Pivotal election for higher education calls for bigger discussion

Anthony Albanese was facing an uphill battle to get key parts of his agenda passed in the final sitting week of the year and possibly the final few sitting days before the next election. Then came Monday’s dramatic capitulation by the Greens on the housing bill. It’s a big win for the prime minister.

Housing affordability will be the key political issue in the lead-up to the federal poll. It is at the epicentre of the cost-of-living debate, the driving force behind an increasingly hardline conversation about immigration and an exemplar of the nation’s sagging productivity.