The development lobby has been campaigning stridently for the release of more land for residential estates, claiming it's the key to solving the affordability problem.

The Property Council of Australia, the Housing Industry Association, the Urban Development Institute of Australia and others with a vested interest have been relentless all year about the need to release more land to allow affordable housing development.

I've been saying all along it was a lie - that land supply has little to do with the affordability equation and that the development lobby knows it.

Now we have proof - Opposition Leader Kevin Rudd has announced that a Federal Labor Government will make surplus Commonwealth land available to developers as part of its solution to the affordability problem.

The response from the development lobby: we'll gladly take any land you offer us, but it won't solve the affordability problem.

The developers are now saying: more land does not equal cheaper housing.

In other words, they've been lying to us. It's