Treasurer Jim Chalmers is the first in decades to declare war on what he calls the “pain of rising rents”.
His first budget, in October, and his second, this month, contained a suite of measures designed to stop rents going “through the roof”. By far the biggest of those – the blockbuster – was a A$10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund to finance social and affordable housing.
If you think the idea of building a fund rather than building houses sounds odd, you probably think the same way about the Medical Research Future Fund, the Future Drought Fund, the Disaster Ready Fund or the $250 billion Future Fund itself, which was set up to pay public service and defence pensions.
