Australia’s housing crisis is at dire levels. Here’s how our legal system can solve it.

Every Australian has seen or felt the nation’s housing crisis. Still, the facts bear repeating. In 2024, rents grew by over 10% on 2023. A single person now needs to earn $130,000 to rent a unit without experiencing rental stress; and if you’re earning minimum wage or payments like JobSeeker, you can forget about affordability. Middle-income households are spending record amounts to service the median rent; in Greater Sydney, nowhere is affordable to buy on a full-time median income.

As lawyers, we see the law as a system of complex incentives. It encourages some behaviour and discourages others. Right now, those incentives feed into Australia’s cultural obsession with homeownership as, narrowly, a way to get ahead. We still talk about housing primarily as a commodity, not a human need.

The State of the Housing System 2024 report argues the crisis is “fundamentally driven by the failure to deliver enough housing of all types” – a supply-side failure. We believe we can use the law to transform Australia’s housing base and help solve the housing crisis. Here’s at least three ways how.

Firstly, community housing providers (CHPs) are innovating within the system. We’re working with CHPs, who are accepting investment through the Housing Australia Future Fund and NSW’s Community Housing Innovation Fund, and recognising the importance of working collectively alongside investors and governments to get the critical work done. CHPs are also leveraging not-for-profit, special-purpose legal structures to deliver affordable housing and social services in places that need them.

Secondly, Australia needs to seriously consider reforming its patchwork of planning, environment and heritage laws, across federal, state and local governments. For too long, these laws have been used to stifle much-needed housing, particularly in high-income areas with political capital. Of course, new developments must be responsive to people and places. But a lot of spaces in Australia (e.g. around public transit) would clearly benefit from higher density.

Finally, while a National Housing and Homelessness Plan is being developed, it’s time we enshrine housing as a human right for all Australians. Doing so in domestic law would entitle Australians to secure, affordable and culturally adequate housing, and protect Australians from homelessness and violence; a real step in the right direction.