There’s an inconvenient but simple truth at the heart of the property market: if you want to improve housing affordability, you need to stop prices rising. The Australian public is largely convinced of the first half of that statement but is less keen on bearing the consequences.
Acutely aware of this, Labor has tied itself in knots to avoid talking about falling house prices. Treasurer Jim Chalmers had to intervene on Wednesday after a rare admission from Housing Minister Clare O’Neil that the market was in “a correction”.
The treasurer rushed to clarify there hadn’t been a 10% fall in prices — the standard market definition of a correction — and that the government had no price outcome in mind.
Rhetoric aside, the government’s policies are obvious attempts to remove the major distortions that have fuelled a scorching property market for three decades.
