Written by AMPLIFY CEO Georgina Harrisson
Published on 14 April 2026
For years, the conversation about housing has been dominated by experts, industry groups and government. There has been no shortage of ideas: increase supply, reform planning, change tax settings, strengthen renter protections. The policy menu is long.
But the people most affected by those decisions have rarely been at the table.
That is not a minor oversight. It is a structural problem. When communities are excluded from the debates that shape their lives, two things happen. Policy gets made on assumptions rather than evidence. And trust erodes.
We are watching both play out in real time.
Housing is no longer a crisis at the margins. It is a crisis in the middle. Nurses, teachers, tradies, young families, people with steady jobs would all have expected a fair shot at home ownership. Today, many are locked out entirely, or stuck in rental arrangements that offer little security and no pathway to ownership. A childcare worker earning a typical full-time wage can afford fewer than one per cent of rental properties in Australia. A hospitality worker or retail store manager are in the same position. For generations, housing was at the core of the promise of a “fair go”. That promise is broken.
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AMPLIFY has spent the past year deeply understanding not just how Australians are experiencing this crisis, but what they are actually prepared to do about it. We engaged more than 18,000 people, alongside experts, industry and policymakers, in the largest community engagement program on housing ever undertaken in Australia.
What we found challenges one of the most persistent assumptions in this debate.
Housing reform is routinely treated as politically toxic. Too contested. Too risky. The conventional wisdom holds that Australians are attached to the settings that drive up prices.
The evidence does not support that conclusion.
Ninety-four per cent of Australians support building more homes in established areas. Three quarters support housing tax reform to help make housing fairer and more affordable. Two-thirds want governments to treat housing as a national crisis.
Whether examined across political, metro, regional, owner, investor or virtually any other grouping, the data shows there is more than enough common ground. These are the findings of a community that has been waiting to be asked.
The real constraint on housing reform is no longer public opinion; it is the political will to act.
Next week, AMPLIFY will launch its Housing Policy Platform, Solving Australia’s Housing Crisis: A Promise Broken. A Plan to Rebuild It. This will be a plan grounded in community research, shaped by evidence and built around what Australians want.