Neil Mitchell expressed wide-eyed surprise on 3AW this morning about Opposition leader Bill Shorten’s lampooning of the Prime Minister for saying parents should help their children to buy a home.

“What wrong with that?” asked Mitchell.  “This is the politics of envy.”

No, Neil. All parents helps their children, but the PM shouldn’t make any of them feel guilty for not being prepared to go guarantors for them in this bubble-inflated real estate market.  They may risk losing their own homes. Most people understand this to have been the unspoken reasoning behind Shorten’s jibe, and you know it.

‘Politics of envy’, Neil? Not at all. Look at what the Republicans have thrown up as their nominee for President. The middle class of the USA has been hollowed out by Wall Street and the 0.1% working their magic of packaging up control fraud mortgages as AAA and on-selling them to unsuspecting clients.  The US poor and middle class have been abused and are angry at the complicity of their politicians – even preferring people like Donald Trump to party hacks in the thrall of big donors.

We haven’t had our bubble burst here yet, but whether it be in music, drugs or property bubbles, we have a habit of following the USA – so can you name any Australian politician prepared to speak out about the dangers of the property bubble, Neil?

No, not envy at all, Neil. The politics of economic justice is belatedly starting to play out in Australia. This is necessary in order that banks’ rent-seeking in inflated land price mortgages and the outrageous gaming of the system by the 0.1% is brought to a halt.