46: The Housing Reform Consensus Nobody’s Talking About

Episode Summary

Richard is joined by Dr Rory Gallagher, Chief Policy and Research Officer at AMPLIFY, to unpack what’s really driving Australians’ views on solving the housing crisis. Rory breaks down AMPLIFY’S landmark report, Solving Australia's Housing Crisis: A Promise Broken and a Plan to Rebuild It, built on research collected from over 18,000 Australians, including a weekend-long deliberation where 100 randomly selected individuals debated 13 major reforms.

The conversation dismantles the idea that housing policy is a battle between renters and owners, or younger and older generations. Rory reveals how support for reform, from modern construction methods to tax changes and rental protections, cuts across age, tenure and political lines once people are presented the evidence. With the biggest shift in support for renters' rights came from an unexpected group.

Richard and Rory also delve into density, stamp duty, and what young renters really want from a home. They conclude that when Australians are given the full picture, the common ground on housing reform is far bigger, and far more achievable, than the headlines suggest.

About Our Guest

Dr Rory Gallagher is Chief Policy and Research Officer at AMPLIFY, where he leads the organisation’s community research and engagement practice. He develops tools spanning large-scale public sentiment analysis through to local deliberation, using analytical techniques to uncover consensus on difficult reforms. Rory led Australia’s first national deliberation on housing and currently heads AMPLIFY’s  national research program.

Before joining AMPLIFY, Rory co-founded the Behavioural Insights Team in the UK Cabinet Office in 2010 and later led its operations across Asia Pacific. He went on to establish Australia’s first behavioural insights unit, spending a decade working with government, philanthropy, non-government organisations and the private sector to drive more human-centred, data-driven approaches to policy across the country.

Tune into the Episode

If you want to understand where the real common ground on housing reform lies, this episode is for you. Tune in to hear what more than 18,000 Australians really think about supply, tax reform, density and renters’ rights, and why it’s not the group you expect.

EPISODE LINKS

Solving Australia’s housing crisis

Rory Gallagher

AMPLIFY

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This podcast is for educational purposes only and should not be considered investment or financial advice. This podcast is not intended to replace or supplement professional investment, financial or legal advice. Please seek professional advice based upon your personal circumstances. The views expressed by our podcast guests may not represent those of Charter Keck Cramer. This podcast may not be copied, reproduced, republished or posted in whole or in part without the prior written consent of Charter Keck Cramer.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

This episode was recorded on the land of the Wurundjeri people of the Kulin Nation. We pay our respects to their elders, past, present, and future.

SPEAKER_02 0:13

Hello and welcome to another episode of Precisely Property. I'm your host, Richard Temlet. I'm excited to have you with us today. If you're here for the first time, thank you for joining us. I encourage you to listen to our previous episodes. We discuss all things property with a focus on dynamic discussions with industry leaders. In this episode, we'll be talking with Rory Gallagher of Amplify. So sit back, relax, let's get started. Rory is Amplify's chief policy and research officer. He leads Amplify's community research and engagement practice, developing new tools that span large-scale public sentiment analysis through to local deliberation, which draw on cutting-edge analytical techniques to find the hidden consensus that makes hard reforms possible. Rory led Australia's first national deliberation on housing and currently leads Amplify's national research program on housing density. Before joining Amplify, Rory co-founded the Behavioral Insights Team in the UK Cabinet Office in 2010 and then led BIT's operations across the Asia Pacific. He also established Australia's first behavioral insights unit and spent a decade working closely with governments, philanthropy, non-government organizations, and the private sector to drive the uptake of more human-centered and data-driven approaches across Australia. Welcome, Rory. Thanks, Richard. Lovely to be here. Rory, I'm so grateful that you've taken the time to come on the show today. You've released a report, it was about a month or even six weeks ago now, that we're going to talk about. And it really relates to affordable housing and resolving the housing crisis. And I think now is such a critical time to be discussing those findings and providing evidence-based insights and also solutions to the housing crisis. So thank you so much for coming on the show. That's obviously what we will discuss today. Before we get into the show, though, I did have an icebreaker question for you. What's a book, podcast, or documentary that you've come across recently that you'd recommend to just about anyone?

SPEAKER_00 2:20

Thanks, Richard. So recently I've got back into the work of Danny Kahneman. For those that aren't familiar, he's a psychologist that won the Nobel Prize in Economic and is sort of one of my academic uh heroes. And that's really because he displays three things throughout all of his work that's curiosity, empiricism, and collaboration. So if I was to recommend just one book, I would say go to thinking fast and slow, but I encourage you to look across his range of his work. And you will see that curiosity come through. Invena, you know, in his 80s, he was writing new books, uh, digging deeper into his and others' research. And I was lucky enough to meet and talk with him on several occasions, and he was really, really interested, not just in our findings, but the studies and the research and what's underneath. And I always try and take that curiosity with me wherever I go. The second is this sense of empiricism. He was always really keen to not just debate the sort of theory, but to test things. And when you run tests, often you'll find that things don't work. And I think that takes a great humility, and something, again, that I try to take with me in my work. But finally, he's also really interested and exemplifies the art of collaboration. And for me, I think we have done our best work throughout my career when I collaborate with people from different disciplines. So behavioral scientists and political scientists, designers, computer scientists. And I think more of that cross-sector collaboration is needed. Really importantly, Kahneman also deployed this notion of adversarial collaboration, where he worked with people who critiqued his work, who fundamentally disagreed, but rather than just arguing and talking past each other, he uh set up processes whereby him and his critic critic would try and agree on where they disagreed and then designed studies to test that and at the end to reflect on it. Even if they didn't completely agree at the end, I think there's something incredibly productive about learning how to disagree agreeably or how to argue well. And that really underpins a lot of our thinking uh Amplify as well.

