Speaker 1: So, Mike, I want to start with Peter Dutton's son, Harry.
Speaker 2: I mean, we're saving luck mad but it doesn't look
Speaker 2: like we'll get there in the near future, but we'd
Speaker 2: love that to change.
Speaker 1: What did you think when you saw that press conference
Speaker 1: where we had the opposition leader's son talking about his struggles.
Speaker 3: Well, I thought it was an effort to kind of
Speaker 3: humanize Dutton. I guess. I mean Harry's twenty, right, he's
Speaker 3: a second year apprentice, and so his inability to save
Speaker 3: enough to get into a house. It's a common story
Speaker 3: and millions of other would be homeowners might relate to it,
Speaker 3: except in one regard, which is, of course, that Harry
Speaker 3: Dutton's father is a very wealthy man due to his
Speaker 3: buying and selling of real estate.
Speaker 1: Mike Secam is a reporter for the Saturday Paper. He's
Speaker 1: been watching closely as Peter Dutton has made the dream
Speaker 1: of home ownership for young Australians central to his campaign.
Speaker 3: But it seemed to me that he failed to anticipate
Speaker 3: the obvious question when he trotted Harry up, you're doing
Speaker 3: pretty well yourself.
Speaker 1: Why won't you support him a bit and give him
Speaker 1: a bit of help with getting his house.
Speaker 2: I haven't finished the excellent points I was making. The
Speaker 2: next point is to why people should vote liberally.
Speaker 3: We so, having failed to answer quite a period of
Speaker 3: time elapse better part of a day, and eventually, belatedly
Speaker 3: on Tuesday, Dutton came out and conceded that he and
Speaker 3: his wife would at some stage give Harry and Harry's
Speaker 3: two siblings helped to buy a home.
Speaker 2: And I think our households are no different to many
Speaker 2: households where you want our kids to work hard to
Speaker 2: save and will help them with a deposit at some stage.
Speaker 3: Which is lucky for them because frankly, under the housing
Speaker 3: policies that their father advocates, the cost of buying a
Speaker 3: home is only going to increase. On that all the
Speaker 3: expert opinion is just overwhelming.
Speaker 1: But it's not just the Coalitions housing policy set to
Speaker 1: drive up prices. Experts agree that Labour's will too, and
Speaker 1: with the majority of Australians either owning their own home
Speaker 1: or paying one off, it seems that maybe the point
Speaker 1: schwarts Media. I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am today.
Speaker 1: National correspondent for the Saturday paper, Mike Sekham on what
Speaker 1: the major parties are offering on housing and what it
Speaker 1: means for the housing crisis. It's Wednesday, April twenty three,
Speaker 1: so Mike, to begin with, can you just lay out
Speaker 1: for me what Peter Dunne has said about housing in
Speaker 1: this election campaign and what we know about his plans.
Speaker 3: Dutton was very clear about this in his Budget reply
Speaker 3: speech last month. He promised, and I'm quoting him, I
Speaker 3: don't want young Australians locked out of the property market
Speaker 3: or having to rely on the bank of Mum and dad.
Speaker 2: I don't want young Australians locked out of the property
Speaker 2: market or having to rely on the bank of mum
Speaker 2: and dad. I want to see fewers Australians homeless and
Speaker 2: more Australians in homes.
Speaker 3: There are two aspects to the Coalition's policy, and when
Speaker 3: I spoke to the veteran independent economist Saul Eslick, he
Speaker 3: described it as a contender for the title of worst
Speaker 3: public policy of the twenty first century. So that's how
Speaker 3: bad he thought it was. The first part is called
Speaker 3: the Super Home Biers Scheme, and this has been Coalition
Speaker 3: policy for a while and it would allow first home
Speaker 3: buyers access to up to forty percent of their superannuation
Speaker 3: balance up to a maximum of fifty thousand dollars to
Speaker 3: put towards a deposit. Leaving aside the impact that would
Speaker 3: have by allowing young people to raid their super and
Speaker 3: what the impact that would have on their retirement, the
Speaker 3: measure would inevitably pump up prices, says Eslack, and if
Speaker 3: I might quite him at some length, sixty years of
Speaker 3: history shows, without any shadow of it out that anything
Speaker 3: else that allows people to spend more on housing than
Speaker 3: they otherwise would whether that's first home an a grants,
Speaker 3: stamp duty concessions, mortgage guarantee schemes, shared equity schemes, lower
Speaker 3: interest rates, easier credit conditions, or tax breaks for property investors.
