What would it take to house a nation?

Speaker 00:00

[upbeat music] ABC Listen: podcasts, radio, news, music, and more.

Peter Martin· Host0:06

Australia's always been the lucky country: sunshine, beaches, and that one magpie that always seems to know where you live.

Speaker 20:13

[magpie singing] Yeah, get away from my chip, please. [magpie singing] Luck might not cut it anymore.

Peter Martin· Host0:17

So can we make our own luck and turn this complicated world to our advantage?

Speaker 20:23

[upbeat music] That's our Global Roaming summer season. Can Australia surf the world's chaos without wiping out?

Peter Martin· Host0:30

Fresh new episodes all summer. Search for Global Roaming on the ABC Listen app or wherever you get your podcasts. There used to be two truths about Australia. One was that, for most Australians, life was getting better. It was becoming easier to get the things we wanted. The other was an unspoken compact, that each generation would be better off than the one before it. Neither seems to be the case anymore, unless you're well off or your family is well off because it bought a home when homes were affordable. How did homes, of all things, suddenly become so out of reach in a country with enviable amounts of land that once boasted one of the highest rates of home ownership on Earth? Is this the sort of Australia we'd choose if we could choose our own Australia? And how on earth did we get here?