SPEAKER_02 4:28

Well, Rory, thank you for that response. I must admit, I was going to respond to you by saying I can see how the work that you've just spoken about is actually fed into the Amplify report because, and I'm a researcher also by background, and I must admit, um, I what this is probably why I really loved the report, but I can see now and I have heard um it's probably the third time in a couple of weeks, the thinking fast and slow, that that work that's been recommended to me. So, and I have I have actually read it, so it's it's funny that people are certainly um picking that up. And and I certainly would also recommend that it that people look into it because it's a really it's a really good body of work and it gets you thinking in a different way.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Exactly. Yeah, I think it's really good for us to understand how we make decisions if you as humans, and that's in your own personal life as well as your own career. And that's why I was keen to come on this podcast, Richard. I think there is not enough discussion of the evidence in the housing debate, and often you see people just talking past each other rather than really trying to understand what is the evidence and what are the arguments here. So, yeah, pleased to be here.

SPEAKER_02 5:28

Fantastic. All right. Well, um, before we get into understanding a bit more about who Amplify is and then also the report that was prepared. And I know there's a bunch of other reports that you're doing, and you're going to talk about another one at the end. Um, here's some framework just for our listeners. I do an enormous amount of work for the federal, the state government, and then also a lot of the private sector. And with the housing crisis, everyone has an opinion. Um, obviously, an opinion is quite different to having evidence. And it's very interesting. I've worked for both sides of politics, different levels of government, private sector, public sector, everyone has an opinion. Um, but I always try and I've challenged the team to go back to what the data and the evidence says. And for a while I've been searching to try and find where I can actually see evidence, um, particularly through things like surveys, that that the that some some research has spoken to different uh people of different age groups, of different uh household ownerships, of different uh political affiliations to try and understand uh what their views are on the housing crisis and what their views are on a whole bunch of potential reforms that that potentially need to be considered to um really make I suppose Australia's housing system fit for purpose in the next 20 or 30 years or your report was released and I absolutely lost my mind, to be perfectly honest with you, because I went through and I went, fantastic. There's finally um a body of work where we've spoken to the voting public of different age groups, as I said, um, genders, ethnicities, a whole bunch of things, and and asked them about these questions. And the report that you've prepared summarized very well what their views are. That's the context that I want everyone to just have today. The report will obviously be um linked to the show notes, and that's what we're gonna discuss now. But I am getting a little bit sick and tired of everyone having an opinion or the loudest voices in the room having an opinion, and then people just by default thinking that, well, that's that's what the political side of things is because the loudest person in the room says so. What your results actually empirically prove is that that is not necessarily the case. And I would encourage our listeners to obviously read this in their own time, read the report very carefully, but you can quite clearly see that what is being portrayed either by the different levels of politics or even the media is not necessarily reflective of the voting base that is occurring in these days. So that's that's the context. I didn't want to try and answer anything more in the sense that it's obviously your guys' amazing work. Um, but that's the context for our listeners. Before we get into the report, can you please, uh Rory, just explain a little bit more about Amplified? Who who are they? Why was Amplified created?

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Thanks, Richard. Very generous uh instruction. I think you put your finger on it, right? We are a not-for-profit, we are non-partisan, we're a couple of years old, and we were set up to try and do two things injet the evidence into the policy debate, but also injet that community voice. And I think you summarized it really, really nicely is when people think about the signals they get from the communities, they are often from very skewed places. So, you know, who turns up to a town hall is often the people that are most engaged and those that will shout loudest, uh, right through to, you know, things like survey measures, which we think are often actually quite badly constructed. So a lot of what our work has been doing is trying to experiment with different tools to really understand, as you said, what does the voting public feel about a number of issues, starting with housing, because that's the number one issue for community at the minute. Uh, and why do they think that? And how do we build this consensus for change? And that is our sense is actually people want bolder reform that is often suggested or reflected in politics and the media.

SPEAKER_02 9:08

Fantastic. All right. Well, there'll definitely be links to your website too. People can obviously jump on that. And I would encourage our listeners to do exactly that because when I jumped on, it's quite clear that even though we're talking about a single report today, there's a number of different bodies of work that are being done. Um, so no doubt there's there'll be people that have different interests that can certainly get some insight from your website. All right, the report that I mentioned, can you please let's start with the basics? What was the name of the report? How was it prepared? And I'm particularly interested if you could just explain the methodology to our listeners. Because when when um one of your colleagues, Natalie, and I do send a shout-out to her, um, when she explained some of the methodology, I thought this was actually really fantastic. So, um, what's the title of the report? What's the methodology?

