Australia is in the grips of a housing crisis, driven by rising costs in construction, the adjustment to working-from-home, and other factors. Rental affordability has worsened in the last few years, and rental affordability had been growing worse for the bottom quintile of earners over the last decade. Meanwhile, young buyers find themselves increasingly locked out of purchasing by high interest rates and high prices. Should policymakers concentrate on rental affordability or on the affordability of purchasing property? What policies will have a rapid impact on affordability without huge cost to government budgets?

About the Speakers

Rachel Ong ViforJ is currently John Curtin Distinguished Professor of Economics and ARC Future Fellow at Curtin University. She is a member of the National Housing Supply and Affordability Council and the CEDA Council on Economic Policy. Her research interests include housing affordability dynamics, inter-generational housing concerns, the links between housing and wellbeing, and the impacts of housing on the economy. Rachel is currently Vice-Chair of the Asia-Pacific Network for Housing Research (APNHR), where she also leads the APNHR Working Group on Inter-generational Housing Issues. 

Brendan Coates is the Housing and Economic Security Program Director at Grattan Institute, where he leads Grattan’s work on retirement incomes and superannuation, housing, and macroeconomics.

He is a former macro-financial economist with the World Bank in Indonesia and consulted to the Bank in Latin America. Prior to that, he worked in the Australian Treasury in areas such as tax-transfer system reform and macro-economic forecasting, with a strong focus on the Chinese economy.

Brendan holds a Masters of International Development Economics from the Australian National University and Bachelors of Commerce and Arts from the University of Melbourne. He sits on the Victorian State Council for the Economic Society of Australia.

Aneeq Sarwar is Senior Manager, Workforce Planning and Policy at AUSMASA, overseeing our research, workforce planning, and policy functions. His previous role was as resident economist at Domain, leading their forecasting and technical division. He is an experienced research leader who has managed quantitative and qualitative research projects across industry, academia, and government. He is widely published with various national and international bodies and is passionate about using data insights to drive decision-making that benefits society and communities. He has a PhD in Economics, Productivity, Machine Learning, and Innovation.  

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