National

Housing crisis

Opinion

Nicole Gurran Planning expert November 6, 2025 — 3.39pm

Another day, another “radical” proposal to fix housing supply and deliver more affordable homes. The promises – to deliver 67,000 additional homes a year, cut rents by 12 per cent and prices by $100,000 – sound wonderful. Even better, the new homes would be well located near transport and jobs.

The Grattan Institute’s latest “plan” to lift Australia’s laggard housing construction is essentially an anti-plan. It proposes allowing six-storey apartment blocks around railway stations or centres by default, and three-storey townhouses and apartments within 15 kilometres of CBDs – across the nation.

Grattan has sound economic credentials and its economic modelling is usually tight. But when econ

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