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If last year’s federal budget was a fairy floss-like pre-election sugar hit, then this year’s is more like a seven-course degustation. But, while it offers a wide range of initiatives that are each individually tasty, in the end they don’t leave us feeling fully sated.

We were given a raft of tax, spending and regulatory initiatives to digest on the night. However, the treasurer referred in his speech to housing policies as “the core of our budget strategy”. The appalling decline in housing affordability over more than two decades across this country has come to be seen as an issue of intergenerational inequality. However, successive governments of both stripes have left the issue on the cutting-room floor because the interests of current homeowners and would-be home owners are not aligned. Improved affordability for the latter means reduced wealth for the former.

Nevertheless, the government finally decided that it was time to address the increasingly unfair tax advantages that go to older and wealthier Australians at the expense of younger generations. (Note that the word “fair” appeared six times in the treasurer’s budget speech.)

There were two main prongs to the latest housing strategy: a $2bn infrastructure-boosting initiative, albeit with strings attached, and significant changes to the treatment of capital gains tax (CGT) and negative gearing for investment housing.

The infrastructure measure is both necessary and good. We can’t build homes without adequate transport, health, education and other amenities, and the government estimates this will unlock an additional 65,000 new homes over a decade. Not exactly smashing the problem but, as it’s one that has built over decades, there are no quick and easy solutions and every little bit helps. The funds are conditional, however, with state and local governments having to come to the party with “planning, zoning and productivity reforms”. If realised, such reforms would further add to supply.

The proposed changes to CGT and negative gearing, which would come into play from 1 July 2027, are considered the most contentious announcement. This is not because they represent bad policy – far from it – but because the government gave a pre-election commitment that they would not change these taxes. To continue the meal metaphor, we got served wagyu beef instead of the burger that we ordered.

A number of economists have argued in recent weeks that good policy beats a broken promise any day, and I count myself among them (although I’d rather see bold leadership in the first place). Australia has become increasingly unequal in too many ways, and particularly in the generational wealth divide, at least in part due to the property tax concessions introduced by the Howard government.

The current government will be hoping the electorate agrees with these economists, as they seem to have done over stage 3 tax cuts, but it’s a big risk. The risk is less that we won’t get better outcomes but that these outcomes come at an incrementally slow pace that younger Australians may not have the patience to wait out.

Australia’s budget process is fairly unusual in the world. It’s a lot of hullabaloo that, frankly, I don’t believe serves us well. As it stands, many of us spend hours on budget day (and night) trying to get into the detail of too many documents. This means first analysis is typically shallow and at risk of missing some points.

As a case in point, buried in budget paper No. 2 on page 158, there is a discussion of the impacts of the changes to the taxes to housing prices and supply. Treasury suggests that the changes will allow an extra 75,000 Australians to own their own home in the coming decade, which would restore home ownership rates to the levels see a decade ago. This happens because the tax changes will reduce investor demand, leading to median national home prices being $19,000 lower.

What the treasurer didn’t mention in his speech is that Treasury also modelled the impact of these lower prices on new housing investment – and came up with a figure that is 35,000 units lower than without the changes. So, this effectively reduced the potential impact of the infrastructure spending by half.

I think the government’s housing tax reforms are necessary and, frankly, long overdue. They are also brave and it’s about time we saw some brave decisions that are actually aimed at addressing a long-standing crisis. More can always be done and climate risk and energy efficiency need to be part of the equation.

As has become the custom these days, most of the substantive budget measures had been leaked well in advance of the night. But the budget documents also provide the government with an opportunity to remind us of what they have done in previous years. And when it comes to housing measures, the list is becoming long and, after budget night, pleasingly longer.

None of the measures now in play will change the outcomes for most would-be home buyers in the short term, but what a relief to see a government willing to implement a meaningful suite of policies that go well beyond one electoral cycle.

• Nicki Hutley is a consulting economist