Every federal election, Australia engages in a tired ritual: a policy bidding war over who can offer the biggest incentive to first home buyers.

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It's politically safe, emotionally resonant, and has just enough economic rationale to pass muster in a headline.

But it's also a colossal distraction.

In the year to December 2024, 117,000 Australians bought their first home.

That figure matters - home ownership remains a genuine aspiration for many.

But consider this: in 2023-24, 280,000 people sought assistance from homelessness services.

Of those, 75,000 were seeking long-term housing and missed out.

In a country as wealthy as Australia, that should be a national scandal. Instead, it's barely part of the federal election conversation.

Why?

Because we've allowed housing policy to be reduced to a single metric: how quickly can we help someone buy a home?

Don't get me wrong - this is important. But we shouldn't kid ourselves that this is where housing policy begins and ends.

It completely ignores the broader reality: more than 30 per cent of Australian households rent, and hundreds of thousands are paying unaffordable rents, teetering on the edge of crisis.

The latest Productivity Commission data shows that 548,000 people receiving Commonwealth Rent Assistance are still paying more than 30 per cent of their income on rent.

That's nearly five times the number of people who bought a first home last year.

So where's the equivalent policy auction for........

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