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Fantastic. So it's called solving Australia's housing crisis: A Promise Broken and a Plan to Rebuild It. And the methodology is that we engaged over 18,000 Australians over the last 18 months to try and understand what they thought about the housing crisis, what they thought the sort of main drivers of that were, what are the outcomes that they wanted to see, and then their views on a bunch of reforms. And we've done that using a variety of different methods from surveys through to a really deep deliberation. So in February last year, 2025, your hundred randomly selected and representative Australians together in one room over a weekend to debate a series of reforms. And they heard for each of these 13 reforms, they heard from an expert who supported the reform and an expert who was arguing against. And to your point earlier, we really wanted that principle built into this. We didn't just want, you know, to hear one side. We wanted those participants to hear both sides of the argument. And they heard that for the full 13 uh reforms, and we ran something which is called a deliberative poll. So before they arrived, we asked them about their support, and then again at the end of that weekend, we asked them for their support. And what that really showed was there was a shift in support amongst almost all of the reforms, and we were really able to sort of unpack where that consensus lies and a raw sense that Australia, it was clearer that Australia is in a deep housing crisis, and the community recognized there is no single silver bullet, there is no magic lever, but there was support for governments to go further to undertake bolder reform. And so since that time, we've been then going sort of further, digging in deeper. Well, okay, how is it that we can unlock more supply? How is it, what, how do people think about tax reform? Again, using different types of methods from focus groups to things called generative polling. And we've been experimenting with this sort of breadth and depth. What do people think top of mind in the moment, through to what do people think about this when they've had the chance to digest the evidence and debate it with experts and their peers? So that's what really underpins this. Our view is this is the sort of most rounded picture of what Australians feel about the housing reform and their support for a number of key measures to drive change.

SPEAKER_02 12:25

Great. Okay. So just to again to be crystal clear, you you took a broad cross-section of the Australian voter market. And to to be a little bit more particular with that, you asked them their ages, their gender, their political affiliations, who they voted for, what type of tenure they had, whether they were homeowners, whether they were renters. So you basically you had that cross-section that was obviously reflective of Australia. And then the first thing that I've picked up from yourself is that there was an initial view of certain policies. Once they'd actually heard evidence and educated discussion from both sides of the argument, a lot of them changed their mind. Is that one of the main findings?

SPEAKER_00 13:16

Yeah, that's exactly right. So, and to be, I think you're right to push all the specifics. So the the deliberation or amplification, as we talked about it, that took part in February last year, that relied on a process of selection referred to as sortition or democratic lottery. So rather than just saying who wants to turn up and have a discussion, we wrote out to 30,000 plus Australians across the country, saw who put their hand up and then used uh sort of analysis to match on all of those types of demographic factors that you talked about. So in Rue, essentially you had a sort of microcosm of Australia in one room that could represent landlords and renters, old and young, different parts of the political spectrum. So that was really key to us. I'll come back to later on because my sense is those types of demographic markers aren't actually often the best predictor of what people will support and how they think about an issue, but we wanted to make sure we had that representation in one room. And then exactly as you said, we wanted to understand two things really. Where does that support lie? Where is the consensus and among who and why? And then does that shift when exposed to the evidence and debate? And so we provided some baseline information, but most of that came from hearing from the experts and then talking amongst themselves. And to your point, we're really interested in where and why do people shift their mind? And the biggest increase in support, the biggest change in uh in support came from people with an investment property for rental reforms. That is, that when people sat down and they heard the experts talk about where Australia sits compared to their international peers in terms of uh rental policies and reforms. And when they sat down and spoke to renters, they became much more supportive. And when we spoke to those landlords, those investments, it was those two things, hearing from the evidence and also hearing from people who are going through renting. Many of those people had actually never heard and discussed this with renters. And for me, that's that's really, really key. You want to be able to hear from the evidence and the experts, but you also want to hear others' views, including the people that it that it impacts.

SPEAKER_02 15:26

Great. Okay. Thank you for that. Before we jump into the findings, again, I want to remind our listeners, there seems to be in this housing policy debate now uh a bunch of groups that seem to be pitted against one another. And I'm not really sure this is the way to actually, in fact, I know it is, it's not the way to resolve the housing crisis. You can't have renters versus owners, you can't have liberals versus labor, you can't have baby boomers versus millennials. Um, it just doesn't work that way. And the general perception that a baby boomer, liberal voter that owns a house wants certain policies looking at your stats is actually not correct. And that's what I thought was absolutely fantastic because again, it goes back to my points about the housing market not being very well understood, and then everyone reading the often ill-informed media headlines and making their own assumptions. But what I thought was absolutely fascinating, and particularly when you actually looked at that political affiliation, and uh, I know I'm kind of um I'm I'm kind of saying the opposite of of what I initially said about looking at labor versus liberals, but just to tease that out a bit more, when I actually looked at what the coalition people in your survey felt, and it may have been after that they'd been educated, it was actually very, very different to the normal mantra that you'd think a coalition or even what the coalition or the liberals are putting together as their policy platform. It's not necessarily reflective of exactly who these vo what these voters want. And I think that that's really important to keep in mind. And so let's jump into the findings. I'm kind of in your hands as to where we start or um give given it's your report, we could start whether it's by age group, tenure, political affiliation. But let's cut cut across some of these things in terms of the findings because the perception is often quite different to the reality, as I've been trying to articulate. So let's start with some of the key findings.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

