reform. Ryan’s article appears in the fourth edition of Inflection Points, alongside Allegra Spender, Tim Nelson and team, and Keith Wolahan.
Australia faces three major crises: housing, energy, and productivity. Boundless is a book about how we might confront these great problems of our time, and it’s coming out in 2027.
Co-written with the excellent @howardfmaclean.bsky.social and published by also-excellent Pantera Press.
We cannot wait to read your ideas!
If you want to enter the Prize, but aren’t sure if your topic is a precise fit—great news, for a one-month window we will be accepting pitches:
We founded Inflection Points to create a platform for long-form writing about Australia and the institutions that drive its success.
We want to deepen engagement with our nation in its own right and to in turn build a national shorthand for the unique ways Australia functions.
There is much Australian writing about the problems we face as a nation. There is less about the potential—and historically successful—solutions. This Prize exists to help change that.
You can learn more and enter the prize here: 🏆 inflectionpoints.work/prize
After more than a decade of entering writing prizes, I am absolutely honoured to find myself on the other side.
Introducing the $5,000 Inflection Points Writing Prize—for the best new piece of writing about the problems Australia faces, and the solutions within our grasp.
The conversations we all have will be crucial to the ongoing reforms in all three cities, and the mission to make our cities better for current and future residents.
Get your tickets here: www.yimby.melbourne/tour
I’m very excited to be announcing that Alain will be touring Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne in March of this year.
We’ve lined up a wonderful set of guests including Lucy Turnbull, Howard Maclean, and Brendan Coates across our cities.
In September of last year, I was lucky enough to have dinner with Alain Bertaud—author of Order without Design, one of the best books ever written about cities—in a restaurant in Midtown Manhattan.
Now, he’s coming to Australia.
Thank you!
Thank you to everyone who has supported us since our launch in early 2023. Our hundreds of members and supporters. Our volunteers and our donors and our friends who have to hear us talk about zoning. Thank you all. We’ll be back in 2025.
Importantly, our team and members will be there over the coming months and years to support projects that do go up—to ensure the pro-housing voice and coalition is lasting and meaningful. To ensure housing is built not just on-paper, but also in the real, material world.
Many regulatory details are yet to be confirmed, and we will be there to ensure that there are no poison pills embedded that might make housing harder to build across our great state.
As we write in our press release, this is the capstone atop three years of pro-housing advocacy from @yimby.melbourne. With this Bill’s passage, our state now has the legislative framework for a planning system that says yes by default.
www.yimby.melbourne/post/the-vic...
Last night, the Planning Amendment Bill 2025 passed the Legislative Council. This is an astronomically impactful reform.
Congratulations to @australianlabor.bsky.social, @greens.org.au, @davidlimbrick.bsky.social, and @animaljusticeparty.bsky.social for forming a cross-partisan, pro-housing bloc.
The point is this: everyone has stated preferences for good things. But when the rubber hits the road, are aesthetics enough to get projects over the line with the perennial NIMBY whingers?
Of this, I have seen no evidence.
