Australia's PM Says Sprawl Is The Price For Cheap Housing

"In the face of rising interest rates, the Government is trying to shifting the blame for a dearth of affordable housing to the states, saying a shortage of land, not interest rates, is the problem.

Mr. Howard today repeated his message that if the states released more land, housing would not be so expensive.

'People argue ... that housing is less affordable now than it was previously. Why? It's not because of interest rates. Interest rates are half of what they were 20 years ago,' he told ABC radio.

"Now why is it less affordable? Because the cost of land has gone up. Why has the cost of the land gone up? Because too little land is released."

Mr Howard said the states should release more land, which would bring down the total cost of building a home.

He accused state governments of using housing development as a revenue raiser, charging home buyers for the cost of providing services historically provided by local and state governments.

Mr Howard said urban sprawl, which in many Australian capitals already exceeded more than 100km, may be a price the nation had to pay to solve the problem of unaffordable housing."