The Liberal Party is terrified of taking serious steps to tackle housing affordability, fearful that its political fortunes are tied up in billions in home equity across blue chip electorates built up over the past 30 years. However, bold reform could create a long lasting electoral majority for the Coalition as it did for Menzies half a century ago.

Fewer Australians are owning their own home and house prices surged 70 per cent in the last five years. There is huge political opportunity in providing the aspirational young people of our country with a pathway to homeownership. However, neither major political party is taking the necessary action.

Rewind several decades and a central theme of Sir Robert Menzies' Forgotten People speeches was the notion that home ownership was essential for the safety and stability of not only individuals and families but for society as a whole. Home ownership was seen as a key marker of a prosperous middle-class Australia.

The Menzies government delivered on that conviction, increasing home-ownership rates from 50 per cent in 1949 to 71 per cent in 1966. Aspirational Australians, including hundreds of thousands of immigrants, were able to purchase and live in homes across the country.