With the median Sydney house price eclipsing $1 million and our major cities regularly ranked among the least affordable in the world in which to buy a home, you might think Australia has a housing affordability problem.
But not the Turnbull government's 20-month inquiry into home ownership.
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A Coalition-dominated parliamentary committee handed down a report on home ownership on Friday which - in a rare departure from the norm - failed to make any recommendations to the government for reform.
The committee, chaired by Liberal MP David Coleman, concluded there was no structural problem with housing affordability.
"The committee notes that rates of home ownership and investment in housing have remained broadly steady for many decades and that the current price cycle in the housing market across the nation overall is not inconsistent with historical trends," the report said.
That verdict was ridiculed by Grattan Institute chief executive John Daley. "They cannot be serious," he said. "It's laughable. There's clearly a housing affordability problem for younger households."
Mr Daley provided housing data showing home ownership rates for people under 55 and low-income Australians were "falling like a stone".
But the government's report flatly rejected a push to change negative gearing or capital gains tax arrangements. It urged boosting housing supply but said that remained a matter for the states and, therefore, did not make recommendations.
Mr Coleman said the key findings of his report were that the housing market was weak in many parts of Australia; that supply should be boosted in appropriate markets; and that regulators had already exercised their power to rein in borrowing by property investors.
"We're certainly not recommending the tax increases that Labor and the Greens are proposing," he told Fairfax Media. "The committee's report finds that supply issues are critical to the issue of home ownership and we do not believe that higher taxes are the solution."
Labor MPs in their dissenting report slammed the findings as a "remarkable document" and the inquiry as a waste of taxpayers' money. "It should be entitled The Claytons Report - the report you have when you are not having a report," they wrote.
Greens MP Adam Bandt said reading the government members' conclusions was "like being transported into a parallel universe".
The home ownership inquiry has a long and tortured history. It was commissioned by Joe Hockey in April 2015 under former chairman John Alexander, but stalled until the July election. Treasurer Scott Morrison later directed it to complete its report under then-chairman Mr Coleman.
Mr Alexander, who wanted to seize back control of the inquiry, has outlined his own radical recipe for making homes more affordable: allowing genuine homebuyers to pump their superannuation into paying off the principal of their home loan.
The committee said that proposal would have to be "considered very carefully" to protect retirement incomes.
Despite briefly complaining about negative gearing "excesses" early in the year, the Turnbull government has refused to countenance reforms to tax incentives for investors. Labor went to the election promising to abolish negative gearing except for new homes, but lost.
with Peter Martin
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