Joe Hockey Sez: “Want To Buy A House? Go Get A High Paying Job, Dummy”


Housing affordability is reaching a crisis point in Australia’s biggest cities – with Melbourne and Sydney in particular being of the biggest concern. Historically low interest rates have seen property values have skyrocket in desirable areas, which in turn has had a knock-on effect to rental pricing – rising at a rate disproportionate to that of average income.

And yet, as far as the Federal Treasurer is concerned, there is no such thing as a “housing bubble” in Sydney. His reasoning?

“If housing were unaffordable in Sydney, no one would be buying it.”


Joe Hockey fronted a media conference earlier this morning and fielded questions over the growing gap between property owners and real estate investors, and the younger generations who are gradually losing hope of ever being able to enter the property market due to the skyrocketing prices.

Hockey fielded questions in relation to Treasury Secretary John Fraser‘s comments that parts of Melbourne and Sydney were “unequivocally” experiencing a housing bubble, and that people of means over-investing in real estate was a very real concern. Prime Minister Tony Abbott responded to these comments in Parliament Question Time earlier this week with this pearler:

“As someone who, along with the bank, owns a house in Sydney, I do hope our housing prices are increasing.”


Today, Hockey added further weight to the argument with a startlingly simplistic analysis of the situation.


“The starting point for first home buyers is to get a good job that pays good money.”

Again, we say repeatedly:
It’s comments like that which are, for all intents and purposes, the equivalent of loading up Mayfair with hotels and then saying to your opponent “If you didn’t want to go bankrupt giving me all your money then you shouldn’t have rolled a 6.

Hockey further clarified, stating:
“I say again in relation to what is reasonably expensive entry costs for first home buyers into housing in Australia, the best response is to build more housing.”

Which, to delve back to the Monopoly analogy again, is like chiding those you’re destroying with, “There’s nothing wrong with putting a house on Old Kent Road.”
Despite coming from a man who once said the Australia’s poor people either don’t have cars or don’t drive very far, this still rates as a pretty solid brow furrower.
Photo: Stefan Postles via Getty Images.

More Stuff From PEDESTRIAN.TV