There’s a shortage of housing in Australia. Construction has barely kept up with population growth. Planning regulations have inhibited more construction.
Building more homes will take time and won’t fix everything. The Federal Government will still need to give more support to low-income households. State governments should still amend tenancy rules to make renting more secure. And the tax system should still be reformed, to make housing more affordable and to help government budgets and the economy.
But as Grattan’s Brendan Coates showed in this presentation to a Henry Halloran Trust/University of Sydney debate on a recent paper by Reserve Bank of Australia economists, without more supply, we will struggle to make housing more affordable for anyone, let alone the poorest Australians.