Business
Over the last 20 years there has been accelerated growth in house prices across the World's major cities, with Australian cities running towards the top of the pack. Average house prices in Sydney and Melbourne have increased between five to six times in the last two decades. At the same time real wages have run stagnant, leading to growing affordability pressures and making the “great Australian dream” of owning a home that much more difficult to achieve. Housing policy has, as a consequence, been at the centre of political competition between the major parties, with Governments prescribing policies from financial incentives to the private sector to deliver subsidised housing to straight public funding of new government housing – seemingly without material success in moving the needle. With a lack of access to affordable housing the visible outcome of growing inequality in our cities – what will it take to make housing work for everyone? And how do we get there?