If I were housing minister in the next Parliament, and if I could secure the PM’s backing to squarely face up to the overdue need for fundamental housing reform, I would have a busy schedule ahead.

That schedule would necessitate some hard choices and electoral risks that are exceptionally hard for governments to entertain in today’s political and media environment. Challenges all the more daunting for a federal minister without a designated department and constrained by the curse of the three-year Parliamentary term.

In seeking prime ministerial authority for a “nothing off the table” reform mandate, I would be arguing in cabinet that Australia’s declining housing system performance is concerning as much for its damaging impacts on economic productivity, financial stability and inequality, as for its detrimental effects on population welfare.

I would be pointing out that, notwithstanding the many virtuous housing measures federally enacted since 2022, these have been almost entirely devoid of genuine reform – at least in the all-important area of property taxation.

I would be highlighting the reality that our housing system continues to operate within a policy architecture established by tax and mortgage finance reforms dating from the 1980s and 1990s. A fossilised architecture that has remained almost wholly intact despite the immense changes to the economic and financial environment in the past quarter century – especially the flood of money that has cascaded into real estate.

I would be arguing the need for an overarching commitment to prioritising the enabling of access to adequate housing as a human right, over housing as a source of wealth accumulation. A strategy that also aims to engineer a housing market and construction environment less prone to the destructive volatility embedded in the current system.

I would be also acknowledging the essential need for a continuing commitment to fostering effective housing reform collaboration between federal and state/territory governments – as responsibly pursued under Anthony Albanese’s leadership via the National Housing Accord, National Cabinet and the Housing and Homelessness Ministers Council.

Reviving the commitment to a national strategy

My number one move would be to recommit to the Albanese Government’s previously pledged — but undelivered — intention to develop a long-term national housing and homelessness plan. I would rename it the national housing strategy.

In a complex policy area so extensively spread across departments and levels of government, a fit-for-purpose overarching strategy is a fundamentally necessary foundation for progress. I would also move swiftly to endorse the private members’ bill to embed the strategy in law, as tabled in Parliament in 2024 by Senator David Pocock and Kylea Tink MP.

The NHHP’s disappearance during the 2022 Parliament might be little cause for lament, given its badly flawed development process during 2023, not least the wholly inadequate underpinning analysis of Australia’s multi-faceted housing policy challenge.

So, in reviving the NHHP — now the NHS — I would act to establish a sound foundation for a second bash. To provide this, I would request the treasurer to establish an expert policy review under the Council of Federal Financial Relations. This would be structured to emulate the Affordable Housing Working Group model adopted under the Turnbull Government.

While many of the AHWG’s well-grounded recommendations remained unimplemented under a Coalition administration, they importantly prompted the creation of a government-enabled channel for community housing organisations to obtain low-cost debt, via what is now Housing Australia. This is a facility that is now coming into its own in combination with the current government’s Housing Australia Future Fund investment subsidy program.

Crucially, the AHWG model brought together senior players from relevant Commonwealth departments and state government treasuries. It is therefore a potential means of securing crucial cross-government buy-in for reform recommendations.

As originally proposed by my UNSW colleague, Dr Chris Martin, three working groups would be convened to report back to CFFR within six to nine months. Scoped to consider possible reforms relating to policy levers held by both federal and state/territory governments, the first would focus on property taxation, the second on housing-related regulation (including land use planning and mortgage finance), and the third on housing support (including rent assistance and homelessness services). The National Housing Supply and Affordability Council should also be tasked with feeding into this process.

Importantly, bearing in mind their typically highly disadvantaged status when it comes to housing, all three review groups would need to explicitly consider implications for First Nations Australians.

As an alternative to the CFFR policymaking process proposed above, I would instead recommend that the prime minister reconvene the 2010 Henry Tax Review!

Reform measures

As I have argued elsewhere, there are in fact a number of major reforms to Australian housing policy settings that, albeit in some cases politically challenging, enjoy very wide support among academic and industry experts. As housing minister I would advocate for these to be progressed from day one of the next Parliament:

• To curb speculative behaviour that fuels property market inflation and to encourage more efficient use of existing housing, the phased replacement of stamp duty by broad-based land taxes;
• To generate additional tax revenue to help fund expanded social and affordable housing investment, to reduce inflationary incentives for real estate speculation, and to eliminate a regressive component of our tax system, the scaling back of private landlord tax concessions;
• To enhance the experience of renting from a private provider, the levelling-up of rental regulation frameworks across Australia to the standards of the leading jurisdictions, namely the ACT and Victoria;
• To expand provision of good quality rental housing and to ramp up a form of housing production especially resilient to market fluctuation, consideration by both levels of government for further tax reforms to encourage market Build to Rent housing development; and
• To mitigate the impact of unaffordable rents in pushing private tenants into poverty, and to redress serious structural flaws in its current rules, the reform of rent assistance and the further expansion of the RA budget allocation.

But if any of these are seen as too controversial to advance without the backing of an expert review, they should be considered by the CFFR working groups as potentially recommendable for inclusion in the National Housing Strategy to be completed later in the Parliamentary term.

With the kudos of having carried through the agenda described here, I would expect to be a hot tip for party leader by the end of the 2025 Parliament!