The housing debate has devolved into government overreach and ideological posturing, with policies mismatched to Australian values. Prioritising urban density and renewable energy projects that consume vast tracts of land is a green-left idea that dominates Labor-Greens governments in Australia.

Detached family homes have defined the nation’s way of life since the post-war boom.

When you have room to breathe, you have room to think, but when you are crammed into future slums, you vote Labor-Greens.

This mismatch in values and policy is evident and insidiously promoted in the state-owned media’s coverage.

The ABC’s latest article on the ‘YIMBY vs NIMBY battle’ exemplifies taxpayer-funded propaganda that distorts the conversation, favours big-government solutions, and undermines free-market principles essential to solving our housing woes.

The Yes In My Backyard movement is lobbying for denser cities and more housing in places people want to work and live and YIMBYs want these homes built yesterday. But the NIMBYs haven’t given up yet. https://t.co/Hzbir8cOYN

— ABC News (@abcnews) July 12, 2025

State-owned media like the ABC has no place in a modern, democratic Australia.

Australians have always aspired to modest, detached homes on quarter-acre blocks where families can thrive in self-reliance. This cultural preference is a living value that policies must respect. Yet our current housing policy is mismatched. Labor’s inner-city focus on high-density apartments ignores regional needs and infrastructure backlogs, while both major parties offer vague promises without blueprints.

The Greens promote rent freezes, public housing expansions, and attacks on negative gearing. Negative gearing is a stupid term for simply claiming legitimate expenses against taxable income. You effectively spend a dollar to save 50 cents, but Labor and the Greens make out that it is the reason nobody can afford housing.

The reality is that Labor-Greens policies erode property rights and lean toward socialism.

Removing incentives for private investment deters building, leaving governments to fail, as seen with Labor’s $10 billion housing fund yielding zero new dwellings after two years. True solutions involve deregulation, infrastructure investment to unlock greenfield sites, and market-driven supply increases that honour preferences for spacious, owner-occupied homes over crammed urban flats.

The ABC’s propaganda arm frames the issue dramatically as a ‘battle’ invading ‘your backyard’. It pits pro-development YIMBYs against preservationist NIMBYs in the housing crisis. Superficially balanced, it quotes both sides: YIMBYs urging ‘build up, not out’ for affordability, and NIMBYs concerned over ruined ‘quiet streets’ and property values. It references government policies like zoning reforms and developer incentives to boost supply.

However, the propaganda emerges in the skewed language emphasising the ‘crisis’, subtly endorsing YIMBY calls for rapid, government-orchestrated densification. The high-rise, inner-city model promoted by the left is antithetical to Australian culture. NIMBY concerns, rooted in protecting family-oriented suburbs, appear obstructive and self-interested, while YIMBY advocacy seems progressive and altruistic. This narrative aligns with left-leaning ideologies favouring state intervention over individual freedom.

Further, there is no mention of how immigration is driving the housing crisis.

Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan recently bragged about gifting a brand new two-bedroom apartment in Melbourne as social housing. The apartment was provided by a taxpayer-funded non-profit organisation.

We're delivering more social homes in Pascoe Vale.

For residents like Hulya, it means a place to call home close to her family, services and public transport. pic.twitter.com/eeCpsvxJA4

— Jacinta Allan (@JacintaAllanMP) July 9, 2025

Victoria reportedly has larger numbers of people living in housing stress than NSW or Queensland, but it has also accepted record numbers of immigrants.

Meanwhile, generational Australians are doing it tough. A local mate of mine is living rough with the constant threat of the council removing him from his dwelling. Within sight of the flag on Parliament House in Canberra, a working man is living under an annex off his ute, just off a main road.

I doubt either of them could afford an inner-city high-density apartment and I doubt they’d like to be cooped up in one provided by the government. But with immigration out of control to provide a ready voting base for left-wing governments, the socialist ideal is close to killing any sense of the self-reliance Australians once prided themselves on.

The ABC has no time for such people who fund their very existence.

This is because the ABC, funded by over $1 billion in taxpayer dollars annually, lacks accountability to market forces or diverse viewpoints, making it a state apparatus prone to bias. The ABC’s framing of housing policy overlooks how unchecked immigration leads to unchecked densification.

In fact, supporting densification is newspeak for supporting immigration.

The ABC’s ideal erodes our cultural values of self-reliance, space for families, and ownership over renting in government-planned hives. It amplifies policies like zoning changes that empower bureaucrats, without scrutinising failures such as Labor’s undelivered homes or the Greens’ inflationary rent caps.

Such approaches fail to solve affordability, instead inflating costs and diminishing aspirations. The ABC’s selective lens uses emotive language (‘battle’, ‘crisis’) to manufacture consent for more government control, sidelining free-market alternatives like deregulating land use in preferred regions.

State-owned media inherently serves the establishment, echoing progressive interventionism that clashes with conservative, market-oriented views. In housing, it promotes urban consolidation as the solution, despite its mismatch with the culture of detached homes and regional growth.

Australians deserve a media landscape driven by competition, not compulsion. Privatising the ABC, or defunding its news arm, would allow independent voices to flourish. Otherwise, the state-owned media will continue to distort debates, prop up failed policies, and encourage young people to think socialism works. It never has and it never will.

In a free society, propaganda has no subsidy. State-owned media has no place. Ending the ABC’s influence would enable a housing policy debate that reflects Australian identity and not the identity politics of the state-owned media.

Dr Michael de Percy @FlaneurPolitiq is the Spectator Australia’s Canberra Press Gallery Correspondent. If you would like to support his writing, or read more of Michael, please visit his website.