Robert Pradolin, Executive Director | Housing All Australians
Australia’s housing crisis is becoming an economic emergency threatening business productivity nationwide. The 2025 Rental Affordability Index, released today by National Shelter, SGS Economics and Housing All Australians, confirms what business leaders already know: we cannot find staff because there’s nowhere affordable for them to live.
Hospitality workers in our major cities spend up to 42% of their income on rent. Teachers, nurses, and aged care workers face similar crises. These essential workers are commuting for hours, arriving exhausted, or leaving industries entirely. Businesses are reducing hours, relocating, or closing. When geography becomes the primary hiring constraint, not skills or wages, our economy starts to fail.
The rental affordability crisis is a core economic infrastructure failure. Research commissioned by Housing All Australians shows that for every dollar invested in affordable and social housing delivers over two dollars in productivity returns. A better return than for roads, hospitals, or schools. Yet housing remains excluded from our infrastructure planning.
In fairness, governments are responding to the crisis. The Commonwealth has moved housing into Treasury, reformed build-to-rent settings, and committed to renter protections. States are removing planning bottlenecks. These are necessary steps, but they address only part of the challenge.
In 2021, federal government actuaries calculated we need 44,500 social and affordable homes annually for twenty years. Current programmes aspire to deliver 11,000 every year for 5 years, leaving a 33,500-home annual gap. So it’s clear that governments cannot solve this alone. The private sector must engage through innovative financing, technology platforms, and direct workforce housing investment.
But here’s the critical challenge: this crisis took decades to develop and will take decades to fix.We need a national housing strategy with bipartisan commitment that transcends political cycles.
When housing policy becomes a political football, private investors cannot commit the long-term capital required. When each government abandons previous initiatives, we reset progress to zero every three years. This is economically catastrophic.
Business leaders must demand policy stability. We need both major parties to commit to consistent housing frameworks regardless of who holds power. Our employees, customers, and communities require housing certainty beyond electoral battles.
Australia’s productivity crisis and housing crisis are inseparable. Without stable, affordable housing for essential workers, every other economic reform is building on sand. The question for business is simple: will we demand the long-term political commitment required to fix this, or accept another lost decade?