Some state governments were suspicious of the Commonwealth's desire to involve itself in housing supply, but the government still managed to secure their support to introduce a national scheme for subsidised rental housing.
The policy was less ambitious than housing reformers wanted, but it was better than nothing.
During the second reading debate on the legislation, a Labor MP from Tasmania, John Frank Gaha, told his parliamentary colleagues that he supported the CSHA "in its entirety".
However, he said, he regretted the fact that constitutional limitations prevented the Commonwealth and states from taking a "wider view" of the role that housing played in the structure of the economy itself.
He said it made a huge difference to people's lives when they owned their own homes, especially in retirement.
He said it would be great if the government could devise a scheme to keep rents at a low level nationally, so some of the money that low-income families would otherwise spend on rent could be used to help them pay off a family home.
"In this way, we would make the average worker a capitalist; and that is our only solution to communism in this country," Dr Gaha said.