Labor announced it would allow first home buyers to purchase homes with a 5 per cent deposit. It also pledged $10 billion to go towards building 100,000 new homes over eight years — exclusively available to first-time buyers — by way of grants to states and territories, and zero-interest loans or equity investments.

The Coalition's policy would see interest payments on mortgages taken out by first-time buyers on newly built homes be tax deductible for five years.

Economists have been quick to give scathing assessments of some of the latest policies, which they argue will drive up demand, and in turn, housing prices. Chris Richardson labelled the major parties' platforms a "dumpster fire of dumb stuff", while Saul Eslake called the Coalition's planned tax deduction "candidate for dumbest policy decision of the 21st century".

But housing experts say the policies are missing the crucial issue driving the housing shortage.

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[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I absolutely agree that both parties' housing policies are just throwing fuel on the fire.

Assisting first home owners increases demand which increases pricing. The obvious beneficiaries of these policies are people that already own houses.

The solutions are addressing tax concessions like negative gearing and capital gains tax, increasing annual land tax, and providing concessions for tiny homes and pre-fab homes.

[–] dumblederp@aussie.zone 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

Tax the fuck out of people who own multiple residential properties.

Drastically reduce the attractiveness of buying a property to purely rent it out on AirBnB.

[–] null_dot@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago

Yep. That's what I said.