Progress on housing policy has been patchy, in part because there’s no national plan guiding efforts to address homelessness. A bill currently in front of parliament could fix this.

The government has made housing a federal policy priority after a decade of neglect. But the scale of the housing crisis means its actions to date are just a start – much more must be done.

Applying the logic of JobKeeper to create a HomeKeeper program could save a lot of working-class mortgagees from losing their homes.

An ageing population is caught in a perfect storm of rising house prices and rents, falling home ownership rates, mortgage debt carried into retirement, insecure rentals and a lack of social housing.