So, Mike, I want to start with Peter Dutton's son, Harry.
I mean, we're saving luck mad but it doesn't look like we'll get there in the near future, but we'd love that to change.
What did you think when you saw that press conference where we had the opposition leader's son talking about his struggles.
Well, I thought it was an effort to kind of humanize Dutton. I guess. I mean Harry's twenty, right, he's a second year apprentice, and so his inability to save enough to get into a house. It's a common story and millions of other would be homeowners might relate to it, except in one regard, which is, of course, that Harry Dutton's father is a very wealthy man due to his buying and selling of real estate.
Mike Secam is a reporter for the Saturday Paper. He's been watching closely as Peter Dutton has made the dream of home ownership for young Australians central to his campaign.
But it seemed to me that he failed to anticipate the obvious question when he trotted Harry up, you're doing pretty well yourself.
Why won't you support him a bit and give him a bit of help with getting his house.
I haven't finished the excellent points I was making. The next point is to why people should vote liberally.
We so, having failed to answer quite a period of time elapse better part of a day, and eventually, belatedly on Tuesday, Dutton came out and conceded that he and his wife would at some stage give Harry and Harry's two siblings helped to buy a home.
And I think our households are no different to many households where you want our kids to work hard to save and will help them with a deposit at some stage.
Which is lucky for them because frankly, under the housing policies that their father advocates, the cost of buying a home is only going to increase. On that all the expert opinion is just overwhelming.
But it's not just the Coalitions housing policy set to drive up prices. Experts agree that Labour's will too, and with the majority of Australians either owning their own home or paying one off, it seems that maybe the point schwarts Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am today. National correspondent for the Saturday paper, Mike Sekham on what the major parties are offering on housing and what it
means for the housing crisis. It's Wednesday, April twenty three, so Mike, to begin with, can you just lay out for me what Peter Dunne has said about housing in this election campaign and what we know about his plans.
Dutton was very clear about this in his Budget reply speech last month. He promised, and I'm quoting him, I don't want young Australians locked out of the property market or having to rely on the bank of Mum and dad.
I don't want young Australians locked out of the property market or having to rely on the bank of mum and dad. I want to see fewers Australians homeless and more Australians in homes.
There are two aspects to the Coalition's policy, and when I spoke to the veteran independent economist Saul Eslick, he described it as a contender for the title of worst public policy of the twenty first century. So that's how bad he thought it was. The first part is called the Super Home Biers Scheme, and this has been Coalition policy for a while and it would allow first home buyers access to up to forty percent of their superannuation balance up to a maximum of fifty thousand dollars to
put towards a deposit. Leaving aside the impact that would have by allowing young people to raid their super and what the impact that would have on their retirement, the measure would inevitably pump up prices, says Eslack, and if I might quite him at some length, sixty years of history shows, without any shadow of it out that anything else that allows people to spend more on housing than they otherwise would whether that's first home an a grants,
stamp duty concessions, mortgage guarantee schemes, shared equity schemes, lower interest rates, easier credit conditions, or tax breaks for property investors. Anything that allows people to spend more than they otherwise would results in more expensive housing. So it just means more money chasing less housing. Essentially, you know, you have two sides to the housing equation. One is supply, one is demand. All of these sorts of things pump up demand and do nothing for supply.
Okay, And for it to work at all, Mike, young people would presumably have to actually have the super to be able to draw down. So how realistic is that?
Well, You make a very good point, and I found tax Office starter. It's a few years old. In twenty twenty two, the median superannuation balance for a woman aged thirty to thirty four, you know, peak home buying sort of age group, was just thirty four thousand dollars, and for men of the same age it was just a
shade under forty thousand dollars. Now, bearing in mind that the Coalition policy would only allow them to withdraw forty percent of that nest egg, that would you give a woman thirteen thousand, seven hundred and thirty dollars eighty cents and fifteen nine hundred and eighty dollars forty for.
Men, Well, that's not going to get you very far.
