15 homes in Merri-bek turns into 3. This is how urban planning created the housing crisis.

Why is it so hard to accept that migrants may want to live in areas where their family or migrants from a similar background already live (aka the capital cities)???

The objective should be 100 million people in the capital cities, next question

In case you missed my latest last week 👇👇👇

In the 1980s, for the average woman, it would have taken 6 years of wages to purchase the average Brighton property.

In 2025, despite radical improvements in gender pay, it would take the average woman nearly 33 years...

GREEN SHOOTS FOR THE GRASSROOTS MAINTAINING TRUST IN OUR DEMOCRACY BY RESTORING PARTICIPATION IN DEMOCRATIC INSTITUTIONS This paper proposes interconnected reforms that aim to rebuild trust in Australia’s democratic institutions — our Parliament, our political parties and the ecosystem of creative conflict they drive. These institutions are a great strength in our system and shouldn’t be circumvented, dismissed or ignored by policymakers. For decades, Australia was the world’s laboratory for democratic reforms. We led the way on the secret ballot, women’s suffrage (for some at least), a living wage for MPs, compulsory and preferential voting and more. But since the turn of the millennium, we’ve stalled out. For too many people, our democracy isn’t working — not the way it should and not the way we say it does. While better than many other countries, our system still leaves people feeling like their voice isn’t being heard or their vote doesn’t count. This term, we can fix that.

Two months ago, I wrote a paper for the Electoral Matters Committee. It clocked in at 23,000 words with 16 data tables, 11 graphs, 204 footnotes and 30,000 datapoints.

I made the case that we should take advantage of this historic juncture to expand participation in our representative democracy.

Again huge props to the Yarra Greens for continuing to show true leadership on this matter. Shout out to @sophie-wade.bsky.social, Edward Crossland and member for Richmond Gabrielle Di Vietri for your continued advocacy!

‘Greatest public policy disaster’: Yarra backflips, wants injecting room moved After years of complaints about anti-social behaviour, syringe litter and crime, Yarra Council has voted to lobby the state to move the North Richmond injecting room.

Argh, City of Yarra under Jolly continues to hit new lows.

This is just throwing the lives of our most marginalised people in the bin to chase the votes of conservative NIMBYs.

www.theage.com.au/politics/vic...

Probably will just go to VCAT where the application will be approved!

I’m honoured to be featured alongside some of Australia’s biggest names in wonkdom in the summer issue of Inflection Points.

My paper is the culmination of 4 years work on declining civic participation — and why other researchers into the phenomenon have a blind spot for political parties.

🚨Issue 03 | Inflection Points | OUT NOW🚨
- Flavio Menezes
- Brendan Coates
- Matthew Maltman
- Travis Jordan

Absolute banger of a piece. The world needs more Travis Thought.

So many of Victoria's problems can be solved with one easy trick: abolish the City of Yarra.

Head of ABS defends debunking far-right ‘mass migration’ claims after censorship accusations Chief statistician David Gruen says bureau did not censor anyone and is ‘trying to take the side of truth’ after misuse of overseas arrivals figures

www.theguardian.com/australia-ne...

‘All problems come back to housing’ is one of those lines which is simultaneously a Premier buck passing a problem to another level of government while being entirely, unquestionably, true

Switching 50km/h speed limits to 30km/h would protect cyclists while barely affecting commutes, research finds One expert says a cyclist hit by a car travelling 50km/h has about a one-in-ten chance of surviving, while at 30km/h it was a nine-in-ten chance

New study from Melbourne finds reducing residential speed limits from 50km/h to 30 km/h on local roads would protect cyclists from danger, make riding less stressful and get more people cycling while not causing traffic delays for cars.

First they came for Brighton and I didn't speak up because I was not rich...

Seeing trailers for some upcoming Screen Australia backed films and it’s amazing how so few Australian Stories involve cities at all. Everyone in our cities are completely devoid of stories. Our streets are narrativeless. Only the Bush has agency.

Halloween has come early for Boroondara's planners...

...they might have to approve medium-density housing! 😱 😱

It’s not just NIMBY attitudes either.

This flows into how council decision making happens — whether as a result of the “paradox of empowerment” or as systemically as a result of how governance systems are designed.

Renters are excluded from consultations, strategies or even the very act of voting.

What does the Nicole Kidman/Keith Urban split mean for the Sydney property market?

No, Australia does not need new cities.

My new essay sets the record straight: we have a lot of cities, but we aren’t using them as well as we could be. To make our cities more successful, we have to open up a lot more land for commercial uses to enable agglomeration.

If a NSW pattern book design gets built in Melbourne before a Future Home does imma lose it

The lost boys: Australia’s male education ‘catastrophe’ New research highlights gaps between male and female students and private and government school students.

Yet again The Age is uncritically publishing a story about a research paper from The Australian Population Research Institute and whitewashing them as objective academic experts instead of a thinktank of washed-up cranks.

At least this time it isn't just another anti-migrant tirade.

Someone also made the point to me that career political staffers as MPs seem more willing to say anything to stay elected. Compare your Katie Allans and Keith Wolahans to Tim Wilson, for example.

Australia has become a staffer state Dan Wang argues that America is a society of lawyers and China is an engineering state. What are we, and what does it mean for our policy?

Banger of a Substack article by Manning Clifford, editor at large of @inflectionpoints.work.

The US and UK political class is dominated by former lawyers. Beijing is full of trained engineers. Australian MPs, however, mostly used to work for other MPs, as advisers.
substack.com/home/post/p-...

The study they reference is even from pre-NCC 2022. Looking at the CSIRO dashboard, it seems the % has more than doubled since the study!

From a high level perspective, it seems to me that areas with the lowest climate risk should be working overtime to allow more people to live there (aka Victoria).

This report paints a very grim picture for everywhere north of the Murray River.

Meanwhile here in Brisbane, we’re not even planning for the fires, floods and heatwaves we already get — let alone far more frequent and far more extreme ones.

Stonnington is claiming that their current strategy can deliver 17,000 homes *more* than the Victorian Government's housing target.

However, they fail to mention that their strategy needs nearly the entirety of Stonnington to be demolished and rebuilt by 2051. Very feasible...