Yeah, thanks, Richard. So maybe let's start at the sort of macro level. As I said, there is almost universal agreement that housing is a national crisis and that people don't think that the government of all stripes, of all layers, are going far enough. And that was consistent across, as you said, every generation and every political affiliation of their state government depend, you know, if you were a labor voter in a in a liberal state government, you felt that as strongly as if that was, you know, the the other way, the other way around. And what came out of the deliberation, as I said, was this sense of there is no silver bullet. You need to you need to pull a bunch of levers, but you've got to start with supply, right? That we are it is just clear that we are not building enough homes as quickly as we can in the places that people want to live. And so for me, there was really strong, consistent messaging on that wherever we have been. And actually, the the reform that came out with the highest level of support at our deliberation, our amplification of you, was the use of more modern methods of construction. And actually, they were sort of stronger behind this and could see the potential more than many of the technocrats in in the sort of sector who recognize it's currently a very small part of the construction sector and builds. But I think the public were able to see if we're going to solve this crisis, we need new methods. And again, that sort of was almost universal across every generation politics, uh, etc. Um, maybe I'll just draw on one more and then we can and then we can uh drill down further. To me, this generational divide is a really interesting one. It's been in the media recently, and we've often seen it time again. And if you sort of listen to the uh media, that will pit young against the old, and and traditionally older voters are against housing reform on a number of layers, from sort of tax reform through to supply and density. And our data just doesn't suggest that at all, actually. And many of the reforms were most supported by older Australians. This is not, you know, people sat on huge assets and don't want anything to change. They are worried about their grandkids and their kids getting on the housing market and are prepared to put their own self-interest to one side in order to help people get on uh the ladder and to help people afford to live near their family and where they where they work. And to me, one of the most interesting parts of this debate and where the sort of rubber hits the road is around density, because essentially we cannot hope to get anywhere near our supply figures, our targets, unless we build in our major cities, right? And the good news here is that most of the infrastructure is already there. Most of Australians live in major cities, but they are some of the least dense cities uh in the world, particularly in the OECD, right? So there is scope to go more. But the whole system at the minute is sort of held up by a bunch of misperceptions and challenges. And one is that the debate happens at a sort of technocratic layer. It is impossible. Someone like you, Richard, who's worked, et cetera, will be all over this. But as someone like myself who's not a housing expert but has come into it, getting your head around, you know, what floor space ratios are and what zoning rules are and what low to middle rays are is incredibly hard, right? And actually a lot of this debate is at the sort of macro level and it completely disengages community. And so we need to try and translate what sort of the macro is right down to the to the micro. Then you get into things like density and density done well, which has now just become a term, which every side of the debate throws around, often to sort of avoid the harder arguments and debates and what that actually looks like. And we often fail to ask community what that looks like to them. And finally, it's become dominated in the media and in our sort of political systems by the noisy edges, to use your uh phrase, which I think is very, very accurate. So again, this is largely pitted as nimbies versus yumbies, not in my backyard. So you're traditional, often portrayed as older homeowning who don't want anything in their area to change, and a new cohort of so-called yumbies, an advocacy group, yes, in my backyard who are driving for more supply at all costs. Right. And we showed in our deliberation that most people were supportive of more density. But that's very easy to say when you're in Sydney and looking at the evidence. And that's very different to when it happened on your street. So we've done a bunch of work since then to go why does that support erode the nearer that density gets to your street? And how do people think about it? And to your point, Found that survey instruments were actually a pretty blunt tool here, right? Well, do you just support density, yes or no? Is not very hopeful. So we've been undertaking new work using something what we call perspective mapping to try and understand how people actually think about density. So what is top of mind to them? And then what are their sort of causal reasoning? What do they think will happen if more density comes, as well as their values and beliefs? And what that essentially shows is they're actually probably multiple, but at least four perspectives. And actually the sort of nimby yimbi uh binary is not really representative across those four perspectives other than at the very edge. So, exactly as you said, what a lot of our work is trying to do is try and get just beneath that very surface level. Okay, if you ask someone, do you support yes or no? And then trying to get away from this uh what this sort of um common attempt to just sort people back into these outdated tribes and sort of pitch them against each other in politics uh and the media.