Not in not in today's housing market. You're quite right, And of course that was across all people. When you look at the data for people who are in rental accommodation, a quarter of them had balances of less than six thousand dollars, which means, you know, they would only be able to pull two four hundred dollars out of their suitpit, you know, which is essentially nothing in today's market. Perhaps the only real redeeming feature to it I suppose is
that it wouldn't cost taxpayers a lot. This would just allow people access to their own superannuation money. So that's a big aspect of this plan, and it's quite different from the second aspect of the Coalition's plan, which the Opposition as estimated would cost taxpayers one point twenty five billion over the first four years of its operation. And I've seen a number of commentators say it will probably cost a lot more than.
That, right okay, And this is the scheme like where you can claim tax deductions from up to six hundred and fifty thousand dollars dollars of your mortgage. So tell me more about exactly how that would work and what economists are saying about its impact.
Right okay, Well, this is the one that came pretty much out of a clear blue sky at Dutton's policy launch.
A Coalition government will allow you to deduct interest payments on the first six hundred and fifty thousand dollars of a mortgage against your taxable income. We will allow these deductions for five years, provided you continue to live in that home for that period. This policy will be available to individuals with the taxable income of one hundred and seventy five thousand dollars or less, enjoyed applicants earning a combined income of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or less.
Probably the most salient factor here is that this would also disproportionately benefit people who are doing better. Going back to Solsli, the way he sees this is one aspect of the Coalition's policy. Super for housing allows people to put down bigger deposits, which in turn allows them to borrow more and pumps up the price of houses. The interest deductibility on mortgages allows people to borrow a lot more because it's the equivalent of reduction in interest rates
of roughly one third. So what's likely to happen is that the beneficiaries of this scheme will just bid up prices and make housing more expensive for everyone else. It's hard to recall another policy that has been so comprehensively bagged as the first home by a mortgage deductibility scheme. There were hit pieces all over the place about this, you know. One professor of economics called it frankly terrible
tax policy. Another said that it was incredibly administratively burdensome, and if you wanted to just give people first home bio grants. Then just give them first home bio grants. Brendan Coates from the Gratin Institute said he was frankly mystified about what compelled the Coalition to put this forward when no quoting him, no serious housing policy expert had called for it. He called it nuts.
Coming up after the break is Labour's plan nuts as well, so Mike. On the same weekend that the Coalition announced this doublem housing policy, Labor also announced their own. So tell me what is on offer from them.
What Anthony Albanez you promised at the campaign launch was that if Labor were re elected, the government would allow all first home buyers, regardless of their income, to buy a home on just five percent deposit.
Our five percent deposit plan will be opening to every Australian looking to buy their first home. It will be available for homes valued all the way up to the average price in every city and region, and you won't have to pay a single dollar in mortgage insurance. Our government will cover it.
But the view is that just guaranteeing a lower deposit would encourage what one called imprudent borrowing. The fact that they know that the government will be covering them and they left, but five percent buyers will probably once again bid up the prices of housing. When comparing the respective policies from the major party, Saulslake told me, quote, while I don't like either of them, Labour's policy is less.
Worse, right, well, less worse is hardly an endorsement Mike in the debate, though, last week Anthony Abernezi He was arguing that Labor does have a policy to deal with supply. So it's not just about helping people get into the market, but it's also about broadening what is actually available. So tell me a bit about that plan to boost housing stock.
Actually, both parties have plans that they say will increase supply, but let's start with Labours because it's the bigger. Labour's latest promise was to invest ten billion dollars in the form of grants and zero interest loans in partnership with state developers and the housing industry, and it claims that by supplying these funds that will see up to one hundred thousand new homes built, and those homes would be
reserved solely for first home buyers. Labor, of course has a whole suite of other housing policies.
You know.
There's the Help to Buy a scheme under which the government would take an equity stake of forty percent in first home purchases. It has a Build to Rent scheme which offers tax incentives to developers to provide affordable units. And it's ten billion dollar Housing Australian Future Fund, which aims to build some thirty thousand social and affordable homes.
On the Coalition side, the big new promise was a five billion dollar investment to go to local government to help with the supply of infrastructure like water and surge and roads and so on for new housing developments, which it claims would help accelerate was the word they used, the development of five hundred thousand homes. So the point here is that both parties do have supply side measures
as well as things that pump up demand. But what's really worth noting here is that neither of the major parties is talking about reforming aspects of the tax system that have long been identified as contributing to the housing crisis, such as negative gearing and the overly generous discount on capital gains tax for housing investors and stamp duties.
