Mr McCormack said as well as better lifestyle, regional Australia also offered genuine opportunities to pursue business interests; especially those in the “booming” agricultural sector with strong commodity prices.

The NSW Nationals MP spoke out after Mr Joyce was attacked by Labor last week for being out of touch, when he put a virtual sale sign on affordable homes in regional areas in ventilating his reaction to a new survey that rated Sydney the world’s second least affordable city behind Honk Kong, with Melbourne in tenth position.

Mr Joyce told ABC radio, “We believe that houses will always be incredibly expensive if you can see the Opera House and the Sydney Harbour Bridge, just accept that”.

“What people have got to realise is that houses are much cheaper in Tamworth, houses are much cheaper in Armidale (and) houses are much cheaper in Toowoomba,” he said.

“I did move out west so I can say this, if you've got the gumption in you and you decide to move to Charleville — you're going to have a very affordable house.

“But if you say 'well I want a really affordable house in Mosman', yeah well don't we all.”

That prompted federal Labor leader Bill Shorten to say the Deputy Prime minister’s comments were “absolutely out of touch”.

“There is very little chance that this government would seriously address the question of housing affordability when senior ministers like the Deputy Prime Minister make the silly comments that he did,” he said.

“Quite frankly, they don't get it and they don't even seem to care about getting it.”

But Mr McCormack said championing regional issues was in his party’s DNA and he was “fully supportive” of Mr Joyce’s comments but added housing affordability wasn’t the only attraction on offer to living in country towns or cities.

He said there was also “no better place to start up a small business than in a regional area particularly at the moment with agriculture absolutely booming”.

“I appreciate the wheat price is not where our growers would like it to be at the moment but in just about every other agricultural sector, their industries are booming,” he said.

“The prices for cattle and sheep and just about every commodity that we grow and export and sell in regional areas, is absolutely booming.”

Mr McCormack said not everybody could live in the western suburbs of Sydney and Melbourne “and why would you want to anyway?”

“I appreciate some of those suburbs are nice and the planning for them is going very well, but the fact remains, you can live like royalty, like an absolute king or queen, out in the regional areas,” he said.

“You can live a very nice life with a very good job, with all of the modern conveniences of modern day living, without the million dollar mortgage.

“What Barnaby said just makes sense and people need to be able to look beyond the view that, ‘Oh well, I grew up in Sydney so I should live here my whole life’.

“If you sell your flat in Melbourne or Sydney and move to a regional area or a regional capital you can live a very, very comfortable life with a nice four bedroom house with a lock up garage and swimming poll – and everything’s cheaper.

“Petrol may be more expensive but you don’t have to sit in long traffic queues for an hour and a half to get to work and then face the same prospect heading how from work.

“You’ve got more time to spend with the family and live your life rather than wait in a pollution ridden queue of noisy, impatient cars trying to get out of George Street in Sydney or Collins Street in Melbourne.”

Treasurer Scott Morrison said supply issues were the “predominant and overwhelming factor” in Australia’s housing affordability challenges.

But Regional Australia Institute CEO Jack Archer said housing affordability was a symptom of a deeper problem which was the centralisation of wealth and economic opportunity in major city central business districts (CBDs), where most Australians neither lived nor worked.

Mr Archer said the rise of the CBD dominance in jobs growth and acceleration of housing prices in the last five years had coincided with below average national economic growth, stagnant wages and business investment and significant economic uncertainty.

He said this trend of rapid CBD wealth and job creation, which was hailed as an “economic miracle” for Australia, doesn’t really raise the national numbers needed to back up the hype and was creating problems like housing affordability that would constrain future prosperity.

But Mr Archer said the RAI saw great opportunity in regions for city people looking to get away from the “million dollar shoebox”.

He said the RAI’s analysis showed that even before recent price gains, houses cost over four times annual incomes for almost all the big five cities and over five and six times, for Melbourne and Sydney.

In small cities, a house costs well under three, even though wages are usually lower in regional cities, he said.

Mr Archer said the most affordable small cities were those offering both good incomes and reasonably priced housing like Shepparton, Launceston, Ballarat, Albury-Wodonga and Wagga Wagga.

He said at the other end of the spectrum the most unaffordable small cities were the amenity driven cities including Ballina-Lismore, Gold Coast, Sunshine Coast, Coffs Harbour and Port Macquarie.

“The desirability factor has pushed up the cost of housing, but the cities’ average incomes are not yet keeping pace,” he said.

“Those who get most squeezed in the big cities are average and slightly above average wages earners.

“They can’t secure the really high wages available to some in the city, but still have to pay the massive mortgage and/or move to the outer suburbs where they face the costs of a massive commute.

“These are also the people who will find the best options in regional cities.”

Mr Archer said jobs growth in regional cities was forecast to be good and professional services and health sectors were key sources of growth in regions.

“Many people in the cities might be surprised by what they can do in regional cities, particularly if they are prepared to think laterally about their career, can take their job with them through remote work arrangements or are keen to start a business,” he said.

Mr McCormack said many people often told him positive stories about being sent to live in regional areas by the health or education departments, to start out their working lives and “they liked it so much they stayed”.

“There are countless stories and anecdotal evidence of people saying to me, ‘I was sent here for six months and now look at me 20 years later with three kids and a couple of grand kids on the way’,” he said.

“That sort of story happens all of the time and it happens for a reason - because regional Australia is very lucrative and the people are friendlier, they have more time to care, the cost of living is lower and it just makes sense to give it a go.”

Mr McCormack said young people were also more willing now to look at pursuing careers in agriculture than they did 10-years ago which was also boosting regional living.

“Young people are embracing the opportunities and not just young people from regional areas either,” he said.

“There are any numbers of stories that I’ve encountered of young people starting up a career in agriculture who may have had agricultural roots from way back, and their families moved to the cities, but they’re now returning to areas, like Tamworth, Wagga Wagga or Albury.

“That’s encouraging and there are great opportunities in agriculture, particularly the small business side of things.

“Interest rates are low and with the opportunity to borrow money or take advantage of some of the start-up ideas and innovation that’s happening makes it a very lucrative prospect for young people looking to start their own business or get into an affordable housing market.

“It’s all here in regional Australia and I agree wholeheartedly with what Barnaby’s saying.”