Speaker 3: Anything that allows people to spend more than they otherwise
Speaker 3: would results in more expensive housing. So it just means
Speaker 3: more money chasing less housing. Essentially, you know, you have
Speaker 3: two sides to the housing equation. One is supply, one
Speaker 3: is demand. All of these sorts of things pump up
Speaker 3: demand and do nothing for supply.
Speaker 1: Okay, And for it to work at all, Mike, young
Speaker 1: people would presumably have to actually have the super to
Speaker 1: be able to draw down. So how realistic is that?
Speaker 3: Well, You make a very good point, and I found
Speaker 3: tax Office starter. It's a few years old. In twenty
Speaker 3: twenty two, the median superannuation balance for a woman aged
Speaker 3: thirty to thirty four, you know, peak home buying sort
Speaker 3: of age group, was just thirty four thousand dollars, and
Speaker 3: for men of the same age it was just a
Speaker 3: shade under forty thousand dollars. Now, bearing in mind that
Speaker 3: the Coalition policy would only allow them to withdraw forty
Speaker 3: percent of that nest egg, that would you give a
Speaker 3: woman thirteen thousand, seven hundred and thirty dollars eighty cents
Speaker 3: and fifteen nine hundred and eighty dollars forty for.
Speaker 1: Men, Well, that's not going to get you very far.
Speaker 3: Not in not in today's housing market. You're quite right,
Speaker 3: And of course that was across all people. When you
Speaker 3: look at the data for people who are in rental accommodation,
Speaker 3: a quarter of them had balances of less than six
Speaker 3: thousand dollars, which means, you know, they would only be
Speaker 3: able to pull two four hundred dollars out of their suitpit,
Speaker 3: you know, which is essentially nothing in today's market. Perhaps
Speaker 3: the only real redeeming feature to it I suppose is
Speaker 3: that it wouldn't cost taxpayers a lot. This would just
Speaker 3: allow people access to their own superannuation money. So that's
Speaker 3: a big aspect of this plan, and it's quite different
Speaker 3: from the second aspect of the Coalition's plan, which the
Speaker 3: Opposition as estimated would cost taxpayers one point twenty five
Speaker 3: billion over the first four years of its operation. And
Speaker 3: I've seen a number of commentators say it will probably
Speaker 3: cost a lot more than.
Speaker 1: That, right okay, And this is the scheme like where
Speaker 1: you can claim tax deductions from up to six hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty thousand dollars dollars of your mortgage. So tell
Speaker 1: me more about exactly how that would work and what
Speaker 1: economists are saying about its impact.
Speaker 3: Right okay, Well, this is the one that came pretty
Speaker 3: much out of a clear blue sky at Dutton's policy launch.
Speaker 2: A Coalition government will allow you to deduct interest payments
Speaker 2: on the first six hundred and fifty thousand dollars of
Speaker 2: a mortgage against your taxable income. We will allow these
Speaker 2: deductions for five years, provided you continue to live in
Speaker 2: that home for that period. This policy will be available
Speaker 2: to individuals with the taxable income of one hundred and
Speaker 2: seventy five thousand dollars or less, enjoyed applicants earning a
Speaker 2: combined income of two hundred and fifty thousand dollars or less.
Speaker 3: Probably the most salient factor here is that this would
Speaker 3: also disproportionately benefit people who are doing better. Going back
Speaker 3: to Solsli, the way he sees this is one aspect
Speaker 3: of the Coalition's policy. Super for housing allows people to
Speaker 3: put down bigger deposits, which in turn allows them to
Speaker 3: borrow more and pumps up the price of houses. The
Speaker 3: interest deductibility on mortgages allows people to borrow a lot
Speaker 3: more because it's the equivalent of reduction in interest rates
Speaker 3: of roughly one third. So what's likely to happen is
Speaker 3: that the beneficiaries of this scheme will just bid up
Speaker 3: prices and make housing more expensive for everyone else. It's
Speaker 3: hard to recall another policy that has been so comprehensively
Speaker 3: bagged as the first home by a mortgage deductibility scheme.
Speaker 3: There were hit pieces all over the place about this,
Speaker 3: you know. One professor of economics called it frankly terrible
Speaker 3: tax policy. Another said that it was incredibly administratively burdensome,
Speaker 3: and if you wanted to just give people first home
Speaker 3: bio grants. Then just give them first home bio grants.
Speaker 3: Brendan Coates from the Gratin Institute said he was frankly
Speaker 3: mystified about what compelled the Coalition to put this forward
Speaker 3: when no quoting him, no serious housing policy expert had
Speaker 3: called for it. He called it nuts.
