I have no argument with the general thrust of this piece, but if there are solutions 'out there', as the author asserts in her closing comments, it might be instructive to learn what they are.

The solution is to stop increasing the population through high immigration rates since this is pumping the housing crisis. Immigration is providing a tap of cheap labour that is holding down the wages of the less skilled. There is an implicit assumption in this opinion piece that baristas, childcare workers, taxi drivers etc. should be payed low wages. In a stable population and a free market that would not necessarily be the case - wages would reflect the demand for the services. However, rapid population growth due to "skilled" immigration etc. is constantly undercutting the upward pressure on wages and simultaneously putting upward pressure on rents. (Only about a third of "skilled" migrants end up working in the former professions - the rest drive taxis etc.)

Ever heard of a flat-share?

As you say, ' a healthy society is based on relationships between human beings'.

Anybody who has travelled widely in Europe, and the US understands that the patterns of urban development there are generally very different than we have here in Australia. Yes, there are the major capital cities that are pretty much like our capital cities. But as well, the urban landscape there is characterised by many more small towns and villages spread skein-like across the landscape, connected by well developed road and rail infrastructure.

In Australia, our population is very concentrated in the major cities, with very little development of more widespread urban communities connected by good quality rail and road infrastructure. It is the intense concentration in the cities that leads to the very high housing costs. Land values are very high in the desirable areas, and the costs of development and construction are high. Landlords are generally not getting good returns on replacement cost - gross yields of 2-3% are typical in my knowledge.

The answer then, lies in long term planning (I'm talking about 50years) based on demographics. This should drive the development of regional towns and cities and the infrastructure to support them with them. For example, it is clear that along the Hume Highway, the towns of Mittagong/Bowral, Marulan, Goulburn could support much larger populations with relatively modest increase in further infrastructure.

We need long term, far-sighted planning to address this issue. The planning must also address decentralisation, and encouragement of enterprise. Unfortunately, the short electoral cycles here tend to mitigate against such approaches.

Herbert Stencil raises good points.
The first home owners grant is a farce. It is exactly analogous to giving a young couple a bucket of blood to hold, before throwing them into the shark pool.
We've all heard the stories about how “toxic loans” caused the Great Recession; about how banks gave loans to people “who had no right to have them”. How often is it mentioned that all these loans were sold on to people or corporations which immediately increased their interest payments?
Most of these loans became toxic simply because the lenders changed the rules, or the economic environment changed, because of changing rules.
A much more sensible solution would be a Government First Housing Fund, offering low, fixed interest loans (say 2.5%) capped at an affordable amount, say max $250.k. Obviously this wouldn't buy much in the City in the current climate, but it could buy something livable in regional centres, and demand could change the climate quite quickly.
Capitalists have always prided themselves on being able to respond to demand. If there was a new demand for houses priced at $250.k, I'm pretty sure you would very quickly see some serious innovation.
Capitalists also make a big deal about how they are always more competitive than the public sector. If the banks can provide a better deal than the Government Loan, so be it.
This would also be much cheaper than the current system. Instead of using tax payers money to inflate housing prices with deposit grants, the loans would be paid back.

Herbert; you and your very common sense approach ought to be running the country.
I thought that the article was right on the money; and, pardon the obvious pun. Past very short-sighted Govts have almost single-handedly created the problem, with endless tax breaks substituting for quite massive infrastructure project development and attendant decentralisation!
Consequently, we now have the highest median house prices in the English speaking world. The cost blow-out of deferred infrastructure projects invariably double inside a single decade, along with the deficits we need to endure to make up for the missing pragmatism.
If housing affordability follows current trend lines; by 2050 only 2% of the population will own a home; probably as high class prisons inside gated razor wire compounds.
Arguably the quite massive separation between the haves and the exponentially expanding have nots, will create squatting and slums on an unprecedented scale; and no go lawless ghettos, where not even armour plated policemen will venture.
Little wonder current conservative govts, want to disarm the law abiding population of all legal weapons, leaving only those with illegal weapons free to pursue their fatal activities.
Japan has much stricter gun control laws than those currently proposed by our enlightened legislators; and, the highest illegal gun ownership.
Moreover, it's a situation compound by a law abiding polite population, no longer passing on information about such issues, for fear of being implicated/punished or losing their current security?
We can see the consequences of our own actions before we take them; simply by studying the outcomes in other more populated places.
We live on a very large land mass and the concentration of most of our population, 70%, in already gridlocked overcrowded capital cities, is already producing an exponentially expanding lawless element; that suggests a probable future?
Doing what you've always done while expecting a very different outcome is madness! Housing cooperatives and real decentralisation, could see some of these very worrying trends reversed? Rhrosty.

I like the Idea of means tested very low cost price capped Govt loans! A working holiday in NZ informed one; it has worked elsewhere, where genuine social democrat pragmatists, resolved housing shortfalls and affordability issues, without also creating a housing bubble or over supply.
Side by side with those low cost loans, was regularly rolled out low rent govt housing, built to a very high standard; that virtually guaranteed a useful maintainable life of fifty plus years, which enabled the income earned as CPI linked rent to completely repay any outlays; and indeed, in the latter years produce significant profits.
Moreover, the houses could be purchased by renters after a relatively short period, say five years, with half of the rent declared a reasonable deposit, and one of those very low cost govt loans taking care of the balance.
Very small private firms of say three or four employees could tender for contracts; and often worked for little more than wages; given the fierce competition during economic downturns etc.
And while this caused much grumbling and limited the numerous construction firms; it kept them from becoming too big to fail.
Nonetheless it kept them alive and well; entirely independant self-employed contractors; and, reasonably comparatively comfortable; given they usually had half a dozen houses in various stages of construction and similar number of forward contracts.
House frames had to weather for around six months to ensure that all the movement caused by timber maturation and drying out had ceased; meaning, there'd likely be no cracks or sagging in the finished quality product to fix?
There was a very long queue for these houses and waiting times of up to two years? [Grumble mumble grumble; the grumble useless gumment.]
Oh, if only we could limit waiting times for potential and affordable housing to just two years!
Some of these as proposed very low cost loans, could be used here; to reverse price gouged rents grafted by ultra greedy landlords, in places like Darwin and some of the mining communities, where rents as high as $2,000.00 a week are not uncommon! Rhrosty.

