This report examines how over the last forty years, Australian government housing policy has been geared towards subsidising the private market, rather than directly supplying social housing. The report examines the impact of those policy settings by analysing the cost to the federal budget and looking at forgone revenues from capital gains tax and negative gearing tax concessions.

It also explores the impact on housing affordability by tracing rates of housing stress to changes in policy and finds these shifts have led to the decline of affordability of homes to rent and to buy.

Key recommendations:

• Abolish negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount to reduce speculative investment.
• Build one million social housing properties over the next two decades to meet current and future need.
• Increase and expand Commonwealth Rent Assistance so that it relieves financial stress for people on low incomes.