Housing crisis: more of the same in 2025?

To accelerate population growth via immigration (which is a deliberate policy decision, not an accident) at a time of housing shortages might seem reckless. But that's OK – he has a plan - an "ambitious" target of building 1.2 million more houses over five years. That equates to 240,000 new dwellings each year. We are currently delivering nowhere near that level and only got close, briefly, back in 2017 when a massive surge in apartment projects took supply to 223,600 new dwellings. Many have observed the legacy of this 2017 boom are many thousands of poorly designed shoebox apartments with no cross ventilation, balconies, or other design amenity but instead "riddled with flammable cladding, structural defects, and leaks." Remember Sydney's Opal Tower?

These two charts from the team at Macrobusiness succinctly describe why more pain most probably lies ahead. I wish I am proven woefully wrong, but I cannot see how either affordability will improve or the housing shortage turn to abundance without some very fundamental changes of policy direction – both of the demand and supply side. Are we even ready for that, or will the situation need to deteriorate even further before we are?