Paul Pholeros will never forget Tuesday, May 12 this year. The Sydney architect was in Kathmandu, preparing to head out to Nepalese villages where his not-for-profit company Healthabitat, in partnership with Rotary Australia, had built more than 100 toilets.

The Australian community is suddenly coming to grips with the fact that the current generation of young people can’t buy a dwelling without taking on a huge amount of debt. And this problem is starting to be particularly severe on the vast numbers of essential service workers like teachers, restaurant workers, nurses and journalists where the community is simply not generating enough wealth to pay them greater salaries.

Figures out today show that Australia’s median house price has risen to almost $660,000 with Darwin having the biggest increase among the capital cities. Sydney’s median house price is getting closer to the $1 million mark but prices in Brisbane and Perth have eased. The weighted average median house price in Australia rose by 2.4 per cent to $658,608 in the March quarter, according to the latest Bendigo Bank-Real Estate Institute of Australia figures.