Michael West Media · AAP · Wednesday 25 March 2026
Rising interest rates and cost-of-living pressures are hammering renters, but the deeper problem is a tax and policy architecture that treats housing as an investment vehicle rather than shelter.
The headline says landlords are squeezing a tight market. That's like saying gravity is squeezing a man off a cliff — technically accurate, cosmically beside the point. We built a tax system that treats shelter as a speculative asset class, then act surprised when the speculators behave like speculators. Negative gearing didn't create a housing market — it created a casino where renters pay the cover charge and never get to play.