“We might eventually see caps on rents introduced by Labor in NSW — the sky hasn’t fallen in in places like the ACT where they’ve been around for a while,” a NSW government backbencher muses.

The Minns government’s embarking on the most comprehensive reforms of the state’s planning laws in a generation prompts the question: in the midst of a worsening housing crisis, will they be enough?

Sydney’s longstanding affordability problem has mutated since the pandemic. Supply shortages, successive interest rate hikes and migration-fuelled demand have caused rents to soar over the past two years, exacerbating housing stress and carving into usually comfortable middle-class households.

In 2023 alone, Sydney’s median house rent increased by $80 to $730. Unit rents have spiked from $510 in December 2019 to $680 today – an increase of one-third. A poll by the nonpartisan charity Susan McKinnon Foundation of 3000 respondents in late 2023 found cost of living was the most pressing issue for 80 per cent of gen Zs and 78 per cent of renters.

Millennials and gen Zs will determine the next elections, according to Kos Samaras, RedBridge Group director and former Victorian Labor deputy campaign director. As these cohorts are priced out of the housing market, renting – for the first time – will become a tier-one issue for voters.

“Renting will be the defining issue at the next state election,” Samaras predicts.

Citing three groups in Sydney – those who own outright, those with a mortgage and renters – he says renters are the biggest, “and growing, and overwhelming among people under the age of 45”.

As the Minns government embarks on ambitious housing reforms, The Sun-Herald canvassed Liberal, Labor and Greens frontbenchers, MPs and party insiders to understand the electoral dynamics of the city-shaping policies.

With younger voters at the forefront of his calculation, the premier has made housing supply his government’s flagship issue. Planning law reforms aim to fuel anaemic dwelling construction, putting downward pressure on property and rental prices in the medium-to-long term.