The national rental vacancy rate sits at 1.0%. A healthy market runs at 2.5% to 3.5%. Sydney's median house now costs $1.7 million. Melbourne sits just under a million. Adelaide is approaching it. The average Australian now spends 33.4% of their pre-tax income on rent — above the threshold that formally defines housing stress. At the 25th income percentile, that figure is 54.3%. More than half of everything earned before tax. Gone before the week begins.
New dwelling construction is falling a further 11% in 2026. It now takes twice as long to build a house as it did thirty years ago. The government's target was 1.2 million new homes by 2029. The current trajectory misses that by more than a year. The shortfall by 2030 is forecast at 380,000 dwellings — equivalent to building an entire Greater Cairns and then losing it, every single year, into a market that was already short.
Home ownership among young Australians has fallen from 61% in 1981 to approximately 40% today. The average deposit now required is $173,000. In New South Wales, it is $206,000. The average monthly mortgage repayment is $4,180 — before rates rise again, which they have.
The last time $42,200 covered a 20% deposit on the median Australian home was 2002. Today, $42,200 is the 5% deposit — and even that is now considered a win.
Canberra has noted the problem. Canberra has formed committees. Canberra has announced targets, funds, accords, and initiatives. Canberra has not fixed it.
We have reviewed the situation independently. What follows are our alternative proposals. They will not be adopted. They are, however, more creative than anything currently on the table — and in several cases, only marginally more absurd than the policies already in place.
More earners per mortgage. The maths work. The remote control doesn't. Two against one on every decision, one person doing all the dishes, someone's always cold when someone else is hot. And nobody — not one of the three adults in this arrangement — will put the bin out. The ATO would love it. The participants probably wouldn't.
The government mandates a return to the bunk bed — not just for kids, but as formal housing policy. Two-storey living within a single-storey bedroom. IKEA becomes a systemically important institution. The top bunk owner pays 40% less stamp duty. Falls are classified as a housing-related injury and covered by Medicare.
The elderly get the bottom bunk. Not out of sentimentality — out of logistics. Mobility issues, midnight bathroom runs, and what we will diplomatically refer to as mattress integrity concerns make the top bunk a non-starter. The retiree is comfortable, grounded, and directly below someone thirty years younger who has no idea what's coming. The young person on top pays less stamp duty, lies awake listening to the sounds of age, and begins to understand mortality in ways no university course prepared them for. The bottom bunk occupant sleeps soundly. They have seen things.
Instead of parking the elderly in outer suburbs, we move them into the CBD and push the young to the fringe. Retirees get the walkable neighbourhoods they already paid for — twice, in most cases, once through their taxes and once through negative gearing. Young people get the commute they were going to get anyway. Nothing changes except we stop pretending it's accidental.
You don't own a house. You own Tuesday-to-Friday. A rotating roster of Australians share every dwelling on a shift system, like a very uncomfortable Airbnb with no checkout cleaning. The wardrobe has a padlock. You never meet your housemates. The government calls it "flexible community housing." Your landlord calls it three separate leases.
We've been doing this wrong — shipping containers aren't the solution, cruise ships are. Dock six decommissioned cruise ships in Sydney Harbour, Melbourne's Yarra, and the Brisbane River. Instant waterfront apartments. Balconies included. The buffet never closes. Strata fees cover the captain. The body corporate meetings are held at sea, ensuring nobody attends and nothing gets decided, which is consistent with all previous body corporate meetings.
However, if port authorities refuse docking rights — and they will, because this is Australia and someone will object to the view — the ships don't go away. They regroup. What begins as a housing solution becomes a sovereign issue. An armada of decommissioned cruise ships, crewed by financially desperate Australians who just wanted a two-bedroom with a water view, slowly organising beyond the twelve nautical mile limit. International maritime law applies. Australian tax law does not. The body corporate is now a pirate council. The buffet is still open. Strata levies are collected by force. The jolly roger is a Bunnings snag on a white background. Australia's housing crisis has become Australia's navy problem.
Every year, 500 Australians compete in a nationally televised obstacle course. Winners get a house. Losers get a 30-year variable rate mortgage. Ratings would be extraordinary. Channel 9 pays for the whole program. The government claims it as both a housing initiative and a cultural one. Scott Morrison attempts to host. Nobody is surprised.