Speaker 1: Coming up after the break is Labour's plan nuts as well,
Speaker 1: so Mike. On the same weekend that the Coalition announced
Speaker 1: this doublem housing policy, Labor also announced their own. So
Speaker 1: tell me what is on offer from them.
Speaker 3: What Anthony Albanez you promised at the campaign launch was
Speaker 3: that if Labor were re elected, the government would allow
Speaker 3: all first home buyers, regardless of their income, to buy
Speaker 3: a home on just five percent deposit.
Speaker 4: Our five percent deposit plan will be opening to every
Speaker 4: Australian looking to buy their first home. It will be
Speaker 4: available for homes valued all the way up to the
Speaker 4: average price in every city and region, and you won't
Speaker 4: have to pay a single dollar in mortgage insurance. Our
Speaker 4: government will cover it.
Speaker 3: But the view is that just guaranteeing a lower deposit
Speaker 3: would encourage what one called imprudent borrowing. The fact that
Speaker 3: they know that the government will be covering them and
Speaker 3: they left, but five percent buyers will probably once again
Speaker 3: bid up the prices of housing. When comparing the respective
Speaker 3: policies from the major party, Saulslake told me, quote, while
Speaker 3: I don't like either of them, Labour's policy is less.
Speaker 1: Worse, right, well, less worse is hardly an endorsement Mike
Speaker 1: in the debate, though, last week Anthony Abernezi He was
Speaker 1: arguing that Labor does have a policy to deal with supply.
Speaker 1: So it's not just about helping people get into the market,
Speaker 1: but it's also about broadening what is actually available. So
Speaker 1: tell me a bit about that plan to boost housing stock.
Speaker 3: Actually, both parties have plans that they say will increase supply,
Speaker 3: but let's start with Labours because it's the bigger. Labour's
Speaker 3: latest promise was to invest ten billion dollars in the
Speaker 3: form of grants and zero interest loans in partnership with
Speaker 3: state developers and the housing industry, and it claims that
Speaker 3: by supplying these funds that will see up to one
Speaker 3: hundred thousand new homes built, and those homes would be
Speaker 3: reserved solely for first home buyers. Labor, of course has
Speaker 3: a whole suite of other housing policies.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: There's the Help to Buy a scheme under which the
Speaker 3: government would take an equity stake of forty percent in
Speaker 3: first home purchases. It has a Build to Rent scheme
Speaker 3: which offers tax incentives to developers to provide affordable units.
Speaker 3: And it's ten billion dollar Housing Australian Future Fund, which
Speaker 3: aims to build some thirty thousand social and affordable homes.
Speaker 3: On the Coalition side, the big new promise was a
Speaker 3: five billion dollar investment to go to local government to
Speaker 3: help with the supply of infrastructure like water and surge
Speaker 3: and roads and so on for new housing developments, which
Speaker 3: it claims would help accelerate was the word they used,
Speaker 3: the development of five hundred thousand homes. So the point
Speaker 3: here is that both parties do have supply side measures
Speaker 3: as well as things that pump up demand. But what's
Speaker 3: really worth noting here is that neither of the major
Speaker 3: parties is talking about reforming aspects of the tax system
Speaker 3: that have long been identified as contributing to the housing crisis,
Speaker 3: such as negative gearing and the overly generous discount on
Speaker 3: capital gains tax for housing investors and stamp duties.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, as far as the major parties are concerned,
Speaker 1: that conversation seems to be definitively over for the time being.
Speaker 1: But what about the cross betch what do they have
Speaker 1: to say about that?
Speaker 3: Well, this I think is really interesting. As the act
Speaker 3: Independent Senator David Percock told the ABC a week or
Speaker 3: so back, what the community, he said, was crying out
Speaker 3: for was a long term vision.
Speaker 5: We want to plan for this. We want to tackle
Speaker 5: the things that have been in the too hard basket
Speaker 5: for too long. When it comes to our tax system.
Speaker 3: He itemized them. He said, capital gains tax discounts, negative gearing,
Speaker 3: stamp duty. They were all things that quote, we should
Speaker 3: be dealing with, he said.
Speaker 5: And one of the ones that actually makes a lot
Speaker 5: of sense, I think, given the politics and given the
Speaker 5: need to start to turn the ship around, is to
Speaker 5: grandfather existing arrangements to then cap going forward negative gearing
Speaker 5: to one investment property seventy percent. People only have one
Speaker 5: investment property. That seems pretty fair. And then to reduce
Speaker 5: the capital gains tax discount to twenty five percent for
Speaker 5: new bills for new supply.
