What an inter-generational mess we’ve got ourselves into.

While some in the mainstream press wring their hands about student protestors giving a toss about innocent people being slaughtered in Gaza, they should be grateful young people care so much about others.

If previous generations had found themselves in the same financial predicament as young people today, they would likely be storming parliament or inventing new political ginger groups.

As well as being saddled with mounting student debts, young South Australians have observed their elders grow wealthy on the back of the property boom and generous tax advantages.

For many young people, their chance of buying their own home become slimmer with each chunky windfall to their elder property owners.

To make things worse, the ultra-tight rental market in Adelaide has also spiralled out of control, with young people hit hardest.

A report released in April this year found that zero per cent of properties for rent in South Australia over a highlighted weekend in March were affordable and appropriate for someone on Youth Allowance or Jobseeker. Literally none.

Housing affordability has become the catch-cry for developers pushing back against planning regulations.

Economics commentator Alan Kohler skilfully pulled apart this intergenerational injustice in his recent Quarterly Essay, pointing out how property prices have massively outstripped income growth this century.

“In other words, my children – and all young people today – are paying more than twice the multiple of their income for a house than their parents – and their grandparents – did, and it’s only vaguely possible because both partners work to pay it off,” he wrote.

The bottom line, he argues convincingly, is that the places we call home “have been turned into speculative investment assets by the 50 years of government policy failure, financialisation and agreed that resulted in 25 years of exploding house prices”.

One of life’s essentials – shelter – has become a get-rich scheme for the haves and a source of constant stress for the have-nots.

Powerful self-interest stands in the way of meaningful change. Just ask former Labor leader Bill Shorten who was smashed politically for attempting to wind back negative gearing and capital gains tax policies which have done so much to create the modern housing crisis.

In any crisis, our modern political leaders will look for a scapegoat.

In the past few weeks, we’ve seen both major parties at a federal level focus their crosshairs on immigrants.

Most experts agree that cutting immigration will have a marginal effect on housing affordability but it’s much easier to take this well-worn route to political success than tackle the complicated and political risky policy moves that are necessary to make a substantive change.

The South Australian Government should be sniffing the political breeze with deep concern.

Their federal Labor counterparts have announced a cap on international student numbers, which would have buttocks clenching in the halls of South Australia’s universities, particularly the harried teams attempting to make the Premier’s mega-merger happen.

The merger of UniSA and the University of Adelaide is already proving to be a highly complex task, likely unprecedented in the Australian higher education sector for its degree of difficulty. International students are a key part of its viability.

Some of Premier Peter Malinauskas’s other priorities will also rely on a continued flow of migrants from interstate and overseas. He needs to recruit hundreds more early childhood educators to fulfil his ‘universal’ preschool promise; the AUKUS submarines deal – if it ever comes to fruition – will obviously need some supplementation of the local skilled workforce.

There’s also a fundamental and growing problem that makes the whole housing shebang look like a giant Ponzi scheme at risk of collapse: we lack the tradespeople to build the homes we need.

The HIA noted late last year that the home building sector was “constrained by some of the most acute shortages of skilled tradespeople on record”.

Also at the local level, the State Government is under constant pressure from the property and development lobbies to make things as cheap and easy as possible for their members.

Housing affordability has become the catch-cry for developers pushing back against planning regulations.

And they’ve had some success. Last year, for example, Planning Minister Nick Champion quietly waived higher energy efficiency standards in Mt Barker’s growth areas.

Champion, though, has pushed on with strict new regulations on removing significant and regulated trees, with a disappointed industry saying they would worsen housing affordability. The developers have lost that argument but you can be certain they will continue to beat the affordability drum.

No one believes the solutions to this crisis are easy, and industry has a key role to play.

However, it’s a policy area that requires high-level political leadership on numerous levels – addressing supply and demand, working with industry and also intervening when necessary.

It doesn’t need any more superficial and counter-productive populism.

Unless politicians start to take real action, they are likely to face the wrath of a new generation of angry voters.

Notes on Adelaide is a weekly column reflecting on the city, its strengths and its foibles. You can read more Notes on Adelaide in SALIFE’s print editions.