I'm not an expert on this but I'll try:

Rental prices have been pretty bad across the board since the pandemic, but I understand it's dropped back a little in regional areas since people have been moving back to the cities. Inflation has given landlords the excuse to pump up prices repeatedly. Some of it due to their own mortgage repayments going up, but the rest due to greed. Things are bad enough in the cities that some people are living out of their cars because they can't afford the rent, or because there simply isn't an available place to rent. And regional areas are constrained in supply due to holiday homes and airbnb etc which of course raises prices as well.

House prices are expensive everywhere, but cheaper in regional areas as you'd expect (but not what I'd call affordable). Wages are fairly high on average in Australia but the price to income ratio is very high, so it's tough for many people to afford a home. And the ability to get a loan has become more challenging since interest rates have risen, and lending requirements have become somewhat more stringent. Some in the cities will do the whole long commute thing and save some money while having more opportunities for high wage employment, but it's still expensive.

So the short answer is that it's not really affordable anywhere to rent or buy, but it will depend on one's individual circumstances. Definitely not a good situation all in all, but seems to mirror most Western democracies in recent years.

This tells you everything you need to know about Dutton's position:

Dutton will make the comments on Friday at an event organised by the Institute of Public Affairs, a Liberal-aligned thinktank that has publicly opposed curbs on coal-fired power and has lobbied against the net zero by 2050 policy.

Yes that's an annoyance but I would expect support for that in the medium term.