Speaker 3: Likewise, the Greens would limit negative gearing to one property
Speaker 3: and grandfather the capital gains tax. Tasmania's Jackie Lamby would
Speaker 3: be a little more generous to landlords. She would allow
Speaker 3: maybe two or three negatively geared properties. And Allegraspender, who
Speaker 3: took the Blue ribbon seat of Wentworth from the Liberals
Speaker 3: at the last election, has actually produced possibly the most
Speaker 3: comprehensive analysis of what needs to change.
Speaker 6: We need to put tax reform on the table. Just
Speaker 6: look at stamp duty New South Wales. Trufetory says that
Speaker 6: we could increase home ownership by six point six percent
Speaker 6: in New South Wales if we replace stamp duty with
Speaker 6: land tax.
Speaker 3: Stamp duty is charged by the state and the general
Speaker 3: criticism of stamp duty is that it imposes a big
Speaker 3: transaction cost and that slows down the turnover of housing.
Speaker 3: So the idea is that it should be replaced with
Speaker 3: a land tax, which would remove the cost of buying
Speaker 3: a house, but replace it with a long term tax
Speaker 3: on actually living in that house. And so the theory
Speaker 3: is that if that were done, you know, more of
Speaker 3: those empty nesters who are living in big houses once
Speaker 3: their kids have flown, would be encouraged to sell up
Speaker 3: and buy something more suitable and there would be a
Speaker 3: round robin of effects and as a result, more people
Speaker 3: would be able to buy housing.
Speaker 1: And so, Mike, you have been paying very close attention
Speaker 1: to the housing debate in Australia for a long time now.
Speaker 1: You and I have had many conversations about it. What
Speaker 1: is your view now on why it is that neither
Speaker 1: major party really seems up to the task on this
Speaker 1: particular issue, an issue that really I think almost every
Speaker 1: voter has a stake in at this point.
Speaker 3: Well, that's absolutely right. And perhaps the first point here
Speaker 3: is that until a few decades ago, home prices increased
Speaker 3: at roughly the same rate as wages, right, and then
Speaker 3: they decoupled and house prices took off. Part of the
Speaker 3: reason for that was various governments, state and federal level,
Speaker 3: pursued policies that pumped up demand. You know. There were
Speaker 3: various generous first home owner grant schemes, both state and
Speaker 3: federal that put more money in the pockets of home
Speaker 3: buyers so they could bit against other home buyers. And
Speaker 3: there were also tax breaks you know that made housing
Speaker 3: attractive to investors. You know, it's notable. I think that
Speaker 3: the real escalation in home prices coincided with a decision
Speaker 3: by the Howard government way back in nineteen ninety nine
Speaker 3: to have the capital gains tax, and John Howard famously
Speaker 3: celebrated the fact that that led a rocket house prices
Speaker 3: and said that no one had ever complained to him
Speaker 3: that the value of their home was going up. So
Speaker 3: while these dumb policies over decades have seen a large
Speaker 3: and growing number of people struggling to get into the
Speaker 3: housing market or locked out of the housing market, it's
Speaker 3: still the fact that an even larger group of people
Speaker 3: own or are paying off a house. And so you know,
Speaker 3: the parties have been pandering to that majority, and that majority,
Speaker 3: naturally enough, wants to see the value of their asset increase.
Speaker 1: Mike, thank you so much for your time.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Also in the news today, both the Prime Minister and
Speaker 1: opposition leader have taken time out of their election campaign
Speaker 1: to mark the Pope's passing at age eighty eight. Prime
Speaker 1: Minister Albanezi attended an early morning mass in Melbourne yesterday
Speaker 1: where he told the press the Pope will quote be
Speaker 1: recorded in history as one of the most significant of
Speaker 1: all the Holy Fathers. Meanwhile, Peter Dutton paid his respects
Speaker 1: at a mass held at Saint Mary's Cathedral in Sydney.
Speaker 1: It's estimated that around twenty percent of the Australian population
Speaker 1: just over five million people a Catholic, and more than
Speaker 1: one hundred leaders from universities and colleges across the United
Speaker 1: States have denounced the Trump administration's unprecedented government overreach and
Speaker 1: political interference within higher education. The statement published yesterday comes
Speaker 1: after a campaign by the Trump administration against many universities,
Speaker 1: including Harvard. Harvard University is the first school to sue
Speaker 1: the federal government after President Trump threatened to freeze two
Speaker 1: point three billion dollars in university funding over its handling
Speaker 1: of anti Semitism on campus. Harvard has previously rejected a
Speaker 1: list of demands by the Trump administration, labeling them overreach.
Speaker 1: I'm Ruby Jones. This is seven am. See tomorrow.