Opening Doors: data and analytics shedding light on housing challenges

23-24 June 2025 
H.C. Coombs Centre 
122A Kirribilli Avenue, Kirribilli  NSW  2061

Much has been written about housing challenges in Australia. This conference aims to use data (both traditional and new) to explore the issues behind this declining affordability and the implications for policy development and setting.

Housing Construction Productivity: Can we fix it? 

Abstract: Danielle and Colin will examine productivity growth in the housing construction sector in Australia. They will explain their approach for developing proxy measures of productivity in housing construction using National Accounts data. The estimates tell a story of decades of poor performance. Colin and Danielle will explore why it is that Australia’s construction productivity performance has been so poor and touch on policy directions to help improve productivity. 

Building the homes we need: How to unlock housing choice in Australia’s cities

Abstract: There are few things as important to people’s lives as safe, secure, affordable housing. But housing across Australia, and especially in our capital cities, is increasingly expensive and scarce. Exclusionary land-use planning rules have led to less medium- and high-density housing than Australians actually want, while increasing the costs of providing infrastructure for governments.

State governments in Victoria and NSW have made some progress in reforming land-use planning rules to allow more homes to be built around commercial centres and existing transport links, as well as more gentle density in established suburbs. And both states have established accelerated development pathways for major projects, and revising housing targets for local councils. 

But measuring the efficacy of these reforms is complex. Land use planning rules are complex, incorporating multiple layers of regulation and veto points (zones, development overlays, and approval processes) that can prevent more housing being built, or increase the cost of doing so, especially in a period of heightened interest rates and construction costs. And there is no comprehensive, publicly-available data on the changes in feasible capacity – those homes that can be profitably developed given current planning rules and construction costs – arising from these reforms, especially given rising construction costs since the pandemic.

In an upcoming Grattan report, we analyse the impacts of recent planning reforms on the feasible dwelling capacity of both Melbourne and Sydney, accounting for planning rules, the cost of construction, and prevailing house prices. Our findings suggest further reforms to land use planning controls are needed, particularly in Sydney, to help make a wider range of housing choices affordable to Australians.

Housing supply and the Commonwealth

Abstract: Good data and analytical tools are essential to the housing policy process. They can support problem identification, stakeholder engagement, policy instrument selection, policy costing, cost-benefit analysis, program risk management, accountability and monitoring mechanisms, and policy evaluation. This presentation aims to provide data specialists and researchers with insights into the Commonwealth Government’s housing policy process so that they can support and influence policy makers. To do this, it will describe the Commonwealth Government’s housing policies and operating environment; provide a case study to illustrate how the Commonwealth has used off-the-shelf datasets and analytical tools to address a policy problem; and provide insights from unique datasets arising from policy programs and how they are used to inform policy decisions.

From address to dwellings: Building a register of dwellings for Australia

Abstract: The ABS has, for more than a decade, maintained a register of addresses to support the Census of Population and Housing and the suite of household surveys. More recently dwellings characteristics have been added to the address register to build a type of dwelling register supporting emergency management preparation and response. This paper will discuss these efforts and the potential to enhance service delivery, resource allocation, and policy development by offering detailed insights into dwelling stock and location characteristics.

Size matters: Why construction productivity is so weak

Abstract: Productivity in the construction industry has been stagnant for three decades. While many factors have contributed to this outcome, one important one is the dominance of small firms. Smaller construction firms are less productive than bigger firms because they can’t achieve the same productivity gains from economies of scale and scope, innovation and investment. The dominance of smaller construction firms is the result of the cyclical and segmented nature of the industry, combined with the shift to subcontracting that took place in the 1980s and 1990s. Current regulatory settings including tax incentives, land-use regulation, and state-based occupational licensing rules maintain the status quo. To encourage scale, policymakers should focus on making regulations more streamlined and consistent, and smoothing demand by creating a more consistent, predictable pipeline of construction work.

Monetary policy and housing markets: insights using a novel measure of housing supply elasticity

Abstract: This paper explores how the responsiveness of new housing supply to house prices (the supply elasticity) affects the transmission of monetary policy. We document a long-term decline in the supply elasticity of new housing and find that a less elastic supply amplifies the impact of monetary policy on house prices compared with rents. This disparity could raise questions about the measurement of housing costs in inflation measures targeted by central banks, as typically rents, rather than house prices, directly enter consumer price indices. Our findings highlight the importance of considering changing housing supply conditions in monetary policy formulation.

The Australian Rental Market: New Insights from Micro Data

Abstract: This presentation will outline some new stylised facts about the geographic distribution of rents, and its drivers, in Australia using rental property unit record data sourced from both the private sector (MRI) and government sector (rental property schedule data in the Person Level Integrated Data Asset (PLIDA)). 

Overview and early analysis of the new Wealth, Housing and Asset Module (WHAM!) 

Abstract: This paper introduces the Wealth and Housing Assets Module (WHAM) pilot, which will integrate data on housing, superannuation and firm ownership into the ABS’s secure microdata ecosystem. These data represent a significant uplift in Australia’s data landscape and will enable key insights into housing supply and affordability, inequality and entrenched disadvantage, entrepreneurship and competition, and the targeting of Australia’s income support and aged-care systems. We present two case early case studies to highlight the potential value of the data, decomposing recent changes in household size by housing tenure, and measuring income dynamics of recent homebuyers. In the longer term, the vision is to expand the module over several phases to improve its coverage and scope.

Do Housing Investors Pass-through Changes in Their Interest Costs to Rents?

