“Australia is the small house,” the architect Robin Boyd reflected in his book Australia’s Home in 1952. “Ownership of one in a fenced allotment is as inevitable and unquestionable a goal of the average Australian as marriage”.

Yet when Robert Menzies retired as prime minister in 1966, the rapid rise of home ownership was barely mentioned in the press as part of his legacy. This is despite the fact that during his lengthy prime ministership (December 1949 – January 1966), home ownership expanded from about half of all homes to more than seven in ten. The rest were a mix of private and government rentals.

The policy changes introduced under Menzies transformed Australia’s social and cultural attitudes towards housing. They left behind a legacy that’s still legible now, for better and for worse.

Politics and policy share a love-hate relationship, but we can’t have one without the other. In this six-part series, we’re chronicling how policies have shaped Australia’s prime ministers, for better or worse, and what it means for how politicians tackle today’s big challenges.

‘Homes material, homes human and homes spiritual’

The question of how to accommodate Australians had featured with increasing prominence in policy debate between the wars. Homelessness had been a feature of the Depression. Social reformers had campaigned for slum abolition and better workers’ housing. State governments began establishing agencies devoted to building public housing in the 1930s.

Home-building was limited during the Depression era and non-existent during the war. By 1945, the desire of many couples to commence normal married life after years of delay and the initiation of a large immigration program........

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