The cost of housing has risen because the cost of everything else has dropped, and household incomes have risen.
The Kangaroo Route, Sydney-London QANTAS flights, in 1947 took 78 hours and cost £585, when the minimum wage was about £10 a week. Now you can do that flight in less than a day and you can get it for $1,100 vs the minimum weekly wage of $700. So we've gone from more than a year's wage to a bit over a week's wage.
In 1977 the average male weekly wage was about $150, and a 24" TV cost $780. Now it's $1,600 (minimum $700) and $200. So we've gone from 6 weeks' wages to a day for a tv.
A roast chicken was $1.80, now it's $8; so minimum wage has gone up 5 times, average wage 10 times, and chicken 4 times. From an hour's work for a chicken to half an hour. It's a similar picture with other foods. So we're spending less on most necessities.
In 1966 we had under 90,000 university students nationally, compared to under 12 million people. Now we have 1.3 million students and 25 million people. So we've twice as many people but thirteen times as many university students. This also explains why the median wage is now more than twice the minimum wage, rather than 50% more. We're earning more as individuals.
In 1976 a bit under 30% of households were couples without children, and a bit under 50% couples with dependent children; now it's a bit under 40% and 40%. So that's 10% of households with less expenses. Guess what, more dual-income-no-kids professional couples pushes housing prices up.
In the early 1980s just over 40% of women with dependent children did paid work, now 65% of them do. So that's 25% of households with dependent children that can now have a higher income than they would have in the early 1980s. Even single mother families (who will struggle with balancing childcare and timing etc) have basically had the proportion of women doing paid work double in 40 years.
As well, in 1984 the average new home was 160m2 and 30 years later it was 240m2, with the average household size going from 3.0 to 2.5 in the same time. Homes are 50% larger in absolute terms, and doubled in size per person (about 50 to about 100m2 per person).
People are better-educated and thus earning more, more people are employed, more households have two income earners, and most goods and services are proportionally cheaper than they were a generation ago. So people have more cash to spend on housing to outbid others - and they want bigger places. And that's a large part of the reason for the increase in cost of housing: lots of people can afford it, and they want more.
Now, obviously people on minimum wage can rent but not buy housing, and people on pensions of various kinds struggle to even rent housing. But if you have a permanent full-time job in Australia on anything more than minimum wage, you are not really in a position to complain. Of course, the middle class like to complain, but that's another story.