Most Australians agree there’s a housing crisis. But they differ on what’s causing it – and how to fix it

Housing was a key issue during the 2025 federal election. In a campaign fought on the cost of living, rising housing costs – rents, mortgage repayments and house prices – were issues that all parties had to address.

Major housing announcements were key to the campaign launches of both the Albanese government and the Peter Dutton-led opposition.

While all parties agreed housing needed urgent attention, they were divided over how to fix it. Labor and the Coalition focused on first homebuyers and housing supply. The Greens emphasised rent control and social housing, and One Nation campaigned on cutting immigration and taxes on building materials for new houses.

The Australian Cooperative Election Survey (ACES) collected responses from over 4,000 voters during the campaign in April 2025. Over 1,000 of these voters were then asked about their views on housing. The results offer a detailed insight about the impact of housing on the election outcome.

A new report by the Macquarie University Housing and Urban Research Centre analyses the ACES results, revealing the importance of housing to politics on the left and right.

It is clear from our data that Australian society is still coming to terms with the fading promise of homeownership. They are also struggling to agree on the reasons why housing is such a huge problem, and how it can be addressed.

Everyone agrees on housing: it’s a crisis

Voters left us in no doubt about their feelings on the importance and urgency of the housing problem. An overwhelming share of respondents – 89% – agreed Australia is currently facing a housing crisis, with just 2% disagreeing.

Renters and young voters were more likely to “strongly agree” that housing is in crisis than homeowners, property investors and older people. Greens voters and voters on the populist right (One Nation and Trumpet of Patriots) were more likely to agree than Labor or Coalition voters.

But the differences were minor: the near-universal agreement about the extent of the housing problem is unusual in contemporary Australian politics.

Despite the landslide, Labor’s housing performance was marked down

Despite Labor’s landslide victory, voters did not endorse the Albanese government’s performance on housing policy. Only 16% were in any way satisfied, while a total of 34% were either dissatisfied or very dissatisfied. Half were “neither satisfied nor dissatisfied” or “unsure”. This suggests many voters were either unaware of or ambivalent about the government’s policies.

Dissatisfaction was widespread, found in roughly equal measure regardless of age and housing tenure. Investors were just as dissatisfied as renters, and both just slightly more than owners.

Labor’s electoral advantage on housing, however slight, appears to have come from offering voters modest, incremental policy responses that did not alienate voter groups. But they did not excite anyone either: even Labor voters were not particularly enthused, with only 37% expressing satisfaction.

So what do voters think is causing the crisis?

Many voters identified immigration playing a key role, along with high house prices, interest rates, and a lack of supply. These findings are consistent with the recent resurgence of anti-immigration populism.

While Australia’s economy and ageing population increasingly depend on immigration, the housing and cost of living crises are being successfully exploited by far-right political parties and movements.

However, looking deeper, we found voter reactions varied considerably depending on where they were situated in the crisis.

When it comes to causes of the housing crisis, immigration dominates responses from older voters (65 years and over) as well as outright homeowners. But for younger voters, aged 18-34 years, high interest rates and low wage growth are the top drivers.

What’s more, younger voters who are most affected by the housing crisis are less likely to see immigration as either cause or solution. Instead, they are looking to government for a new social contract on housing.

Despite the overall popularity of cutting immigration, there is a strong partisan divide on this approach, with very strong support among both Coalition and populist right voters, but more qualified, lower support among Labor and Greens voters.

For those most affected by housing, such as younger renters, direct intervention into housing markets is the priority. We asked respondents what three policies would help most in reducing housing costs.

For voters aged 18-34 years, limits on rent increases (44%) ranks first, followed by higher rent assistance (39%) and more investment in public housing (37%). Limiting rent increases also tops the list of priorities for private renters, and for Greens voters. For these voters, immigration is not the key – and nor is one of the government’s primary policy responses, which is to increase supply.

Our research found that most voters want an increase in the housing supply, and most see supply problems as playing a role in this crisis.

However, few voters prioritised supply measures as a solution. Asked about their top priorities for reform, planning faded as an option. Among young voters and private renters, allowing greater density and simplifying planning rules ranked 7th and 8th from a list of nine options.

Responsive housing policies may re-engage disaffected voters

For those troubled about a rising anti-migration mood, the findings hold potential lessons. Rent controls give tenants more security by protecting them from large rent increases. “Limiting rent increases for private renters” is not only favoured by young people and Greens voters, but it was the second most favoured policy among voters on the populist right. Asked if they supported limits on rent increases, a solid 58% of a small sample of those voters said they would.

Alongside generational and partisan divides, there is an insider-outsider divide in Australia’s housing debate. As Zohran Mamdani’s growing support in the New York mayoral race suggests, economic populism – where government plays a more direct role protecting voters from economic risk – enjoys support beyond the left. New or bolder thinking might be key to bridging this divide, reaching younger people left out of Australia’s housing system.