Cabinet papers reveal the toll of two decades of housing stalemate
Australia's housing crisis has been more than two decades in the making, and newly-released cabinet papers shed new light on the issue.
Soaring property prices have locked Australian governments in a political bind for decades. While an increasing number of voters are locked out of the market, for others property is an increasingly large part of their wealth portfolio.
Last month, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil had a blunt message for a young audience hoping for an easier path into property ownership.
“We're not trying to bring down house prices. That may be the view of young people, [but] it's not the view of our government,” she told the ABC’s Triple J.
Scraps over housing have dominated the Albanese government’s first term, as it balances an Opposition demanding it maintain its 2022 platform and the Greens demanding it goes further. But newly-released cabinet papers from 2004 is a stark warning that the housing debate, and the dynamics shaping it, is more than two decades in the making.
