Australia’s housing debate has taken a strange turn.
In recent months, we’ve seen a growing narrative that pits older Australians against younger ones. The story goes that older people are sitting on vast housing wealth, while younger people are locked out. It may be a neat frame, but it misses the bigger picture.
While some older Australians are doing very well, many are not. And when it comes to housing, a growing number are being left behind entirely. Anglicare Australia’s latest Rental Affordability Snapshot shows just how stark this divide has become. Across nearly 49,000 rental listings, a single person on the Age Pension can afford just 0.2 per cent of properties. For couples, it’s 0.7 per cent.
Even those numbers overstate the options. Many of the properties counted as “affordable” are rooms in share houses. That might work for a university student, but it is not a realistic or dignified option for someone in their seventies.
We are asking older Australians to compete for housing that doesn’t meet their needs, at a time in their lives when stability matters most.
Kasy Chambers (Anglicare Australia)
For decades, Australia’s retirement system has been built on a simple assumption: that people own their home outright by the time they retire. That assumption is no longer holding.
More Australians are entering retirement as renters. Many have limited superannuation and rely primarily on the Age Pension. They are not wealthy. They are not insulated from rising rents. And they are not well served by a housing system that increasingly treats homes as assets first, and places to live second.
This is where the generational framing starts to fall apart. The real divide in Australia’s housing system is not between young and old. It is between those with wealth and those without it. It is between those who were lucky enough to get into the property market at the right time, and those who missed out.
If you own property, particularly more than one, you are likely to benefit from rising prices, tax concessions, and a system that rewards capital growth. If you don’t, you are left competing in a market where rents have raced ahead of incomes.
That divide cuts across generations. It includes younger renters trying to get a foothold, and older Australians trying to hold on. And yet, too often, older renters are missing from the conversation. We hear a lot about first home buyers. We hear a lot about unlocking supply. We hear a lot about helping people into the market. But we hear very little about the people who will never get there, and who still need a secure place to live.
The consequences are serious. Housing insecurity makes it harder to stay healthy, to access care, and to remain connected to community. It pushes people into crisis, and in some cases into aged care earlier than they need to be there.
We can do better than this, and we know how.
A big part of the problem lies in the way governments have structured incentives in the housing system. For years, governments have poured billions into tax breaks for property investors. Negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount make it cheaper to hold property and more profitable to benefit from rising prices.
These settings shape the entire market. They encourage speculation over stability. They reward capital growth over rental affordability. And they tilt the system towards people who already have assets, rather than those who need a home.
Winding back these tax breaks would be a meaningful step towards a fairer system. It would start to rebalance the market and reduce the incentives that have driven prices and rents higher over time.
But reform doesn’t stop there. What matters just as much is what we do with the savings.
(iStock.com/ridvan_celik)
If we take the billions currently spent on investor tax breaks and invest them in public and community housing, we can start to build homes that are actually affordable to people on low incomes, including older Australians.
This is the kind of change that would make a real difference. It would give people options outside the private market. It would provide stability in retirement. And it would reduce pressure on the system as a whole.
The housing crisis is often talked about as a problem for the next generation. But for many older Australians, it is a crisis right now. They are not the winners of this system. They are among those it is leaving behind.
If we want a housing system that works for everyone, we need to stop treating this as a generational battle and start addressing the real issue.
This is not about age. It’s about wealth, privilege, and access. It’s time our public debate reflected that.
Kasy Chambers is the Executive Director of Anglicare Australia, a network of charities linked to the Anglican Church of Australia.
Find more opinion articles here – and if you have an opinion to share on something topical in aged care, get in touch at editorial@australianageingagenda.com.au
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