The Rudd Government’s 5.6 billion dollar social housing agenda. The continuing redevelopment of the Kensington and Carlton Commission Estates, and the plans for Prahran, Fitzroy, and Collingwood. The new affordable developments in the transit city hubs and the banded middle suburbs. And over all this bustle and energy, the realization that Australia possesses one of the least equitable housing markets in the developed world.

This is a strange time – perhaps the greatest investment in affordable and social housing since the immediate post-war period. Practitioners and concerned parties discuss the divergent directions social housing takes, the ambitions it tackles and the difficulties it faces from both policy blunders and private development and enterprise.