Boomer, property speculation has been the name of the game in Australia (unfortunately) since I recall, in the early 80's. What is really need is a move to productive businesses that create genuine wealth by transforming raw materials into finished products and. This changes peoples mindsets away for speculation, Unfortunately Australia has two big problems regarding manufacturing, well 3 actually,
one :small population ( I was a furniture manufacturer in a much earlier time) I used to see the run sizes the US manufacturers would do and compare to ours.
two :distance , we had to haul raw materials long distances at reasonably low volumes causing increased freight rates, then ship finished product similarly.
three : high wage structure , this came to the fore as China and SEA came onto the export markets in the last 25 years or so. for right or wrong we were uncompetitive in high labour content manufacturing. This may change now with more automated manufacturing coming to the fore but we still need larger markets .
So real estate and housing construction kept many employed as long as it didn't get out of control.