Abstract: Interest rates and rents often move together. Some have argued that this positive relationship is evidence that higher interest rates have been a key driver of increases in rents over the past few years, due to leveraged housing investors passing through increases in their interest costs to their tenants. This article uses anonymised tax return data covering 2006/07–2018/19 to estimate the direct pass-through of interest cost changes to housing investors’ rental income. It finds small pass-through on average, even when interest rates are rising. The largest estimate suggests that direct pass-through results in rents increasing by $25 per month when interest payments increase by $850 per month (the median monthly increase in interest payments for leveraged investors between April 2022 and January 2024). These results are consistent with the view that the level of housing demand relative to the housing stock is the key driver of rents. We further explore whether pass-through differs, based on housing market tightness.

Measuring the changing size of intergenerational transfers in the Australian tax and transfer system

Abstract: This paper estimates the extent to which the Australian tax and transfer system redistributes income between Australians of different ages and how this intergenerational contract has changed in the past three decades. This consistent set of estimates are calculated by combining individual level survey data such as the Household Income and Labour Dynamics in Australia survey (HILDA) and the Survey of Income and Housing (SIH) and related Household Expenditure Survey (HES) with aggregate values from the Australia National Accounts.

This paper shows that the tax and transfer system has become more generous to older Australians in recent decades. Government expenditure targeting older Australians – such as the age pension, aged care and health care – has increased significantly in real, per-person terms over this period. In contrast, net expenditure targeting younger households remains relatively constant. This is not a function of an ageing population.

These findings have important implications for intergenerational equity, tax policy, housing policy and budget sustainability. Given the complexity of policy in each of these areas, and their broader implications for economic outcomes beyond intergenerational transfers, this paper does not provide specific policy recommendations. However,  we discuss how our observations could inform policy discussions in these areas. 

The key insights are that:

• The tax and transfer system has not adjusted to the changing age profile of income in Australia. Current settings increasingly favour older Australians at the expense of younger Australians. Unless Australian society wants to explicitly favour older Australians, policies should be considered that reduce payments to older Australians and that shift the tax burden away from younger Australian and towards older Australians. Policy rules around means testing could be an important part of such a shift.
• The Australian personal income tax system is levied on a base which captures only around two-thirds of household income, leaving income generated from owner-occupied housing and superannuation lightly taxed. This has important implications for efficiency and equity.
• Growth in Australian land prices has created large transfers of wealth between generations of Australians. This price growth is driven to some extent by government policies, such as restrictive zoning and planning practices. Policies which facilitate an increase in the supply of housing will deliver both equity and efficiency gains.

To achieve a fiscally sustainable budget over the coming decades, Australia must choose between increasing taxes and reducing government expenses. The consequences of this adjustment should be borne, at least in part, by older Australians. Achieving budget sustainability solely by increasing taxes on Australians of working age (mostly by growing personal income tax revenue through bracket creep) will worsen generational imbalance in the tax and transfer system.

Housing in Australia:  Financial Journeys Through Affordability, Retirement and Climate Challenges

Abstract: This paper examines Australia's dual housing challenges - rising unaffordability in metropolitan areas and climate-driven value decline in vulnerable regions. Drawing on Actuaries Institute analysis, the paper explores how these challenges impact financial journeys from young adulthood through retirement and intersect with another societal megatrend of the ageing population and funding of retirement years. The paper outlines how financial services providers will need to adapt their products, services and risk frameworks to support Australians navigating increasingly complex housing pathways due to these challenges and trends. 

Renting in retirement: Why Rent Assistance needs to rise

Abstract: Most Australians can look forward to a comfortable retirement. More than three in four retirees owning their own home, and few suffer financial stress. But too many retirees who rent are struggling. Today, two in three retirees who rent in the private market live in poverty, including more than three in four single women. Half of retirees who rent have less than $25,000 in savings. Commonwealth Rent Assistance, which supplements the Age Pension for poorer retirees who rent, is inadequate. In our recent report Renting in retirement: Why Rent Assistance needs to rise, we make the case for increasing the maximum rate of Rent Assistance by a further 50 per cent for singles and 40 per cent for couples. This would ensure single retirees can afford to spend $350 per week on rent – enough to rent the cheapest 25 per cent of one-bedroom homes across Australian capital cities.

Super for Housing

Abstract: Benefits of letting home buyers access their superannuation include more choice in how to save for retirement, more home ownership and better access to credit. There are also difficulties, but these can be avoided. A reduction in retirement incomes can be avoided by using superannuation as collateral. Higher demand for housing and rising prices can be avoided by coupling with measures to increase housing supply or reducing demand. In particular, super for housing should replace First Home Owners Grants, which are a less cost-effective method of boosting home ownership. We estimate access to super would enable the median first home buyer to increase their deposit by 92%. Alternatively, they would be able to pay the deposit on a new house 3 years earlier, which might lift the level of home-ownership by up to 392,000 households or 4 percentage points. The experience of New Zealand’s KiwiSaver scheme suggests almost all the available funds would be accessed.

A tale of two pensioners – a closer look at the wealth of Age Pensioners

Abstract: The Age Pension is the Australian Government’s single biggest expenditure program, with estimated costs of $65 billion in 2025-26 and 2.6 million recipients. Age pensioners are a diverse cohort, reflecting the diversity of experiences during the life course. Some pensioners have had very little opportunity to accumulate savings or purchase property to improve living standards in retirement, while others have significant assets to draw on. Analysis of administrative data, supported by survey and property data, reveals the breadth of these circumstances. This presentation will highlight the strong association between housing tenure and broader wealth. In particular, it will explore the way in which current pension settings, including the exemption of the principal home from the assets test, provide taxpayer support to seniors at each end of the wealth spectrum.