2025-08-25
Labor’s Housing Minister Clare O’Neil’s announcement today to bring forward guarantees for a 5% deposit for first-home buyers to avoid mortgage insurance will only drive up house prices for Australians trying to get into the market.
We have seen today Labor move its first housing bill (Defence Housing Australia Amendment Bill 2025) which, incredibly, builds public homes for US troops and defence contractors. In the midst of a national housing crisis, where are Labor’s priorities for Australians?
Australia’s housing crisis can’t be fixed until the Government tackles the key driver, and that is, winding back tax discounts for wealthy property investors that lock out first-home buyers and force rents to skyrocket.
Lines attributable to Greens spokesperson for housing Senator Barbara Pocock:
“This is a furphy designed to sound good but actually will continue to drive up house prices - turbocharging higher prices and bigger debts for first-home buyers. Experts agree these demand-side schemes just drive prices up, the only ones who benefit from this scheme are the banks and property investors.
“People will still be borrowing 95 percent of their mortgage and with median property values at eight times the typical annual household income, that leaves households highly vulnerable to huge repayments.
“We need real action on housing, not tinkering, and that means winding back tax breaks for wealthy property investors and building affordable houses in the places where Australians need them.
“This scheme won’t help first-home buyers. Economists and even Treasury's own modelling say this scheme will force house prices to go up, which will leave more people in higher levels of debt.
“The Greens won't stand in the way of things that aim to help first-home buyers. However, the Government has to look at the bigger picture because house prices are skyrocketing and more demand-side measures are only going to make that problem worse.
“Our tax system rewards wealthy property investors and pushes up prices. Every day that negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount stay in place is another day that first-home buyers are outbid by property investors at auctions around the country.
“The Government has a real opportunity in this progressive parliament to fix the housing crisis and they must take it, otherwise generations will be locked out of affordable housing forever.”