New figures showing Australia has 200,000 more empty homes than it had 10 years ago has prompted calls for government action to rein back the surge in unoccupied housing.

The statistics from the 2016 census highlighted empty property numbers up by 19 per cent in Melbourne and 15 per cent in Sydney over the past five years.

Looking at the national picture, figures from the Australian Bureau of Statistics show up to 11.2percent of properties are now occupied - a rise from 9.8percent in 2006.

Over two decades Australia has seen an increase of 2.1 million homes to its housing stock, but an extra 360,000 are left unoccupied. Every year 150,000 new homes are built.

Sydney-based urban affairs expert Hal Pawson has described the statistics as "pretty stark".

"There has been a massive under occupation across Australia. These figures are pretty stark, particularly for Sydney and Melbourne, " Professor Pawson, of the University of New South Wales, told nine.com.au.

Every year 150,000 new homes are built in Australia but they are not enough to meet the shortfall.

Prof Pawson said separate data also revealed there were up to a million homes with three or more extra bedrooms than the owner required.

On tackling the national housing shortage, he said government focus has been misdirected toward only creating new housing supply.

"It's not just about supply and demand or limiting foreign investors. Neither is the current narrative about changing planning laws going to really address the problem in the long term," he said.

He said the government should consider how they can more efficiently utilise existing properties and offer a financial incentive for property owners to better use their assets.

Prof Pawson said the Victorian government's introduction of a tax on investors with properties that empty for more than six months as a time was a decent start to solving the problem, but many properties would be exempted.