Crawford School of Public Policy

In the final instalment in our series on housing, Executive Director of Anglicare Australia Kasy Chambers joins us to discuss the dire state of housing affordability and how policymakers can turn things around.

Housing affordability, particularly in Australia’s private rental market, is an issue of major concern for people on low incomes. According to Anglicare’s annual Rental Affordability Snapshot, less than 10 rentals across the entire country were affordable for a single person looking for work on the JobSeeker payment on a weekend in March 2022. So what can policymakers do to turn this crisis around? What impact does the current policy framework, which incentivises wealth generation over welfare in the housing market, have on affordability? And will the government’s new National Housing Accord make a difference? On this episode of Policy Forum Pod, Executive Director of Anglicare Australia Kasy Chambers joins Professor Sharon Bessell and Dr Arnagretta Hunter to discuss how to improve housing affordability in Australia. Listen here.

Kasy Chambers is Executive Director of Anglicare Australia – a network of 45 agencies, 38,000 staff and volunteers, working with over 502,000 clients annually across Australia.

Sharon Bessell is Professor of Public Policy and Director of both the Children’s Policy Centre and the Poverty and Inequality Research Centre at ANU Crawford School of Public Policy.

Arnagretta Hunter is the Human Futures Fellow at ANU College of Health and Medicine, a cardiologist, physician, and Senior Clinical Lecturer at ANU Medical School.

Show notes | The following were mentioned during this episode:

Rental Affordability Snapshot: April 2022, Anglicare Australia (2022)

Ageing in Place: Home and Housing for Australia’s Older Renters, Anglicare Australia (2022)

Homes for All: A Roadmap to Affordable Housing, Anglicare Australia (2022)

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