SPEAKER_03 23:02

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SPEAKER_02 24:25

So just to recap, you basically said that there was a lot of support for supply and then also modern methods of construction. That's fantastic. I hope a lot of our government listeners are listening and have certainly heard that. I know New South Wales is probably taking the lead in this space. Um certainly I did see in your report that the older generation, who I think are unfairly portrayed as being selfish, not wanting change, that's not the case because you're right. They they look at where their kids, their grandkids are, and they want to help them too. And that certainly was something that that jumped out to me. And I and I knew it was there because when I'd spoken to a lot of the buyers um in my own separate research, I knew that that's not the case. They actually wanted to live close to their kids and their grandkids, but that certainly played out um in the findings. Let's jump on to investors. Um I know that you mentioned it a bit earlier on in the episode. Um obviously we've had uh tax changes at the federal level to to um I'm trying to articulate this in a in a diplomatic way, to to basically re-let's say rebalance the housing market. Um it's probably wider. In fact, it is wider than that. Um it's not having the intended effect right now on the market. But I'd I'd also query everyone, or caution everyone just to keep in mind that um we're not in a balanced housing market. We do have rising interest rates and uncertainty overseas. So it's it's difficult to pinpoint and say specifically that these tax changes are the only reason why things like auction clearance rates have fallen off a cliff lately. That being said, what were your findings with respect to investors? Investors over all age groups, what were they?

SPEAKER_00 25:55

Great question. Um, so maybe I'll split it apart into a couple of different parts of the methodology. Um, so as as we know at the deliberation, we saw a big increase in um people with an investment property supporting rental reforms, but also support for um tax changes, right? Um so more than the majority of investors supporting tax changes. But the the details of that are really, really important. And to be frank, you know, for that weekend, we didn't have enough time to go down and sort of really get into the sort of belly of the beast of how do you implement that. So we've done work since then to try and understand how people, including investors but also others, think about those tax changes and the rationale for that. So, for example, uh, we ran what's called a sort of generative poll with Kate Cheney, uh, the independent MP in her electorate in Western Australia, to just try and understand that like these people's perspectives and mental models about um about tax reform. What came through really sort of clearly was this sense amongst investors and others about the need to level the playing field, right? But there was also a sense of we need some guardrails around that, right? We need an implementation timetable, we need to think about what the caps might be here by property or by you know grandfathering, uh, and what other safeguards we would need around that. Uh, and again, we've seen that play out in other types of methods and surveys as well. So, what we were really advocating for was the government to do that consultation to work out what safeguards they can put in place for investors, whilst also thinking about how this could level the playing field uh for first-time buyers in particular. And that's where the sort of evidence in the debate was. You know, it was debates about what it might do to house prices, what it might do to rental prices, as you sort of noted in the media. There's lots of reactionary sort of uh stuff at the minute, but that was really what the sort of core of this reform and investors seem to care about. Will this help um people get on the housing ladder? Now, of course, as you've alluded to, and I don't think we'll go into this today, the governance reform went way beyond uh housing taxes. Uh, and we we didn't look at that and are sort of worried about wider tax reform without community engagement. And in fact, in the report, you see, we called really for a tax review, right? So capital gains and net occurring are the most sort of famous and very sort of media headline worthy at the minute. But we're also looking at things like changes to stamp duty, you know, as well as the variety of other tax and charges that affect the housing industry and that particular developers would argue stand in the way of us building those houses that we need to more quickly in the places that people want to live. So we'll try and sort of put stuff on the agenda that actually there was support here. People with an investment property are open to this. They understand that there are tax advantages compared to people dead on homeless, but they want assurances and they want to understand the safeguards. So, as I said, we are now following that debate. It'll be really interesting to see the impact. It will be hard to isolate, as you said, the exact impact of that versus other factors and interest rates and other things. But yeah, that's that was our approach to really try and understand why do people, how do people think about tax reform, what the effects would be, and what are their sort of values and beliefs uh around that.

SPEAKER_02 29:15

Fantastic. Um, if I suppose I could just build on that, in in the report, it was very clear to me that um whilst people were supportive of tax reform, as you've highlighted, they needed to have a proper evidence base to support the changes. There had to be guardrails in place. Um one thing though that certainly jumped out consistently, and I've I've heard it's in the research and I've seen in the research that I've done, is really the issue of stamp duty. Stamp duty being one of the most inefficient taxes. Um and there's a whole we've done a whole bunch of articles on on why it's so inefficient, but that certainly jumped out as being one of the most hated taxes and almost universally um whoever you spoke to really wanted that uh removed and and most likely replaced with a broad-based annual land tax. That certainly jumped out. I I know that there was discussion about negative gearing, stamp negative gearing, capital gains tax. As you quite correctly said, the devil is always in the detail. But I suppose what was very interesting is that you've got the perception that investors don't want any of that changed. And the reality is that they are happy to actually entertain those changes as long as they are, I suppose, fair, reasonable, not anti-competitive, explained to everyone, and also have an evidence base. And I think unfortunately the government has not done a lot of that. Um they may be well-intentioned to start to make the changes. And I can't help thinking they would have done their own surveys and they probably would have looked at similar results to what you've picked up there and gone, well, actually, you know what? We should make these changes now because we do think that we'll get support from a large segment of the public. However, they only looked at half of what those findings are, the half being making the changes, the other half being how they implemented, how they are educated and explained to everyone. I think they've very badly missed the mark on that. And I do worry about how that's going to come back and bite them. Um, particularly when you keep seeing every day there always seems to be carve out after carve out after carve out because they went well beyond the housing markets and into other asset classes, which I think is also a bit silly. Um, let's park that there for now. Let's jump into first home buyers. What did you learn about first home buyers, or I suppose the younger age groups? Um, we don't necessarily have to call them first, you know, first home buyers, they could be current renters. What were some of the interesting findings there?

