The thing is that for most people, property is a really good investment because it is the only way they can save. Many people end up at retirement age with just a property (their PPOR) because they have frittered away any other money they ever had. Of course, now that superannuation is a reasonable amount, they will end up with that as well - but nothing else.
If you look at the people who answer finance questions in the papers, they do advise owning your own home because it is a form of saving that most people can accept. Not because it is the best way to save, or the most reasonable (given that it costs so much to sell your existing PPOR and exchange it for a new one, and that people tend to move once every 7 years, it actually isn't such a good investment) and every so often one of them actually says this.