Treasurer Scott Morrison this week reignited the discussion about housing affordability in Australia. The question is: will the government be willing to bring about meaningful reform?

Michelle Grattan tells University of Canberra deputy vice-chancellor of education Nick Klomp that Scott Morrison is putting all the emphasis on the supply side of housing.

“He’s saying he’ll take up with state treasurers, when he meets them before the end of the year, the whole question of land planning regulation. Now of course that’s a state issue. He’s particularly anxious to keep the emphasis off the demand side, because of course there was the whole election debate about negative gearing. Labor had a strong policy to curb negative gearing. The government opposed that,” Grattan says.

“It will be quite difficult, I think, for Scott Morrison to contain this debate and stop it really spreading out into a whole lot of areas that he doesn’t want to go to.”

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