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Yeah, thanks. I think that's really well articulated, Richard, in terms of the wider tax debate. Look, young people were amongst the most vocal about the need for reform, particularly in the rental market, and the need for both lower prices and uh more protections for them. So that was really strong, but they also supported supply. So some of the things that we've sort of alluded to, but just touch on the need for uh modern methods of construction, the need for reducing um some of the planning controls to get more density, the need for more skilled construction workers, again, another policy levers that's sort of caught up, unfortunately, in a bit of a uh quagmire and media debate around immigration. But again, there was young people supporting that, supporting the tax reform as we've supported about, but also this need for more social housing and affordable housing in particular and rental reforms. And I guess something that maybe didn't come out as strongly in the report, but that young people we heard call us stiffly in other places, it's not just about the basic rental protection. So, actually, as you noted, I think the states have been moving in this direction. We've just seen Western Australia get on board, New South Wales and Victoria probably at the front of the pack, but they are still sort of the bare minimum in, you know, no fault evictions. What young people are really looking for, particularly those who've lost hope actually of becoming a first home buyer. And we know, you know, there's 30% renters, 60% of them will rent for their lifetime, right? So for many of them, it's not about getting on the ladder. It's about living a good life in a rental home. And what they're pushing for is more of a European model where the default for some of these rental contracts and agreements aren't 12 months, but they're several years. And there's ways to design that so you can build in price increases, et cetera, that gives stability, the guardrails, as you talked about, for property investors, but also allows people to plan and live there for several years, you know, so that they can work out, you know, where they can commute from. They can put stuff up on the walls, they can make it really feel like a home. And that's something which I don't think we've even really started the conversation on in Australia. And to sort of a wider point, and I guess my more underlying philosophy is often government reaches for regulations, right? And you articulate even the tax base, it does it quite bluntly and it communicates it really badly. So it makes people have no idea, really, what the guts of these reforms are about. And so just always reaching for more and more legislation and regulation is often not the way. So I'm quite interested. What are the types of voluntary agreements that you can work with industry and you know, rental and young people to go, how do we try and shift the discourse of the norm to encouraging more multi-year uh agreements and contracts so we can give, for instance, more stability so they can plan their lives and feel like uh, you know, it's a it is a home and not a house?

SPEAKER_02 34:28

Great. Let's jump into the political sides, whether it's Labour or liberal. Um, that one I think was the one that really your your research cut through quite quite fantastically, if I'm being honest with you, because there's the general perception that liberals want certain things, Labour want certain things. What were some of the surprising findings from a political point of view that I suppose our listeners need to just hear and be aware of?

SPEAKER_00 34:56

Yeah, thanks, uh Richard. As I was a sort of note here, I guess my my macro point on this here is that we're in a moment of political disruption. So this notion that you know we're all a uh sort of rofted-on supporter of a political party is just not the case anymore. Party political membership is dwindling, and we are seeing much more fluidity in how people's how people vote, right? So this sentence that we all sit in these particular camps is no longer true of the rise of particularly one nation recently is something I think we all need to unpack and and understand. And some of that I think is a frustration with the major parties, including on housing. But there were some trends there, right? It's it's it's it's pointless to sort of gloss over and say there were no differences, some of the things that you might expect from uh you know more progressive and labor voters, stronger support for social and affordable housing, rental reforms, tax changes, it was lover uh for coalition uh and liberal voters. I guess Michael is it also doesn't need to be 100%. If in this country we are looking for 100% of people or even three-quarters of people to agree on a reform before it goes ahead, we're gonna get stuck. And actually, there was majority support across all of these reforms, right? Particularly when people have a chance to sit down, think about the evidence, hear from others, then you get the majority, you get more than 50% consensus. And I guess that is my underlying point, and what sits underneath this report is unfortunately we have created systems which have sort of allowed what some people call a vetocracy, right? Which is that you know it's much easier for people to say no than yes. And we've created systems which amplifies those voices, those noisy voices who are saying no. And actually, when you dig into the data, that is much less predictive of you know, people's political affiliation is much more, much less predictive of their reform than how they think. So just to go back to this uh density piece of work, we've identified four perspectives, and there's some trends in terms of people's politics, but it is nowhere as powerful for how they actually think and understand um density. So there is a group of people there who are totally bought in to the more supply means lower house prices. But they're a relative minority, but they cut across again different politics, tend to lean more urban and uh younger. Then the biggest two groups in the middle are essentially a group who think about density in positive ways. It's actually about thriving neighborhoods. They can see that more people can often bring more amenities, but they want to make sure that's delivered. They want it with green space, they want it with community facilities, they want to make sure local businesses can thrive. And then there's a bunch of people who are open but need commitments around infrastructure. And again, this sits across all party lines. There are a bunch of people who are not ideologically against NC, but have lost faith in government's ability to build the infrastructure alongside. And if government can be clear and guarantee some of those investments in the plan of when they will bring them in, those people will support and get on board. And then there's a group of people who are much more focused on community character of their neighborhood and preserving what is there. But many of them are open to, you know, if you can bring design standards, if you can think about the ways you can bring in green space, if you can assure affordability, they are supportive. So this sense that the NIMBY's are these, you know, older liberal who don't want any change is just not true. Some of the concerns that they have are fair. Are renters going to be displaced from my neighborhood in Mosman, right? And actually, some of those supply effects are at a more macro level, and they are over time. So I guess one of our messages is trying to just target rather than target people by their politics or to keep bashing people over the head with density, with a message around, you know, more homes is going to lead to more equity and lower house prices. Actually, to get and maintain this majority support, you need to really focus on ensuring density is done well, that you create these thriving neighborhoods, that you make sure businesses and local places and communities thrive and sort the infrastructure out and stop getting lost in this debate about whether it will or won't uh change house prices locally and really ensure you listen to what people say about their very practical concerns about congestion and parking. So underpinning all of this, Richard, is let's try to stop asking questions, do you support or not? And then sort them back into their sort of political tribes. We still do some of that, and it's still useful to understand, but it's much more in much more important to ask not just whether you support, but why? What's your causal reasoning, your values and belief, and really understand that in order to build the consensus and get to the heart of the issue?