"Everyone has the right to a safe, secure, sustainable, affordable home."

There's plenty of affordable housing in Australia, just not in the latte sippers belt of the capital cities. The author doesn't understand that everyone can't live in inner city Canberra or Sydney in "affordable housing"

This article although mentioning a number of statistics that are clearly out of date, hits a number of important points on the head.

What many fail to comprehend, and as reported by the IMF, is the fact that Australian housing is currently over-valued by about 53%, driven primarily from the credit binge and run-up in housing prices between 2002 and 2006, with some further increases in mid to late 2009 and early 2010.

Since mid 2010 a majority of housing prices have either stagnated or declined in most Australian states.

Property spruikers, the media, government and housing industry interests continue to push the ‘house prices only ever increase in value’ and that ‘housing is the best way to save for your retirement.’

What they fail to see, let alone mention, is the fact that the world economy is in crisis, growth that we have seen for the last 30 years was based on a credit (debt) binge that is increasing beginning to fail globally. Canada and Australia are the last countries facing a massive property bubble correction, Vis many of the statements in the argument will come to naught.

Mortgage default in Australia are increasing significantly, I see it here more and more often.

Central bank manipulation at the behest of the government, industry (primarily in the housing and retail sectors) is not a solution it is tinkering around the edges.

Australians need to realise that global growth is dead and we face an ever-increasing decline in per-capita wealth. This will be a disaster for millions, with a complicit government continuing to pander to the business-as-usual growth model and mantra.

When will people learn that money (so-called wealth) created in the property sector is now a part of history.

Continuing a flawed economic model is clearly the result of an insane and deluded populous.

Herbert Stencil, I'll give you 50%. You've got the problem right, but failed completely on the answer.

What you failed to see was that Europe & the US developed before the job description "town planner" was invented. Far too much of our problems can be laid at the feet of town planning. Then transport, & our huge states caused the rest.

In days of yore everyone had to live in walking distance of everything. Towns were small. Then the bicycle & public transport allowed then to grow a bit, but not too much. Thus you have the layout of Europe & the US. Shopping, employment, & recreation all cheek by jowl. Not allowed today, by our planners of course.

Yes transport is killing many smaller centers, but many survive that would never have existed in Oz, with todays regulation. That & capital cities, centers of state, counties & prefectures administration, much closer together, but through out the countries, giving better distribution of the population than in Oz.

Now add those idiots called planners. Yes the ones who think every town or city should be like Copenhagen, with bicycles everywhere.

They, thinking they are the font of all wisdom, decide who can & can't subdivide their land, hell they even decide what size you can divide into. Their restrictions have caused land prices in my area to triple in 10 years. It also allows greater access to payola, for politician & bureaucrat.

They refuse any employment generating business development, except in some distant industrial ares, chosen by them. Hell a neighbour, on 15 acres, with 2 trucks driven by him & his son, has to rent space in town, 25Km away, to park them, then drive 2 cars each way, to get them. Where do we get the fools that develop such rules.

I'd have the fool planning people sent to Europe, not to study, but to stay. It is what they want for us, so they deserve it.

A flood of owner subdivided land would reduce prices dramatically, as would a drop of $100,000 or so government charges per block.

The cost of housing is increasing by the government through introduction of land tax and more recently lowering interest rates (the former forces landlords to pass on this tax to renters and the later places more demand on real estate and increasing their purchase price, which is also passed on to renters).
With an election looming home owners will have a more favourable view of government (an illusion as they forget how much they were ripped off previously by high rates and stamp duty), while renters will assume it is the greedy landlord who is ripping them off when in reality it is an indirect tax imposed by the government. The government likes to keep you poor so you cannot escape the system and will be (willing) lambs to the slaughter once the effects of the carbon tax become apparent (tax will be passed on to the consumer as this is what business does). Wealthy individuals (read:politicians who get dozens of taxpayer funded flights per year once they retire early after being outed due to percieved incompetance, while your super reduction due to the tax is reduced forcing you to work till you are virtually dead) will avoid this tax by living/investing overseas.

The problem revolves around that weasel word "affordable". Housing in desirable locations in Australian capital cities is expensive relative to other countries and to less desirable Australian towns, so we keep getting told, and it's not hard to look online at prices in, say, the USA to confirm that claim. But "unaffordable"? What does that mean? I must be stupid, but I would expect it to mean that no-one can afford them and as a result they are empty. Since that is clearly not the case, the wrong word is being used. They might be expensive, but someone can clearly afford them. And lots of other people cannot, so they are miserable. And as another result, some of them who are predisposed to such actions demand that "the government should do something about it". Trouble is, whenever that happens things get worse, not better. It is entirely predictable. The laws of supply and demand are immutable because they are the laws of human behaviour. Ultimately, if the supply and price of housing is put into government control, everyone becomes miserable. That might seem fair to some, but I for one will keep opposing the revolution.