Housing shortage and affordability affect regional communities differently to cities. Workers can’t arrive because there’s nowhere to live. Young people can’t stay because they can’t afford to. People facing housing insecurity have fewer options and less support. And properties withdrawn into short term rental markets reduce the stock available to residents.

The levers that sit nationally and at state level, interest rates, migration settings, planning frameworks, construction workforce supply, are largely outside local control. But matching available workers to available homes, activating under-used stock, coordinating employers and service providers, and holding the local data that makes the case to government are all things communities can organise. The communities doing this are doing something the rest of Australia can earn from.