Interesting stats, merv09. Is the average house price actually nearly half a million dollars now? It's certainly cheaper where I live, but then most of my neighbours don't earn $65K/yr either. Either way, house prices at seven times annual salary ... that's quite a lot. Add on interest payments over 25-30 years, and you probably need 15 years worth of earnings to pay off your mortgage. That's over the top, yes.

I still don't think that's the root cause of industrial action, though. Anyone will take a pay raise if they can get it. Increases a few percent above inflation won't make any difference. And, in any case, the people who are striking are making 2 and 3 times your average wage. If housing stress were driving rebellion, you'd think people making LESS would be on the picket lines, not those on top. Unions don't need economic justification to throw their weight around, and the people on strike these days don't live within cooee of Struggle Street.

Don't see the connection with CEO salaries either. People feel hard done-by when they're paid less than peers in similar work — we sneer at the top end of town, but compare ourselves to perceived equals. It's a distraction: raise the top income tax bracket to 80%, you still don't collect anywhere near enough to make a difference to the national budget, and us peons aren't any better off. Leave the top tax bracket at 45%, but cut the number of civil servants by 10% -- now THAT would save real money. Canberra could save another 10% just by eliminating frivolities like advertising, expert panels, and comcars. They'll do just that ... when forced to. Oh, look! Here comes GFC MkII.

Traditional multiple of average earning to average house price has been in the 3x category.
Currently it is many times that (Perth median house price = $524,055, national average around $450,000; Aust average income = approx $57,500 - I know, sorry I could only find median for houses and average for wages) at about 7-8x. That makes Australian housing SEVERELY unaffordable.
And we are not talking about McMansions here - we are talking about the AVERAGE house.
Demographia's recent studies make it pretty clear that Australia's tight restrictions on land are mostly to blame for this. About 90% of the increased cost of housing is the increased costs of the land - not the building.
It would be easy to reduce wage pressure by removing the restrictions on land for development but the current governments are locking into a mindset that considers 'sprawl' to be equivalent to killing babies. The savings that are believed to arise from greater density are questionable and are outweighed by the costs - most of which are being paid off by households over 25 years with interest on top!