Yeah, I mean, as far as the major parties are concerned, that conversation seems to be definitively over for the time being. But what about the cross betch what do they have to say about that?
Well, this I think is really interesting. As the act Independent Senator David Percock told the ABC a week or so back, what the community, he said, was crying out for was a long term vision.
We want to plan for this. We want to tackle the things that have been in the too hard basket for too long. When it comes to our tax system.
He itemized them. He said, capital gains tax discounts, negative gearing, stamp duty. They were all things that quote, we should be dealing with, he said.
And one of the ones that actually makes a lot of sense, I think, given the politics and given the need to start to turn the ship around, is to grandfather existing arrangements to then cap going forward negative gearing to one investment property seventy percent. People only have one investment property. That seems pretty fair. And then to reduce the capital gains tax discount to twenty five percent for new bills for new supply.
Likewise, the Greens would limit negative gearing to one property and grandfather the capital gains tax. Tasmania's Jackie Lamby would be a little more generous to landlords. She would allow maybe two or three negatively geared properties. And Allegraspender, who took the Blue ribbon seat of Wentworth from the Liberals at the last election, has actually produced possibly the most comprehensive analysis of what needs to change.
We need to put tax reform on the table. Just look at stamp duty New South Wales. Trufetory says that we could increase home ownership by six point six percent in New South Wales if we replace stamp duty with land tax.
Stamp duty is charged by the state and the general criticism of stamp duty is that it imposes a big transaction cost and that slows down the turnover of housing. So the idea is that it should be replaced with a land tax, which would remove the cost of buying a house, but replace it with a long term tax
on actually living in that house. And so the theory is that if that were done, you know, more of those empty nesters who are living in big houses once their kids have flown, would be encouraged to sell up and buy something more suitable and there would be a round robin of effects and as a result, more people would be able to buy housing.
And so, Mike, you have been paying very close attention to the housing debate in Australia for a long time now. You and I have had many conversations about it. What is your view now on why it is that neither major party really seems up to the task on this particular issue, an issue that really I think almost every voter has a stake in at this point.
Well, that's absolutely right. And perhaps the first point here is that until a few decades ago, home prices increased at roughly the same rate as wages, right, and then they decoupled and house prices took off. Part of the reason for that was various governments, state and federal level, pursued policies that pumped up demand. You know. There were various generous first home owner grant schemes, both state and federal that put more money in the pockets of home
buyers so they could bit against other home buyers. And there were also tax breaks you know that made housing attractive to investors. You know, it's notable. I think that the real escalation in home prices coincided with a decision by the Howard government way back in nineteen ninety nine to have the capital gains tax, and John Howard famously celebrated the fact that that led a rocket house prices and said that no one had ever complained to him
that the value of their home was going up. So while these dumb policies over decades have seen a large and growing number of people struggling to get into the housing market or locked out of the housing market, it's still the fact that an even larger group of people own or are paying off a house. And so you know, the parties have been pandering to that majority, and that majority, naturally enough, wants to see the value of their asset increase.
Mike, thank you so much for your time.
Thank you.
Also in the news today, both the Prime Minister and opposition leader have taken time out of their election campaign to mark the Pope's passing at age eighty eight. Prime Minister Albanezi attended an early morning mass in Melbourne yesterday where he told the press the Pope will quote be recorded in history as one of the most significant of all the Holy Fathers. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton paid his respects at a mass held at Saint Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
It's estimated that around twenty percent of the Australian population just over five million people a Catholic, and more than one hundred leaders from universities and colleges across the United States have denounced the Trump administration's unprecedented government overreach and political interference within higher education. The statement published yesterday comes after a campaign by the Trump administration against many universities,
including Harvard. Harvard University is the first school to sue the federal government after President Trump threatened to freeze two point three billion dollars in university funding over its handling of anti Semitism on campus. Harvard has previously rejected a list of demands by the Trump administration, labeling them overreach. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See tomorrow.