With housing a central issue for young Australians this election, both Labor and the Coalition announced major fresh housing initiatives on Sunday as part of their campaign launches.
The Albanese government has pledged $10 billion to build 100,000 new homes nationwide, which would be reserved exclusively for first home buyers. Alongside this, they would allow first home buyers to secure a home with only a 5 per cent deposit, with the government guaranteeing 15 per cent of the deposit. Right now, buyers often need up to a 20 per cent deposit to secure a home without having to take out mortgage insurance.
Labor said this program will save the average first home buyer about $23,000. The five per cent deposit scheme is also open to people who have not owned property in Australia for 10 years.
The change would also see no caps on income and higher property price limits. First home buyers will still have to meet exisiting home loan eligibility standards. A timeline for the new 100,000 homes for first home buyers wasn’t given, but Labor said construction would begin in the 2026-27 financial year, with the first residents to move in from 2027-28.
This promise comes in addition to 55,000 social and affordable homes envisioned under the Housing Australia Future Fund, and it’s part of the government’s Homes for Australia policy promise of 1.2 million new homes by 2029, a target that’s been forecasted by The Property Council of Australia to be 462,000 homes too short by 2029.
Labor said other programs to boost construction workforce numbers, along with lowering inflation and interest rates, would get the targets back on track.
So what impact will these new policy promises have on women?
Women’s Agenda spoke to Housing Minister Clare O’Neil on Monday to ask how the government’s new promises on housing would benefit women. In particular, she said the expansion of the five per cent deposit home guarantee scheme will benefit women who’ve taken, or are planning to take, time out of the workforce to care for children.
“It will be particularly beneficial, because women are often going to face longer delays to get into the housing market,” she said. “A lot of women are taking breaks in their career where they’re not earning a lot of income through family or caring responsibilities, and so that five per cent is just giving them a huge leg up in not having to save a 20 per cent deposit on their own.”
O’Neil also says the “single reason” the five per cent deposit scheme is also available to people who have not owned property in Australia in a decade is because the government wants to capture women who have lost their property through a relationship breakdown.
“Often, women will take serious financial hits in order to care for children. They do it it lovingly and do it willingly and want to do it. But then later on, if their relationship breaks down, we often find that the woman is left without any property, without any superannuation, and potentially with a lower earning capacity than the male she was married to,” O’Neil said.
“We’ve got this major issue in Australia with older women being our fastest growing group of people coming into homelessness, which is a terrible thing for the country. And so this is really about trying to make sure that we’re not disadvantaging that particular cohort.”
O’Neil also spoke about Labor’s ongoing social and affordable home initiatives, as well as its Help to Buy scheme being beneficial for women.
“We have a commitment to build 55,000 social and affordable homes around our country for the coming five years, we have 28,000 of those homes already in construction or planning,” O’Neil said.
“This is particularly important because women are more likely to be needing those kinds of extra supports with housing, because we’re far more likely to see women looking after children as single mums, and this is a group of people who are far more likely to need government support to be in stable housing. That’s what they need and what they deserve.”
But will Labor’s new policies on housing drive up housing prices by increasing demand? O’Neil says not in any significant way.
“We’ve got Treasury advice that says there won’t be a significant impact on house prices,” O’Neil says.
“The basic thing to understand is, you can help first home buyers, as long as at the same time you do something to support the construction of new homes, and that’s the way that we’ve balanced out our policy.”
What is the Coalition promising?
In a new policy announced on Sunday, the Coalition will allow first home buyers of newly built properties to deduct interest on the first $650,000 of their mortgage against their taxable income for up to five years. First home buyers will need to live in the property for five years. The policy would mean a family on average incomes would be around $11,000 a year better off or $55,000 over five years.
Peter Dutton described their “temporary and targeted” tax relief as a way to “put more money back into the pockets of millions of Australians”.
The scheme is expected to cost the federal budget $1.25 billion over the forward estimates. The scheme is also dependent on the property being a new build, but the Coalition argues this will boost construction activity and housing supply.
Along with a previously announced policy to allow first home buyers to access $50,000 of their superannuation to help them buy a home, experts have raised concerns these policies could put upward pressure on housing prices. Coalition housing spokesman Michael Sukkar has insisted that the policy, which is only available to new builds, would help with Australia’s supply problem.
And while the Coalition argues giving first home buyers access to their super for deposit would help them get into the market, Housing Minister Clare O’Neil argues it won’t help renters get into the property market any sooner.
“It doesn’t solve the most important problems in housing that the country confronts. It won’t help a single renter get into home ownership,” O’Neil told Women’s Agenda. “It’s going to provide a subsidy for people who can already get together a deposit and get into a home.”
O’Neil also argues the Coalition is ignoring the impacts of its superannuation policy on women.
“It’s a terrible for women, because we know that women have less super than men,” O’Neil said. “Women in their late 30s have about 30 per cent less super than men. Women, on average, in their 50s have 45 per cent less super than men. So this is going to create really significant gender impacts. They’re just ignoring the impact on women.”
What else is the government doing for women on housing?
While it isn’t a new announcement, the Albanese government is also investing $1.2 billion in crisis and transitional housing, which will have a particular impact on women facing homeless and escaping violence.
“We are investing $1.2 billion in creating a larger stock of crisis and transitional accommodation. This is desperately needed because the research tells us that one of the main reasons women are not leaving violent relationships is because they do not have stable housing to go to, especially with children,” O’Neil says.
Feature image: Housing Minister Clare O’Neil.
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