As a concern among the electorate, housing affordability ranks above industrial relations, interest rates and asylum seekers. But until yesterday, housing affordability was missing from the election debate.
In Victoria, housing policy is dominated by the government's extension of the urban growth boundary (UGB). This will allow an additional 26,000 hectares to be developed for housing. The enlargement is equivalent to one-thousandth of the state's land area.
The land newly earmarked for housing incurs a $95,000 per hectare ''Growth Areas Infrastructure Tax''.
Planning Minister Justin Madden claims this revenue is ''to pay for new schools, roads, community facilities and services, public transport and healthcare''.
New areas require no greater government services costs than existing areas. The government recognises this, which is why new developments in Geelong, Bendigo and other regional centres don't have special levies.
Government planning policies cause a scarcity of housing land, which inflates land values. Hence the $95,000 per hectare tax is simply state revenue's share of the excessive prices new home buyers must pay as a result of planning restrictions.
Rather than allowing increased land supply, the State Government prefers a share of the price increase its policies create.
Planning restraints cause the price of farm land on the city edge to increase from a few thousand dollars per hectare to half a million dollars per hectare once it has the necessary housing development approvals.
In this respect, placing land within the UGB is only the first stage of a process that can take 20 years before building can commence.
Delays and requirements for land set-asides add further costs to getting a block of land ready for a house to be built.
The impact on new housing land in Melbourne amounts to about $70,000 a house. This accounts for about a third of a $210,000 house, bumping a ''starter'' home to $280,000.
Young people find it difficult to get a foot on to the housing ladder because it is they, the housing have-nots, who pay for the costs of land-use restraints.
In spite of the issue's importance, it has not been prominent in the federal election campaign.
Labor's policies are confined to social housing.
The Greens discuss housing policy at length. They proclaim ''affordable housing is a human right''. But their proposals would further restrain land use and inflate land prices.
The Greens' plans to require higher spending on insulation and bicycle paths would further increase house prices.
Family First explicitly calls on state and federal governments to ''release more land suitable for housing''.
The Liberals, in a last-minute policy announcement, propose measures to promote such outcomes. They would use federal funding to make the states increase the supply of housing land and reform their planning and approval systems.
Housing affordability has been politically backseated for a number of reasons. Many voters have concerns that urban expansion means additional costs or loss of farmland. Neither of these fears is warranted.
Unless land-use regulation is relaxed, many younger Australians will continue to find home ownership an impossible dream.
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