Project Progress and Housing Matters
Jun. 30th, 2023 06:09 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tcpipMy final assessment has come in for Environmental and Planning Law and, quelle surprise, I smashed it with my essay review of thirty years of New Zealand's Resource Management Act and the new Natural and Built Environment Bill; "excellent research", "in-depth knowledge demonstrated", "excellent clarity", "original analysis", "excellent attention", an A+ for the essay, A for the course overall, making it four straight As for all units in the first trimester. This rather pleasing result has also concurred with a major software upgrade project that has been put under my aegis for the university's supercomputer - a three-week sprint with around 460 applications to install from source with dependencies. I initially thought it would be almost impossible. But now, in just over a week, we've completed over 90% of the target. Of course, the last 10% will be the hardest, a project management point well-known in this profession ("last mile problems").
Another essay I've returned to (following the Isocracy AGM) has been on rental affordability, mortgage stress, interest rates and the like. Whilst the focus is Australia, there are also similar issues in most of the developed world and, unsurprisingly, with similar causes - and that's primarily supply (there are many vectors, but this is the main one). There is a bit of an ongoing debate between the Greens and Labor here, where the Greens have joined forces with the Coalition and blocked Labor's Housing Future Fund, whilst at the same time advocating a rental freeze. Whilst this could provide some short-term security of tenure, it is "mostly wrong" as the evidence is utterly overwhelming that it will cause a longer-term fall in supply and housing quality. It leaves me a little surprised because the Greens aren't usually this bad on policy.
Another essay I've returned to (following the Isocracy AGM) has been on rental affordability, mortgage stress, interest rates and the like. Whilst the focus is Australia, there are also similar issues in most of the developed world and, unsurprisingly, with similar causes - and that's primarily supply (there are many vectors, but this is the main one). There is a bit of an ongoing debate between the Greens and Labor here, where the Greens have joined forces with the Coalition and blocked Labor's Housing Future Fund, whilst at the same time advocating a rental freeze. Whilst this could provide some short-term security of tenure, it is "mostly wrong" as the evidence is utterly overwhelming that it will cause a longer-term fall in supply and housing quality. It leaves me a little surprised because the Greens aren't usually this bad on policy.