SPEAKER_02 39:52

Very good. Okay. Let's shift gears. Um, let's go to the actions. Obviously, we've got a national housing accord. Um what does the governments, I suppose, need to be aware of? What are some of the steps that you that the research has has highlighted that they need to start taking and to be aware of?

SPEAKER_00 40:12

I think we've touched on uh many of them, but just to repeat, the number one priority is supply, right? But they they cannot take their foot off the off the pedal on this. People want to see more homes built more quickly in the play that says that people want to leave, but they're not interested in the federal government pointing fingers at states and local government and saying it's it's their fault, it's their problems. People don't want to hear about those sorts of you know, inter-government then mental issues. They just want to see the federal government take a grit, create the right incentives to work with state and local government and drive and drive change. And I guess we have put in the report we need a much stronger delivery mechanism around that, much more transparency about delivery amongst states and councils, but also the support to do that well. And one of the things we are worried about is when states sort of overcorrect and come in over the top and stop working with local councils, you lose that community legitimacy. And we're seeing that in Victoria. The social license is already beginning to erode. And we're likely, our view is to see that in New South Wales, unless the state government can work with local councils to do this uh well. So I think there are a couple of the really key things for the government. Grip supply, look at tax reform more widely. You know, you might think that you've taken on the sort of biggest and sort of knottiest one, but as you noted, I think sort of beautifully earlier, that that is you know that is not going to cut it. There's some really important implementation and communication challenges skip right, but do not stop there. Stamp duty, as you said, it's almost universally agreed by the walks, by the policy class. But there are a bunch of reasons to do with state's finances and the communication, which holds it up. So let's get to that next. And let's take on some of these other leaders. Let's help renters to really create, you know, a home, give them the security that they need, and let's make sure we're using the most advanced construction technologies and we have the people to build it. And look, we don't have all of the answers here. This is really laying out a platform, but our belief is that we need more skilled migrants, we need a better way of training up young Australians, you know, in allowing qualifications to go across states, but also bringing in more construction workers if we're going to hit this target. So we think, yes, the government is listening, it is taking steps, but it's not going far enough. And we need to keep pulling on a number of this levers in order to sell it, and particularly with a bit of volatility at the um in the market at the minute, as you alluded to. Now is not this time, sort of just abandon this and move on to the next thing. This is the critical issue for Australians. They want to see the government putting this front and center not just in one budget and not just as framing, but throughout all of the levers that they can pull and doing that for the you know the next several budget cycles to come. This is a problem you're in the making and is it going to be is it gonna be solved by one or two announcements?

SPEAKER_02 43:07

Fantastic summary. Thank you for that. Um, your reports, um, which again, as I said a few times now, will be attached to this podcast, sets out a bunch of different recommendations and actions, which I think are um they're certainly informed by all the research that you did, and a lot of them are very pragmatic. So let's hope that the governments uh they should, I'm convinced that they are already aware of the majority of them. But again, this is a very good document just to summarize so that they they they know what those actions are. They can never ever turn around and say we did not know what we needed to do to address the housing crisis. So thank you for summarizing a lot of that into your report. Um, I know we're running short of time. The the final question I had for you is really just how people can get involved with Amplify. If they've liked what you've heard, what you guys stand for, how can they get involved?

