Nice "journalism" by the Australian.
Firstly - some facts. There are 38,500 NRAS allocations currently approved for dwellings across Australia, not 25,000 as the article suggests. Of the 38,500 NRAS approved dwellings, almost 19,000 have already been delivered, and just 4,000 of those are studio's. In fact, of the 38,500 approved dwellings, approximately 6,000 in total will be studio apartments! And, just to further debunk the validity and accuracy of the article, approximately 1500 of the tenants in those studio apartments are students. Hardly a stampede.
But never mind- we can just ignore the fact that the studios represent 15% of all NRAS, and the majority (85%) of NRAS approved dwellings are 2,3 and 4 bed accommodation, delivering affordable accommodation in regional towns and metropolitan suburbs to families and key and essential workers. Lets not let the facts get in the way of a good old Rudd and Gillard bash- a- thon though, right?
But if you were of a reasonable and fair minded disposition, and preferred to deal with facts rather than fiction before jumping to conclusions, you might conclude that after reviewing the facts as outlined above, the article is heavily biased. You might also reasonably conclude that it's quite deliberately designed to imply that NRAS is almost solely a University Student/Studio Accommodation program, being manipulated and rorted by developers, and used to subsidise foreign students. Not just student- but foreign students in particular.... because we all understand how polarising the word "foreign" can be these days. This article plays very nicely to that xenophobic type of fearmongering, ever so subtle though it may be.
Of course, lets also ignore that the article makes ZERO mention of the fact that someone had to purchase the property in order to make it available to a tenant (whether a student or otherwise) and while it's irrelevant whether the purchaser was local, interstate or overseas- what is relevant is the fact they remain an investor who provided work for a solicitor, an agent, a broker, a bank etc etc. But never mind those unimportant little facts....they arent really relevant are they? Course not.
And never mind the students themselves, or the fact they provide business to stores where they buy furniture and electrical appliances to place in the dwelling, nor the shopkeepers and restaurants who sell goods and services to the tenants of the dwellings, etc etc etc.
And let's also ignore the single biggest flow on effect of all- because the article conveniently makes ZERO mention of exactly how significant the education export industry is to Australia's GDP. Don't forget, foreign students pay full freight to come here and study, they are entitled to no welfare or austudy support, no medicare, and in fact they must have private insurance and sufficient funds for survival. In other words- they generate HUGE money for the economy.
But never mind any of that - let's not let the facts get in the way of a good piece of rubbish journalism, shall we?
And just one other small correction to the article - the investor receives the tax credit, not the tenant.
Seriously, if the article wasn't pretending to be so serious, you'd have thought it was a gee up. It's just so very very misleading. I'm astounded the journalist in question isnt dying of shame. They're obviously not much good at checking the most basic of facts.
