With humble bungalows going for "a-buck-and-a-half" ($1,500,000) have rents risen commensurately?

Can't speak for Melbourne but this should give you some idea about Sydney at the moment: https://www.sydneymovingguide.com/the-cost-of-living-in-sydney/

Trends here: https://propertyupdate.com.au/property-investment-sydney/#sydney-property-market-short-term-trends

One place prices are 'Runaway' is Runaway Bay. I remember when the land sharks were touting the budget scrubland in the early 70's: "Who'd be interested in the rough north end of the Gold Coast, there's not even any surf there" I thought.

Back in the 70's, renting a typical Californian Bungalow (Sydney has lots of them, both pre and post-war) was about $15.00 a week. I pay $800.00 a week for the one I am in at the moment. It's not cheap by any means but compared to what others are paying for a similar house, it probably is cheap.

https://www.sydneymovingguide.com/the-cost-of-living-in-sydney/

I see Camden in far-SW-Syd is a good comparative rent bargain. Which raises a puzzling issue: In places where house prices are stratospheric (Sydney, San Francisco..) rents do not track linearly higher, revealing a disconnect with valuation reality. This is because wages are weak, most Sydney jobs being service-sector jobs. This tells me that pure 'investors' in Syd houses would be getting zero-to-negative return on their investment, discounting rising prices. They are not alone, I read German Govt bond holders are losing 2% PA when inflation is taken into account, but no-one is complaining!

This tells me that pure 'investors' in Syd houses would be getting zero-to-negative return on their investment, discounting rising prices.

Yep: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_gearing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negative_gearing

Have only seen the term "negative gearing" in Australian press where apparently it's a hot potato as well as a political football. Had not sought further understanding of the concept but wiki page explains it to connote what I expected it to be.

For clarity of analysis in the case of the Australian housing mania, let's strip off the rental and taxation components and focus on the core nature of the gambit: What we have in essence is a leveraged bet in a hot market or "buying on the Margin" as it was termed in the late-1920s Wall Street frenzy. The use of borrowed money amplifying the boom, then the crash, taking the banks down with it.

In basic terms, mum-n-dad property investors can write off losses from an investment property on their personal income tax. The Left side of politics has tried to abolish negative gearing before and it meant certain doom for Bob Hawke and Paul Keating back in the early 1990s so they brought it back in time for an election. Labor has since campaigned for its abolition without success - understandable since whilst in opposition they have nothing to lose from such a move.

At the end of the day, property investment is considered a small business activity so if the joint needs painting, the insurance needs paying or the tenant bails after causing damage and owing thousands in rent, the owner should be entitled to claim those expenses.

In the case of the Wall St Crash, purchase of shares on margin was being spruiked by commission men and talked up by public figures at every opportunity. The media was full of it. Hence the unsustainable boom in share prices built purely on speculation, not company performance.

Negative gearing real estate is a well-established practice in Oz. It is mentioned in every book on investing in real estate, but it is not flogged to the masses at every opportunity. The banks understand it, and are generally fine with it under normal circumstances.

Investment properties funded that way contribute to the great bulk of rental properties. As Brad mentioned, when Labor tried to kill off negative gearing it backfired on them spectacularly when investors dumped their properties and the rental market as good as disappeared overnight.

When it comes to tax, I'm with the late Kerry Packer: "I pay what I'm required to pay, not a penny more, not a penny less. If anybody in this country doesn't minimise their tax, they want their heads read because, as a Government, I can tell you you're not spending it that well that we should be donating extra."

Case in point:
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/commentary/nsw-parliament-spends-63000-on-a-door/video/7d053fad5ee68a82af73c2e82a78987b

'Wall St Crash, purchase of shares on margin'

You knew a crash was coming when your shoe-shine boy was bragging about owning "Radio" [RCA] the hot Tech stock of the day.

Having looked at rents in Camden Syd, am now looking at Camden New Jersey. once home to massive RCA campus. Gone are the high paying manufacturing jobs but you can now live in its main building complete with restored Nipper logo stained glass! Rents start at a reasonable $600pw and it's 'on the water' - actually 500 ft from water and not the ocean but a river See livethevictor.com

Trivia: across the river from RCA was Philco, making Philadelphia a radio manufacturing nexus to rival Chicago (Zenith, Admiral..)

You don't want to live in Camden, NJ. It's one of the worst cities in the USA, high crime, poverty, and so on.

My house, in a good suburb of New York City, might fetch a half million American. 4 bedrooms, 2 baths, quarter acre of land. Electricity is expensive, about 18 cents a kilowatt hour.

That's about AU$750,000. Very affordable.

Here's a link to some recent sales in the Sydney suburb where I live. Crazy!

https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-in-belrose,+nsw+2085/list-1

The best rate for electricity I can find in my area is about AU$0.27, so that's about the same.

I jumped in at the right time here in Canberra. A house worth well over 800,000 here it basically doubled in value since 2013.

Poor Camden NSW & Camden NJ, both too far from the ocean to get any respect

For some reason, I always imagined Camden NJ - legendary home of RCA - as being on the coast?!
In reality, it's part of Philadelphia which appears to have gone to the dogs like once great Detroit & Chicago!