"Renting like a peasant or owning something and having something to leave your children when you kick the bucket?"
As you say, no one has lost money in Australian property over the long term.
I doubt many of the Bears that post here, however, have children and/or think long term about anything in their lives.
And before you start blabbering like a 5 year old baboon about shares: I've been trading shares for over 20 years. Through the dotcom crash in 2000 and the GFC—and thus far I'm very well ahead overall. i.e. 6K/week 30k/month short term trading PB's.
With that said, like most comparatively successful, long term investors, property is the core of my wealth and enables me to borrow at low rates to trade/invest in shares.