Going to work has always p***ed me off.

And no, it’s not because I would prefer to be off surfing somewhere.

The problem is more to do with the complete and utter planning idiocy which led to me needing to negotiate two sets of lights across a busy arterial road (Buderim-Mooloolaba) before I can go where I want to go, which is left on to Sugar Road.

Hundreds of millions of dollars later and after much disruption, I now have the balance back in my life.

And no, it’s not because I can now go left off the motorway down on to Sugar Road and on to Newspaper Place on my way to work.

The balance came to me on Monday evening when I found myself going home to Mudjimba via Wises Road.

Monday evening’s drive introduced me to my future.

Now going home is as illogically idiotic as going to work.

Instead of going through three roundabouts and accessing the motorway at Sunco Motors, which some goose has decided to block off, I am now obliged to pass through three roundabouts and four sets of traffic lights to achieve the same end.

I’ve suspected for some time that this might be my fate but foolishly thought common sense would prevail.

No such luck.

I don’t know where the 10 vehicles in front of me on Monday night ended up, but they all ignored the dodgy motorway-this-way sign, went on to the Sunco roundabout and back from whence they had come.

Possibly they had determined to have none of the lunacy.

I just wanted to go home.

Who’s to blame for housing woes?

There has been a lot of talk lately about affordable housing, what made it so unaffordable, who’s to blame and how to fix it.

You only have to look at my bank balance to realise that I’m no financial genius but I do work in a game that gives you access to people who do have a good handle on things.

I remember a conversation I had with a Coast-based liquidator which took place six months after the introduction of John Howard’s goods and services tax.

Things were grim. Builders and construction companies were going broke. The liquidator was predicting things would get a lot worse as the inflationary tax began to bite.

They didn’t. In fact, for quite a while things got a whole lot better.

They did so for a very simple reason – the first-home buyer’s grant.

This scheme – lauded left, right and centre – had immediate effect.

What it did was increase demand dramatically. Suddenly a whole generation didn’t have to save for a deposit. They had $7000 and then $14,000 gifted to them to reduce the impact of a government policy that was killing the economy.

The leverage that money afforded allowed them to borrow more, prices skyrocketed and the canny, the lucky and the developers all lined their pockets without a thought for tomorrow.

The proliferation of BMW four-wheel-drives and very big boats around the place was enough to make your head spin.

It was like a gold rush. All of a sudden little villages like mine went from being on the nose to the next real estate “hot spot”.

Now tomorrow needs somewhere to live and everyone’s looking for someone to blame.

Let me tell you it’s not your local council, whatever the Property Council has to say, and it’s not state government for not releasing more land – from who knows where.

Now you could go back to source and take GST off building products and building services, which was where this whole problem started.

But surplus-loving governments are unlikely to want to have anything to do with that as an idea.

Or you could drop the first-home buyer’s grant – you absolutely, certainly shouldn’t increase it, as some have suggested in recent times – but again, that’s a move politicians are unlikely to embrace.

I suspect, though, that governments will do little – Kevin Rudd’s rental housing tinkering aside – and leave it to the Reserve Bank to set the market on a corrective course.

Another interest rate rise this year will cool the national ardour for property and eventually some balance may return.

An extra 200,000 people pouring into the Sunshine Coast may insulate those here with a house from any long-term pain.

But it’s probably worth us all remembering that for as long as we bank on our homes to generate our wealth, its going to cost someone somewhere down the line.