Australians love a good debate. From the cricket pitch at the SCG to the family barbie in the suburbs of Brisbane, opinions get tossed around as casually as a meat pie at the footy. Political views in this country are often inherited, handed down like a battered Vegemite jar no one remembers buying. For me, the issue of housing affordability was one of those topics where I had a tidy, confident position for years. I believed the market would sort itself out if governments simply stopped interfering.
Then I spent a weekend in western Sydney talking to renters in Fairfield and Parramatta, and my position began to unravel. I watched young couples with full-time jobs paying sixty percent of their income for a two-bedroom unit. I spoke to tradies commuting two hours from Campbelltown because nothing closer was affordable. The data I had absorbed did not match the lived reality unfolding on the ground. That gap between theory and observation is often where genuine reconsideration begins.
Changing your mind is treated like losing a fight. In our political culture, especially online, holding the same position loudly for years reads as strength. Quietly updating a view, by contrast, is treated as weakness or worse, as evidence of being a flip-flopper. I disagree. The willingness to revise an opinion when new information arrives is one of the most underrated virtues in a healthy democracy. Especially in Australia, where compulsory voting means everyone has skin in the game, we should reward honesty over posturing.
This piece is not a confession or a victory lap. It is an account of how I shifted on one specific issue, what triggered the change, and what I have learned about the broader practice of revising a view in a country that often punishes it. If you have ever felt the discomfort of realising your old stance no longer holds, you are in good company.
For the best part of a decade I described myself as a small-government type when it came to housing. The argument felt clean. Build more supply, cut red tape, reduce zoning restrictions, and let the private sector do what it does best. Councils like the Inner West or the City of Sydney, I thought, were the villains, strangling development with heritage overlays and endless community consultations. I quoted Henry Hazlitt at people who pushed back. I nodded along whenever someone said the market would fix things if left alone.
The position had a respectable pedigree. It also had a comforting side effect. Believing the market would sort it out meant I did not have to think too carefully about who was being left behind. Young renters in Marrickville, essential workers in Footscray, single parents on the Central Coast all became abstract figures in an equation I was confident would resolve itself. I told myself the disruption was temporary, a short-run cost on the way to a long-run gain. That framing made the human cost easier to ignore.
The other appeal was identity. In my circle, holding firm on supply-side solutions marked you as sensible and pro-growth. Questioning the orthodoxy risked the label of naive, or worse, of being sympathetic to NIMBYs. I am embarrassed to admit how much that social pressure kept me in line. Belonging to a tribe, even a thoughtful one, has a way of hardening soft convictions into rigid ones.
Three things unsettled me in roughly equal measure. The first was the sheer scale of the price-to-income gap in cities like Sydney and Melbourne. The numbers stopped being a graph and became a story when a friend in Adelaide told me she had moved back in with her parents at thirty-two to save a deposit. She had a degree, a stable job in healthcare, and no luxury spending habits. The maths did not work.
The second was conversation with planners and builders. Some told me privately that even fast approvals do not produce the housing most needed. Developers build what makes financial sense, often luxury apartments in places like Barangaroo or high-end townhouses in inner Brisbane. Left alone, the market builds for the top of the distribution, not the middle.
The third was reading work by Australian economists and demographers who pointed out that supply alone, while necessary, is not sufficient. Without investment in social and affordable housing, without reforming negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount, the gap between demand and supply keeps widening. I had treated these as separate debates. They are not. Recognising that was the moment my view shifted from confidence to curiosity, and curiosity is where any honest change of mind begins.
I now believe that increasing supply is necessary but not sufficient to fix the housing crisis. The state has a legitimate and urgent role in directly funding and building social and affordable housing, particularly in growth corridors around Perth, south-east Queensland, and regional centres like Geelong and Newcastle. I also think tax settings around investment property need reform, even if that means accepting short-term pain in the market.
This is a less elegant position, not the sort of view that earns easy applause at a dinner party. But it has one virtue I value more than I used to. It matches the evidence, and it leaves room for nuance, including recognising that not every intervention is wise and that poorly designed public housing projects should not be used as a blanket argument against future investment.
Holding a more complicated view has been quietly liberating. I no longer have to perform certainty for an audience that mostly wants validation. I have had conversations with people I would previously have written off, including Liberal, Greens, and Labor members in my electorate, and the discussions have been far more productive since I stopped trying to win them.
Shifting your stance publicly is nerve-wracking, especially in an era where screenshots live forever. A few habits have helped me do it with less self-inflicted damage. First, I focus on the reasoning, not just the conclusion. People are more forgiving of a changed mind when you show your work, when you explain what new evidence or experience pushed you in a new direction. Saying "I was wrong" is less useful than "here is what changed".
Second, I avoid the saviour complex in reverse. There is no need to over-perform remorse or treat the old position as something only a fool would have held. Most reasonable people held it, including many I still respect. Treating your past self with a bit of humour keeps the conversation human. Third, I do not pretend the change is total. Almost no political view flips cleanly. Mine evolved in steps, and being honest about that is more persuasive than a dramatic about-face.
Finally, I have stopped changing my mind to please an audience. The internet rewards performance, and revising your views publicly can be a performance in itself, a way to seem humble and win approval. Real reconsideration is private, slow, and uncomfortable. The public version, when it comes, should be a translation of work already done.
Australians have a healthy scepticism of politicians who flip positions, and that scepticism is not misplaced. There are genuine flip-floppers who change with the prevailing wind. But there is a worse problem we under-discuss, which is the politician, the commentator, or the voter who refuses to update a view no matter what the evidence shows. In a country facing long-term challenges around climate, housing, energy, and the cost of living, that rigidity is a luxury we cannot afford.
The Voice referendum, the nuclear debate, and the conversation around supermarket pricing are all areas where I have seen intelligent friends entrench themselves on positions that do not survive a serious look at the data. I have done it myself. The remedy is not to swing wildly with every poll, but to build a personal culture where updating is permitted, even welcomed.
| Aspect | My old stance | My current stance |
|---|---|---|
| Role of government | Minimise interference, let the market clear | Direct investment in social and affordable housing |
| Supply and demand | Supply alone will resolve the crisis | Necessary but not sufficient on its own |
| Tax settings | Leave negative gearing and CGT discounts alone | Reform both as part of the solution |
| Time horizon | Focus on long-run market equilibrium | Balance long-run supply with short-run affordability |
| Who is centred | Homeowners and investors | Renters and first-home buyers as well |
Suggestions for anyone considering a public shift on a political view
If any of this resonates, I would love to hear from you. NexxtLevelUp is a place for honest conversation about the messy business of being a thinking person in a complicated country. If you have a story, a pitch, or a strong disagreement, the contact page is the best way to reach me. I read everything and try to reply to most of it. I am particularly keen to hear from readers in places I have not yet visited, like Hobart, Cairns, or Broome. The conversation is better when more voices are in it.