Labor's inaction on housing could cripple the government

Public healthcare, the welfare system, and protections for workers are pillars of fairness in Australia.

They also stand as testament to transformative policies Labor hasn't been afraid to champion.

Addressing the big intergenerational issues requires big picture thinking.

Paul Keating had a typically memorable way of explaining this, when he spoke about his political methodology to Kerry O'Brien: ''What I love about the Road Runner is he runs that fast, he burns up the road behind him; there's no road left for the others."

Yet today, when it comes to fixing the housing crisis - one of the biggest issues of our time - Labor risks being left in the dust.

Last week, the Greens unveiled a plan for the federal government to develop 610,000 homes over the decade for Australians to rent and buy, below market rates.

Full disclosure - I once worked as a Greens staffer. My subsequent life as a community sector advocate left me wholly convinced no political party has a monopoly on good policy.

However, Labor's summary dismissal of this idea, with its accompanying call to scrap negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount was, to say the least, dispiriting.

Because ideas like this really are worth considering. When one of the world's wealthiest nations is subjecting its people to a Darwinian struggle for housing, all ideas should be up for debate.

In fact, a policy such as this fits comfortably in the Labor canon. In a post-war recovery effort, the Curtin-Chifley governments built the public housing system from the ground up.

Almost 100,000 public homes were constructed within a decade. These homes were provided to returning servicemen and working families on low and middle incomes, driving affordability across the housing market.

This foundation was built upon by state and federal Labor governments, albeit with varying degrees of ambition and commitment. But now, we face the consequence of lost decades where the Commonwealth has all but withdrawn from providing affordable housing. Social housing has declined to around 4 per cent of the overall housing stock.

We are left with a perverse situation where the government is spending record amounts subsidising the private market, including through investor tax handouts, yet housing has never been less affordable.

Which is why the federal government has to get back into the business of providing many more homes that are genuinely affordable for Australians. This is not radical or risky. It is actually a reversion to the historic norm.

Australia has a gaping shortfall of 640,000 social homes - and that's set to balloon to 1 million in less than two decades. That's just for low-income households. There are many other renters, including essential workers, who are priced out of their communities as they struggle to find an affordable home to rent but don't qualify for social housing. Increased investments in social housing has a ripple effect on the rest of the rental market, leading to greater availability of homes.

Labor must consider its legacy on housing before this crisis gets worse, because on present policy, the government is failing to help vast swathes of middle Australia with the most basic of needs: a roof over their heads.