Meaningful housing policy

It's time

home
is this my home
been starting over
bathe in the water

—The Engineers

One aspect of George Megalogenis’ Quarterly Essay I didn’t give any attention to in my previous unreview of it was what he says about housing policy. In many ways, it is the most important part of the essay, so I will go through it here. The issue also exemplifies the problem I have with GM’s analysis in general, that it comes through a two-party frame, pro-Labor, Green-hostile, and tending to discount the possible upsides of minority government while overplaying the downsides.

Basically, GM argues that Labor should embrace housing policy reform at the next election, and it is another area in which I am in strong general agreement with him. He recognises the political difficulties with a such a plan and recognises the ways in which Albanese has painted himself into a corner that makes prosecuting such policy difficult for him: Prime Minister Incrementalism will have difficulty shifting gear. GM notes that Albanese “re…