SPEAKER_00 43:52

So I guess there's a number of things. And I you know, I want to start by saying thanks for having me on and and for I think a really fantastic summary of what we're trying to inject into the debate. And your podcast does that. And I would encourage more platforms to do that, right? You don't just want to hear one perspective. You don't want to just hear the sort of headlines. You want to try and unpack it, hear from experts, but then also hear from community and try and make that sort of translation piece. And that's, I guess, where we fit in. If you go to our website, amplify.oz.org, you can sign up to become a member and get more information about our work. But more widely, I guess my my sort of wider pleat is this daily engagement in democracy, right? Is rather than just letting town halls and submissions just come from the noisy edges. I guess our wider mission is to get people back re-engaged in democracy in driving the change that they want to see. And so that also goes to them, right? I think all of us are in these echo chambers where it's much easier to surround yourself with people that think like you, or if you're at the dinner table, to avoid the hard conversations, which actually we don't agree on tax change or on you know immigration or on you know housing supply to have that conversation and to really understand where they're coming from. That's part of our broader mission. If that sounds like something you'd you're you're interested in, yeah, do head over to our website, um, sign up, and hopefully there'll be a bunch of events coming uh over the next six months that people can get involved in.

SPEAKER_02 45:25

Well, Rory, I know we're almost out of time for today, but thank you so much for making the time to come on the show. I know how busy you are. Um, please keep up the fantastic work. I love the energy that emanates out of your organization. Um I hope that people do enjoy reading your report. Uh, you did mention that you've got another one on density coming out soon. I will certainly keep an eye out for that one. I look forward to to seeing what those findings and what that research is because it is another very important topic that I think people need to be educated about. I think one of the major findings from today is really that when people truly understand what why these policy what these policies are, why they're being made, they are much more likely to accept them. There's fear of the unknown. If people don't know what it is, they automatically just go say no because they want to stay with what they know. When they actually are fully educated, it makes a huge difference. And so, uh, as I said, keep doing what you're doing. Um, I look forward to reading that report. Um, as to our listeners, please do reach out to Rory and the team if you're interested in learning more or supporting them. I think that their mission and their vision is a really, really great one. Um, so thank you again, Rory, for coming on the show. My pleasure. Thanks so much, Richard. Hi, everyone. I hope that you really enjoyed the episode with uh Rory. I certainly found it insightful. Uh, and particularly the stats that have been produced and are set out in the report that will be attached to this podcast, I think are very much enlightening. What I would encourage everyone to take away the three points um for their for their day and to think about are as follows. The first one that is very clear, and I've I've known it for a while, is people fear what they don't understand. I think the government needs to go on a much better journey or take people on a much better journey and educate them when there are policy changes, certainly policy changes as significant as some of those federal budget changes that have been announced. People need to be educated. They need to know what the pros and cons are, they need to know what the bigger picture is, they know really why these changes are being made and how it's going to impact them. The second point certainly is that perception is not necessary reality. All we do is open up the papers or media articles every single day, and the loudest voices in the room uh seem to be portrayed as representing a particular age group or housing class or political affiliation. Um, the stats in the report certainly show that's not the case. And I suppose that's the second, the second key finding is that perception is not necessarily reality. Um, and really we need to actually truly understand how a large segment of the voting base actually feels with uh a number of these changes that need to occur really to address the housing crisis. Finally, um, the third point that I would like everyone to just keep in mind is that I think with uh how the housing crisis uh is just getting bigger and bigger and it's not going away, but also how the voting base is changing, shifting from millennials, uh shifting to millennials and the younger generations and just really the awareness of what's going on. I can't help thinking that there's going to be more uh political and policy changes that come through um over the next decade. Um hopefully that does improve and help the housing market. But certainly I can't help thinking that some of the planning changes that have come through in Melbourne and Sydney, and then also at the federal level with the tax changes, there'll be more that come through. So please keep this in mind. I don't think anyone should really be surprised as this starts to continue to occur. The government is doing their best to actually listen to some of the voters or the voting base, and they need to do more of this. But it goes to my my first point about actually educating everyone. Anyway, those are my three key findings. I hope you have a good rest of the day. Thanks very much. Bye.

SPEAKER_01 49:31

Thank you very much for listening to this podcast. If you enjoyed the episode, please make sure to subscribe to our podcast so you never miss an episode as we've got more exciting content coming. We'd love to hear your thoughts. Please leave us a review on either Spotify or Apple Podcasts, as it really helps us to grow. Also, follow us on Instagram at Perspise Property for updates and join the conversation. If you'd like to get in touch with us, subscribe to our newsletter via our website, charterkc.com.au, or write to us at podcast at charterkc.com.au. Lastly, if you found this episode interesting, please share it with your friends and family. Thank you again for listening and stay tuned for our next episode dropping in two weeks' time, plus bonus content also on the horizon.

SPEAKER_03 50:18

Precisely Property is a podcast presented by Charterket Kramer and is for educational purposes only. Nothing in this podcast should be taken as investment or financial advice. Please engage the services of an appropriate professional advisor to provide advice suitable to your personal circumstances. The views expressed by our podcast guests may not represent those of Charterket Kramer.