Goody, humans. Welcome to the safe space for dangerous ideas and the dangerous idea today.

The uncomfortable conversation we'll be having is the idea that the reason why houses are so bloody expensive,

why the ability to get into the property market is now beyond the reach of average people in

countries like Australia is actually because we want it that way. Not that we know we want it that

way, but that a majority of people who benefit from the status quo do not want to see the

kinds of changes that would be required in order to keep property prices

stable or even have them decline. There are a lot of factors going on here. The blame can go around

between tax policy and development policy, the abundance agenda, and whether or not the left

should be proud of itself for preventing high rises and preventing the desecration

of charming communities or should be ashamed of allowing developments that could otherwise bring down

the price of property and make it more affordable for regular folks. Today's guest, Peter

Chulip, has been at the highest levels of American and Australian policymaking.

He was at the US Federal Reserve. He was hired by Alan Greenspan. He was there throughout

9-11 and the global financial crisis and came back to Australia, where he was at Australia's

equivalent of the US Fed, the RBA, the Reserve Bank of Australia,

during the pandemic, and has some real insights into what gave rise to the property boom

that we've seen in recent decades. He's now the chief economist at the Centre for Independent

Studies, and he worries that the widening gap between the haves and the have-nots, the emergence of a class

of property owners who are able to bequeath their property to their children while other people

are locked out of the property market in perpetuity is causing impossible strains on liberal

democracy and is morally inexcusable in a fair-minded country.

To figure out what to do about it, I wanted to sit down with Peter, who was kind enough to

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