Housing

 A lot of people are saying housing is u naffordable and young people are being priced out of the market.

Hang on. If this was the case demand for apartments for example for example plummet and thus so would prices. It hasn't happened. It is much harder to get into the market but clearly demand has not been affected. It must be remembered if this part of the market was affected then other parts of the housing market would be as well.

There has been a lot of talk about negative gearing. Firstly as Saul Eslake points out negative gearing is all about existing housing not new housing so it would not affect housing supply very much. with rents at record levels people who are negatively gearing must be paying a very high rates. To my mind the problem is not so much as negative gearing as it is the halving of the cpaital gains tax.

the key to housing is supply and this comes down to state and local governments. It also means more apartments and higher apartments as in most other major overseas cities.