Yeah, housing is messed up in Australia right now. I don't think it's fair to blame landlords though. This is primarily a supply problem.

There were state level legislative changes (in every state, but not all at the same time) around the year 2,000 which resulted in a significant drop in construction. It's estimated we now have 1.3 million fewer houses than we would have if the legislation hadn't changed.

Most of the changes were an attempt to encourage apartment construction and discourage house construction... but what actually happened is they discouraged house construction without any real change on the apartment side.