The show is called Negative Jeering. Filmed entirely in suburbs where the median house price recently crossed $1.2 million, contestants are cheered on by a studio audience of landlords, mortgage brokers, and a panel of economists who have never rented in their lives. The obstacle course includes: reading a lease agreement in under four minutes, arguing a bond refund with a property manager who has already spent it, and the final round — making an offer $80,000 above asking price while maintaining eye contact and not visibly crying. The winner gets a house. The runner up gets a tote bag and a pamphlet about the First Home Owner Grant, which they don't qualify for.
Sponsored by the Reserve Bank of Australia. "We're doing what we can."
A federal tax offset of $8,000 per year for any household that absorbs a parent or in-law into the dwelling. Uptake expected to be low. Side effects include unsolicited opinions on your cooking, your parenting, your career choices, and what time you go to bed. Also critical advice on all of your life's activity, delivered without invitation, from someone who has never used the internet but is very confident about everything on it. And the opener that ends all conversation: "When I was your age..." The $8,000 doesn't cover therapy. That's extra.
Any property on the market more than 18 months due to a reputational event — murder, haunting, aggressive mould, or a famous divorce — receives a 60% government subsidy to first home buyers. The buyer gets a house. The neighbourhood gets a conversation starter. The real estate agent describes it as "characterful," "full of history," and "priced to move," which is technically all true and legally defensible.
The property listing will note "original features throughout," which refers to the wallpaper, the carpets, and something in the ceiling that the building inspector has agreed not to put in writing. Section 32 disclosure requirements have been updated to include a new checkbox: "Has anything happened here that would affect a reasonable person's willingness to sleep?" Vendors are not required to tick it. They just have to not make eye contact when they hand it over.
Open for inspection is Saturday, 10am to 10:05am. The agent will wait outside. Offers above $385,000 considered. Vendor says all reasonable offers will be given serious consideration, which they will, because the vendor has not slept properly in fourteen months and just wants it gone.
The government partners with every monastery, convent, and religious order in Australia. Single Australians can apply for a cell, a meal plan, and spiritual guidance in exchange for four hours of labour per day. No rent. No Netflix. No talking after 9pm. Celibacy optional but recommended given the roommate situation. Compared to a one-bedroom in Sydney at $1,020 a week, God is starting to look very affordable.
The World Economic Forum told you this was coming. "You will own nothing and be happy." They just didn't mention the robes, the 4am bell, or the fact that your cell has no Wi-Fi and Brother Gerald controls the thermostat. The Great Reset and the Great Retreat turn out to be the same policy dressed differently. Davos gets a smart city. You get a cot, a candle, and the quiet satisfaction of having no mortgage. Klaus Schwab didn't say you'd be happy about it. He just said you'd be happy.
If you genuinely believe the earth is flat, you qualify for a rural land grant in outback Australia, on the basis that you're probably happiest near the edge. Self-selection at scale. Population pressure on the coast eases immediately. Nobody loses except the people who were going to argue about it on Facebook anyway.
In the spirit of ideological consistency, all Flat Earth land grants will be located on the Hay Plain — 72,000 square kilometres of southwestern New South Wales that is, by any measurable standard, the flattest place on the continent. You can see for kilometres in every direction and the horizon goes on forever, which will either confirm everything you believe or raise questions you're not ready for. The government will not be providing answers. Or bitumen. There is one pub in Hay. It does not want to hear about it.
Every proposal on this page is absurd. That is the point. The joke only works because the reality is more broken than anything we invented. We did not conjure a generation locked out of home ownership — that happened. We did not fabricate a rental vacancy rate at 1.0% while a balanced market requires 2.5% — that is the number. We did not invent a 380,000-dwelling shortfall projected to deepen every year through 2030 — that is in the government's own reports, produced by its own supply council, citing its own data.
The satire is not the story. The satire is what happens when the story has been ignored long enough that absurdism is the only register left that feels proportionate.
Canberra has noted the problem. Canberra has formed committees. The pirate council, at least, has a plan.
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Sources: BDO Australian Housing Landscape March 2026 · MacroBusiness Rental Crisis Analysis May 2026 · UDIA State of the Land 2026 · National Housing Supply and Affordability Council State of the Housing System 2026 · Fenro Australia Housing Affordability 2026 · Cotality / CoreLogic Dwelling Value Data May 2026 · ANZ CoreLogic Housing Affordability Report · Money.com.au Home Loan Statistics 2026 · Search Property Housing Crisis Data 2026 · Prime Minister of Australia — First Home Guarantee announcement · Australian Institute of Health and Welfare Home Ownership and Housing Tenure. All factual claims sourced from publicly available, verified primary or institutional sources. The satirical proposals are original to Shiny Side Out. No policy recommendations are implied. This is satire. This is also, unfortunately, grounded in fact.
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